Thorntons

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It was in October 1911 that a commercial traveller for the Don Confectionery Company, Joseph William Thornton, opened a sweetshop in Sheffield, at 159 Norfolk Street.

He left his 14-year old son, Norman, to run it while he continued with his jobs as a salesman. The success of the shop led to a second one opening at The Moor and the family moved to live above it.

When Joseph died in 1919 it was left to Norman. He opened two more sweet shops and took over a fruit business.

In 1921, Norman was joined by his younger brother, Stanley, and together they founded J.W. Thornton Ltd. as a private limited company with Norman at the helm as Chairman.

In 1927 the brothers moved production to a small factory in the Hillsborough area of Sheffield. It was at this time that Norman Thornton had the idea of icing customers' names on to Easter eggs, an idea which proved very successful. They moved to a bigger plant in 1931, and again in 1935, to a purpose-built factory in the Millhouses area of Sheffield, which was to be their headquarters until the 1980s.

The first Thorntons shop outside Sheffield was opened in 1928, at Rotherham. By 1939 there were 35 shops.

Expansion stopped with the outbreak of the Second World War, and although the Thorntons factory was not bombed, toffee production was transferred to a small factory in Bury, and continued throughout the war.

Refused permission to extend the factory after the war, because of the shortage of building materials, Thorntons bought Castle Factory, near Belper, in Derbyshire, an old mill which had been used by Rolls Royce to store aircraft engines during the war, and before that had been a music-hall, and in 1947 began to manufacture boiled sweets there.

With the end of sweet rationing in 1952, the firm began to expand again. In 1954 the Swiss confiseur Walter Willen joined the company to develop Swiss chocolates known as the Continental range, and the sons of Norman and Stanley Thornton joined the business during the 1950s.

Following rapid expansion in the 1960s, with Thorntons winning many international awards, Norman Thornton retired in 1971. He died on 3 November, 1984.

A large new plant, Thornton Park, on a 65 acre site at Swanwick, near Alfreton, in Derbyshire, was opened in 1985, to enable the business, for so long concentrated in the north, to expand into the south of England.

In 1988, when the company was floated on the stock exchange, valued at £78.6 million, the shares were eight times oversubscribed. 73 per cent of the shares were retained by members of the family, to avoid take-over, as had happened to Rowntree Mackintosh, taken over by Nestlé in 1988.

Stanley Thornton became life president of the new company, Thorntons plc. After seventy-seven years, the link with Sheffield was broken, when the Millhouses factory was closed, concentrating chocolate production at Thornton Park, and toffee and ice cream at Belper.

By the time of Stanley Thornton's death, on 27 February 1992, at the Derbyshire Royal Infirmary, the company was embarking on a new expansion drive.

Stanley Thornton's ashes were interred at Winster church, Derbyshire, on 5 March, after a funeral in Derby Cathedral.

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