OUR HISTORY
1897-2021
Early days
The Drapers Record
His speech was a spirited argument for the UK to drop its free trade stance in favour of some protectionism against foreign competitors such as France, Germany and the United States. Like many talks over the club’s 120 years, a version of it would be highly relevant today. In 1897 The Drapers’ Record ran Bayer’s address in full.
His speech was a spirited argument for the UK to drop its free trade stance in favour of some protectionism against foreign competitors such as France, Germany and the United States. Like many talks over the club’s 120 years, a version of it would be highly relevant today. In 1897 The Drapers’ Record ran Bayer’s address in full.
2nd November, 1987
The first recorded meeting of The Twenty Club
On Tuesday 2nd November 1897, Charles Bayer spoke to a group of retailers on “British Trade Prospects, more especially in connection with our present fiscal system”*.Bayer was a celebrated corset manufacturer with factories in the London and in Bath. His advertisements in The Drapers’ Record claimed that he sold more than 2m of his trademarked CB corsets every year.
Each early meeting seems to have had a different chairman, who made the address to the club. Some early notables included: Edwin Jones, who co-owned the lavish Bon Marché store in Brixton and several other stores; Frederick Crisp, who ran the Crisp & Co store in Holloway; J Arthur Pyne, owner of Pyne Brothers in New Cross; William Ponting, of Ponting Brothers in Kensington; George Randall Higgins, who was a partner in Holdrons of Peckham, Jones & Higgins, also in Peckham, and Bon Marché; Peter Jones, who built a store on Sloane Square; John Barnes, whose name was used for a store on Finchley Road by his partners after he died; Henry Arding, half of the Arding & Hobbs partnership in Clapham Junction; and, from outside London, the Liverpool-based Owen Owen, one of the many Welsh retailing entrepreneurs of the era.
5th November, 1907
The First Guest Speaker
On Tuesday 5th 1907, the first guest speaker at The Twenty Club made an appearance, talking on Commercial Representation in Parliament. This was none other than the Rt Hon David Lloyd George, Liberal MP for Caernafon Boroughs, president of the Board of Trade and prime minister nine years later. Four more PMs were destined to address the club.
The only other guest speakers before the First World War were, in 1908, Lord Lucas, a Liberal peer and under-secretary of state for war, and, in 1910, Ralston Balch, an American author and critic, who was welcomed by chairman John Hinds. For unknown reasons, the club held only two meetings in 1911 and then did not reconvene until October 1918. It would rarely take a break again.
5th November, 1907
The Twenty Club
A unique group photograph of members of The Twenty Club and guests at a garden party given on Saturday 15th June 1901 at the Linen & Woollen Drapers Cottage Homes estate in Mill Hill, north London.
Many club members supported the trade charitable institution, which is now called Retail Trust.
Image courtesy Retail Trust
1919-1945
Henry Adams
In 1885 Henry Arding was co-founder of Arding & Hobbs in Clapham Junction. The famous building was opened in 1910
Frederik Crisp
Frederick Crisp, of Crisp & Co, Holloway, traded near Jones Brothers, whose founders were Twenty Club members too
Edwin Jones
Edwin Jones was a serial investor, having stakes in Bon Marché in Brixton, Jones & Higgins in Peckham and John Barnes
G Randall Higgins
In 1902 G Randall Higgins, who had interests in several stores, spoke to his fellow members on Breakfast Relishes
Peter Jones
Another Welsh entrepreneur, Peter Jones (inset) opened on Sloane Square in 1877 having traded earlier in Draycott Avenue. In 1905 John Lewis bought the business
The post-WW1 period was significant for the continuing influence of department store owners from the London suburbs. Among these were Leonard Bentall, who was running the family firm founded by his father Frank in Kingston- upon-Thames in 1867. Fred Holgate Barber, who established the Barbers store in North End Road, Fulham, and Frank Chiesman, who with his brother Harry had set up business in Lewisham, south-east London in 1884.
In 1921 the members of the club were treated to a discourse on Crime by Sir Marshall Hall, a celebrated lawyer who was famous for getting off allegedly guilty suspects. His speech probably made a nice change from ones like The Trade Boards and Unions affecting the Trade (also 1921). Also showing the beginning of an occasional lighter touch to proceedings was the first Musical Evening, hosted by Leonard Bentall in October 1921. It was an annual event for many years.
