Lipton’s hard slog years: realising the dream; becoming the man.

In the first part of Tommy Lipton’s story we saw him depart for the USA as a callow youth and four years later return to Glasgow having learned some valuable life skills, with US$ 500 in his pocket, an iconic bushy moustache and the dream of building a grocery empire.

Tommy made his homecoming truly triumphant – it was talked about afterwards for months – he had brought back for his mother a barrel of flour and a rocking chair so, hiring a horse cab, he tied these to the roof and paid the driver to drive slowly through the neighbourhood while he leaned out of the window shouting greetings and waving to all. That exultant return was on Saturday, but on the following Monday he was again working as his father’s assistant in the family basement grocery shop, and the slow pace of work after a bustling New York department store deadened him. He agreed with his father that “Quality tells” – but quality told all too slowly for Tommy’s liking. He had seen marketing in full swing in America and had plans to shake the public, to amaze them, to entrance them . . . but his father had no time for smart Yankee ways in his shop. Tommy needed to open a second shop on his own account.

Tommy always carried with him a few pounds in gold sovereigns – he believed in the motivating effect of a cash down payment – and, passing the Glasgow dock area heard of a ship from Philadelphia that had been delayed by bad weather. The owners were selling off the cargo on the quay to ensure a swift turnaround and Tommy bought a consignment of hams and bacon which he managed to sell in town and make an £18 profit. This set him thinking; if he could do this with a small outlay think what he could make from investing £100. And if one shop could make £5 a week he reasoned with his parents, two could make £10 and twenty could make £100 – why not a shop in every town in Scotland? But Tommy’s father, having dragged himself up from poverty to the security of his own tiny shop was not minded to risk expansion. Not so his son who, in 1871 on his 23rd birthday and with his mother’s blessing unrolled his plan and opened up his first shop – in a classier suburb of Glasgow than his parent’s shop. Typically Tommy always with an eye to a good news story told the local papers that it was his coming of age 21st birthday.
130 years before dot com booms, bankers’ bonuses and football superstars, money had to be made slowly and by hard work. In Tommy’s case by very hard work – and advertising – and “stunts”. It took him 30 years to build his shop empire – “softly, softly, catchee monkey!” – and his business methods were always impeccable. He was never accused of any dodgy dealing, he never borrowed money, he paid cash on the nail, he lived for his work and he re-invested every penny into the business. In his autobiography (published a year after his death) he remembered “I worked late and early. I was manager, shopman, buyer, cashier and messenger boy. If I had provisions to collect off the Irish boat I went down to the quay early in the morning with a handcart; if customers wanted goods delivered I would shut up the shop temporarily and take them in person”. After closing time he would work on the accounts and think up new selling ideas. Occasionally, dog tired, he would sleep the night under his own counter.

Tommy Lipton had several secrets to success. He sold good quality goods at lower prices than his competitors – by underpaying himself and (this was to become his slogan) by cutting out the middleman. He went straight to producers and bought for cash on the spot. But perhaps his most successful “secret” was showmanship. His shop was bright and attractive and he commissioned a weekly cartoon poster for the window. A memorable one was an Irishman carrying a weeping pig over his shoulder, while explaining to an onlooker that the pig was an orphan as all the rest of the pig’s family had gone to Lipton’s and out of pity he was taking him there too! Soon Tommy acquired large two porkers that he scrubbed and tied ribbons in their tails and had them driven though Glasgow – a different route each day – under the banner “Lipton’s Orphans” and painted on their sides “I’m going to Lipton’s, the best shop in town for Irish bacon”.

