James Smith and Co: Factory's shock closure

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In January 1987 workers at the well-known clothing manufacturer, James Smith & Co (Derby), had a shock when they returned from celebrating Christmas to the news that the factory was closing.

Few could believe it because the company was a leading British manufacturer of uniforms for the police, Armed Forces, bus drivers and conductors, gas and electricity meter readers and postmen, as well as exporting clothing overseas.

But it was there in black and white on the front page of the Evening Telegraph on January 8, 1987 – “ Jobs Blow: 300 face axe at clothing factory”.

Three hundred families faced a bleak future and there were photographs of stunned workers leaving the factory after the bombshell.

Pam Smith, shop steward for the National Union of Tailors and Garment Workers, said it was even more of a body blow because morale was so high at Christmas.

“We all feel as if there’s been a death in the family,” she said. “Everyone has been in tears; we are all too stunned to take it in.”

One shop steward claimed to have seen the order books “jammed full” and said: “I think we are being fobbed off with excuses and it stinks.”

A company spokesman said he could give no details of the financial problems but pointed out that management staff were included in the redundancies.

Established in 1830 by tailor James Smith, the firm grew to become one of Britain’s largest manufacturers of uniforms and protective clothing for railways, police, government workers and the Armed Forces. One of its first uniform contracts was with the early police force started by Robert Peel.

By 1915, it employed more than 1,000 workers. Even in the early 1980s, when the company was owned by the Glasgow-based Coats Viyella clothing group, it appeared to have a rosy future, boosted by major Ministry of Defence orders for uniforms for men bound for the Falklands.

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