The majority of the speeches were still about the nuts and bolts of contemporary retailing, such as Stock Control and Is our present system of training Under Buyers satisfactory? (both topics from 1928), but there were indications that more sophisticated techniques were being explored. In 1930 a Dr Miles addressed The Twenty Club on Some Applications of Industrial Psychology to Retail Store Problems.
Guest speakers were rare, but did include some fascinating characters such as, in 1919, Frederick Petherick-Lawrence, a socialist-leaning barrister. He spoke to the club on the subject of A Levy on Capital at a dinner at the House of Commons organised by the ubiquitous John Hinds.
The chairman on that night was Frank Chitham, a renowned director of Harrods, indicating that The Twenty Club was now attracting the bigger Central London-based operators of the store sector.
A different international dimension was seen in 1921 when chairman A Arthur Pyne of Pyne Brothers welcomed delegates of the National Dry Goods Association of America and Canada to the club. He clearly liked the USA; in 1926 he relayed to the club his Impressions of Florida. Two years later Leonard Bentall went further afield with a talk called My tour of South Africa.
From the late 1920s the club was looking to other professions for outside speakers to provide expert analysis of the world.
1919-1945
John Lewis
John Lewis on Oxford Street after a bombing raid in September 1940. Club members had much to discuss during World War II
Leonard Bentall
Leonard Bentall of Kingston-upon- Thames. His sons Gerald and Rowan were also active in The Twenty Club
King George V
King George V’s throat doctor, club member Sir Milson Rees was chairman of a few London department stores
Trevor Fenwick
Trevor Fenwick, the first of the family to join the club, regularly hosted dinners between 1940 and 1965
Interestingly, the department store operators that dominated the club did not like the newly developing competitors.
In 1929 chairman F C Bearman, owner of Bearmans of Leytonstone
(and who, in 1908, had bought Allders of Croydon with J W Holdron) asked Can we ignore the menace of the one price store? (presumably a precursor of the modern Poundland), while in 1934 member-speaker Fred Pope of Debenhams highlighted The Menace of the Co-operative Movement.
In 1937 H (Harry) Imrie Swainston, managing director of the Associated Department Stores buying group (an early incarnation of the modern Solihull-based Associated Independent Stores buying group), offered the members a talk called Let’s find an answer to the Chain Store competitors.
In 1929 retailing legend H Gordon Selfridge addressed the club, but his subject was, curiously enough, The Channel Tunnel, an unsuccessful project he had backed in 1914. Two years later, his son, H G Selfridge Jnr, chaired a dinner at which Sir William Beveridge, social reformer and director of the London School of Economics, discussed Brains in Business.
One of the more intriguing developments of the inter-war period was the realisation by The Twenty Club that women existed. In 1929 Leonard Bentall made his annual musical evening a Ladies’ Night, at which wives and other female guests were entertained. A quaint tradition by today’s standards, it continued intermittently until the end of the 1970s.
Sporting superstars of the day were regular speakers, including in 1936 the national hero Sir Malcolm Campbell (Lessons Learned in High Speed Racing) and in 1937 Sir Pelham “Plum” Warner, who had captained England’s cricket team at the turn of the century and was, controversially, England’s tour manager on the infamous Bodyline tour of Australia in 1932–33.
The First Female Speaker
In early 1931 the club welcomed its first female speaker – Ruth Tomlinson MBE, who was the secretary of the Incorporated Federated Association of Boot and Shoe Manufacturers. Her talk was entitled Manufacturers’ Challenge to Distribution –retailer-supplier relationships were as relevant a topic 86 years ago as they are today.
Miss Tomlinson (the club style was always to include the speaker’s formal title) remained a curiosity because the next female speaker did not pop up until six years later when Dame Beatrix Lyall, a stalwart of the Mothers’ Union who had been a vice-chairman of the London County Council, spoke on Problems of London Government After 1937, it was 15-years until a third woman spoke at The Twenty Club.