Tommy Lipton’s first shop assistant William Love started work on a six month contract but before it expired he had opened a second shop and the assistant became assistant manager – and remained as Lipton’s right hand man and fixer for 40 years.
Lipton was a genius at promotion and later in his career would refer to himself – in the style of a circus performer – as The Great Lipton. In 1877 a typical Lipton stunt was having fake bank notes printed and handed out in the streets declaring “I promise to give on demand in any of my establishments HAM, BUTTER and EGGS as given elsewhere to the value of one pound, for fifteen shillings”. An ingenious discount that generated a mass of trade; however fraudulent passing of Lipton’s fake but very realistic notes resulted in several court cases and Tommy obligingly withdrew them; but they had amply achieved their purpose.
By the start of the 1880s Lipton had shops in a dozen northern cities and their citizens, egged on by the press, were constantly wondering “What Lipton’s would be doing next?” Perhaps the most talked about of hundreds of stunts was the import of the largest cheeses ever made. In 1881 amidst great publicity at every stage he ordered two three tonne cheeses to be made in America. The public was fascinated by the production of these monsters and Tommy fed the newspapers minute by minute details – 4,000 gallons of milk was required; 800 cows were milked for 6 days; 200 milkmaids were employed; world cheese experts were consulted. The huge cheeses were destined for Christmas sale in Glasgow and Edinburgh. The Edinburgh cheese first travelled south from Glasgow Port by rail and was displayed for a week at the London Royal Aquarium, the Victorian equivalent of the O2 Arena, and famous for attracting crowds to concerts, plays and circus acts.

The Glasgow cheese, by now dubbed “Jumbo” after an 18ft tall celebrity elephant at London Zoo, was hauled from the dock by traction engine at maximum speed (then 4 mph with a man walking ahead with a red flag) and quickly attracted a thousand followers, eager to see what Lipton was up to now. However on reaching his flagship High Street shop it was discovered that the door was too narrow, and so was the window. Lipton, sitting astride the cheese announced that it would now be displayed at his larger Jamaica Street shop, and so the entourage again slowly proceeded across Glasgow, stopping traffic and attracting publicity throughout the day.

When Jumbo was installed Lipton worked on how to milk further publicity from his cheese. His plan was to cut and sell it on Christmas Eve and to ensure a crowd advertised that, like the traditional silver threepences in Christmas puddings, Lipton’s Jumbo would contain gold sovereigns. On Christmas Eve a mass of customers crowded round the shop, controlled by special squad of policemen. Tommy Lipton, wearing his trademark black suit and crisp white apron personally cut cheese for eager customers who immediately rummaged through their purchase. Every time the shout went up that a gold coin had been found more customers crowded in while those who had been unlucky pressed through the doors to purchase more. Within two hours every crumb of the three tonne cheese was sold.

Giant cheeses containing gold coins were to become a feature of Lipton shops at Christmas for many years after and always with a new publicity angle. In 1893 at the Chicago Fair Lipton caused a stir by purchasing the Canadian exhibit – this time a twelve tonne cheese – but on subsequent arrival in Glasgow this monster proved by its aroma to be well past its best by date. Lipton rejoiced in the publicity, and claimed on the insurance.

Twenty years of building his fleet of shops hardly changed Tommy Lipton; every month his business grew larger and his workload was undiminished. But the source of his encouragement; his beloved and devoted mother was aging and died at 80 in the autumn of 1889. Tommy was distraught at her loss and threw himself into work even harder. When in the following spring his father also died Tommy was advised to take a holiday. He complied and booked a passage to Australia. History shows however that he had other plans than to take a restful vacation – he had sent ahead an aide to sound out commercial prospects in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) where he broke his voyage.

While Lipton’s grocery shops were best known for their Irish hams, eggs, butter and cheese they naturally supplied other provisions too – sugar, jams, meat pastes, coffee – and tea. In those days tea was displayed in bulk and weighed and packed to order. Lipton purchased his tea as he did his sugar, from an importer. What he discovered in Ceylon was to change his company, his life, and certainly the history of tea. Ceylon like China and India exported tea to Great Britain but was very much the new boy on the block. Ceylon had been a coffee growing country until coffee rust devastated the crop and was just picking up speed as a tea producer. Agricultural land prices were still depressed from the coffee crash and Tommy had gone on “vacation” with £75,000 to invest…

In Part Three: Lipton turns Ceylon tea into a brand – and emerges as a socialite.