Bernard Ramsden – Burton the Tailors

Growing up in the sixties and early seventies, it seemed that everyone in Leeds had worked for Burton’s, or knew someone who did. My grandmother was a machinist there, my mother worked for them doing secretarial work, and I spent a year there in 1976/77, doing statistics and data analysis, during my Maths degree.

Burton’s was the creation of Montague Burton: a Jewish refugee who came to Leeds in 1900, all on his own, to escapethe Russian pogroms. He was fifteen years old when he arrived; well educated – but unable to speak any English. Within a year he was in Cheetham Hill, Manchester, selling ready-made suits. In 1903, he set himself up as a general outfitter in Chesterfield. By 1913 he had five men’s shops and was manufacturing in Leeds.

He was excused from military service and continued to expand his business, winning a contract in 1916 to make uniforms for the war, then demob suits when the war was over.  His business continued to grow, and was floated on the Stock Exchange in 1929.

In 1934, a canteen seating 8,000 people was built on their site at Hudson Road Mills, Leeds. It was the largest in Europe. And the site itself had over 10,000 employees. Burton’s went on to become the largest supplier and manufacturer of bespoke suits in the world. A quarter of British military uniforms in World War Two were made by Burton’s. Montague Burton himself died in 1952, but the company continued to thrive, and reached its manufacturing peak in the early sixties.

Apparently, the term the Full Monty originated here. Nothing to do with stripping steel workers, but a reference  to demobbed servicemen, coming to Burton’s for their jacket, trousers, waistcoat, shirt and underwear. Everything they needed. The Full Monty.

The market for men’s clothing changed in the sixties and seventies, and by 1976, when I was working there, Burton followed the other two big suit suppliers in Leeds, Hepworth and John Collier, and reduced manufacturing  – buying in ready-made suits from elsewhere. Hepworth became Next in 1982 and in 1985 John Collier became part of the Burton Group, who then discontinued the brand.

During my time there, the Burton share price reached its lowest ever level. At about this time, the Organisation and Methods department next door employed a new analyst. He didn’t come in as a manager or high-flyer, but he saw something when he joined, that no one else did, and at the end of his second week, he announced he’d just bought £10,000 pounds worth of Burton shares. Everyone thought he was mad, but he wasn’t, as the share price tripled in value over the next six months.

I do remember the Burton’s canteen from the seventies – although I doubt it would actually seat 8,000 people. What I did find disconcerting was the pigeons that came in – and flew around freely inside. I was always worried that they might drop bombs on my food. Next to the canteen was a snooker room. I never went in, because  I’m rubbish at snooker – but those using it seemed to take it very seriously. Apparently many of Burton’s shops had snooker halls above them.

I spent a week working in their shop at the top of Briggate. No snooker room there, but one thing stands out in my memory. A middle aged couple came in: he was called George, no idea of his wife’s name. Every time he tried something on he liked, his wife would respond, “No George, you can’t wear that delete as appropriate. It’s too big/too small/makes you look fat/makes you look thin/it’s the wrong colour/it doesn’t suit you”. Eventually he found and bought something that got her approval. Did he like it himself? I never found out.

I very rarely ventured onto the shop floor itself, which was 99 percent female, but I was warned that there was one day of the year, when a fresh faced twenty year old should avoid it altogether. Christmas Eve. I heeded the warning, so I don’t know what I missed out on.  But I have wondered ever since.