1919-1945
Henry Wickham Steed
The first journalist to address the club was Henry Wickham Steed in 1928
H Gordon Selfridge
The Channel Tunnel was the odd subject of a talk by H Gordon Selfridge in 1929
Dame Beatrix Lyall
In 1937 politician Dame Beatrix Lyall was only the club’s second female speaker
Sir Pelham
England cricket veteran Sir Pelham land and on “Plum” Warner addressed the club in 1937.
Sir Malcolm Campbell
A speaker in 1936, Sir Malcolm Campbell held world records for speed on land and addressed the club in 1937. In 1935 he became the first person to drive an automobile at over 300mph.
The aesthetic world was not overlooked. In 1938 one Cecil Roberts, described in the club’s records as “the distinguished novelist”, was guest speaker. In 1939 The Development of the Cinema was the subject covered by film director and aesthete Anthony Asquith (who was the son of former prime minister Herbert Asquith).
The practicalities of retailing were viewed with an appreciative eye in the same year by John Betjeman, then a writer of the Shell Guides, which were guidebooks on the counties of Britain aimed at the new car-owning class. Later Poet Laureate, Betjeman was already a noted authority on the history of buildings and a defender of Victorian and Edwardian styles. He addressed The Twenty Club on the matter of Shopfronts with Hamilton Smith of furniture retailer Heal & Sons in the chair.
The Club was active during World War II. While only three dinners were held in 1940, near-normal service was resumed with five in 1941, but that raced to a record 11 in 1942, with August being the only month that missed out.
The club met eight times in 1943 and nine times in 1944
It is telling that as well as considering short-term practicalities, the businessmen of The Twenty Club were still looking forward. Topics delivered by visiting speakers in 1942-45 included: A Blueprint for the new Britain from E H Gilpin, an expert on industrial relations; Prospects for our civilisation by philosopher Professor Cyril Joad (a famous member of the “Brains Trust” on BBC radio); Shopping Centres of the new London by Professor Charles Reilly, a modernist architect who had been a consultant on the design of the Peter Jones store on Sloane Square in 1934; and The Future of Plastics by C F Merriam, chairman of the British Xylonite Company, a plastics manufacturer, one division of which employed Margaret Thatcher as a research chemist between 1947 and 1951.
Thanks to the reputation of the club being created over more than 40 years, Mrs Thatcher’s high- ranking political predecessors in this tumultuous period were well-known to The Twenty Club. In April 1942 the members received an update on The war situation as I view it from Leslie Hore- Belisha, who had been Neville Chamberlain’s secretary of state for war between 1937 and 1940.
After the war, Macmillan rose through the Tory ranks and early in 1957 he succeeded Anthony Eden as Conservative prime minister. As with Lloyd-George in 1907, with Macmillan in 1942.
1946-1977
Anthony Asquith
Son of PM Herbert Asquith, film director Anthony Asquith spoke on cinema in 1939.
John Betjeman
Shopfronts was the topic of a talk in 1939 by architectural historian John Betjeman.
Cyril Joad
BBC ‘‘Brains Trust’’ favourite Professor Cyril Joad was a guest speaker in 1942.
Leslie Hore-Belisha
In 1942 Leslie Hore-Belisha, formerly secretary of state for war, was a speaker.
Elys of Wimbledon
The family behind Elys of Wimbledon, founded in 1876, were keen supporters of The Twenty Club, especially Bernard (bottom left) and his son Vernon (bottom right).
The WW2 years and those immediately after saw a rise in the influence of the next generation of retailers, who made their mark on the development of The Twenty Club. Among them were Charles Bromhead of D H Evans and
Selfridges director H J Clarke. From further afield came Trevor Fenwick, of the Newcastle-based dynasty, who chaired his first dinner in 1940.
Winston Brimacombe of the Dingle store group was a member based in the West Country. Second- generation members included Stuart Chiesman from Lewisham and Lister Barber from Fulham.
Despite the department store owners’ nervousness about other forms of retailing, specialists like Jaeger were represented in the shape of Maurice Gilbert, who had joined the business from Selfridges in 1930 and had helped transform it into a sophisticated fashion house.
By the early 1950s the club had about 50 members all of them men as women were not allowed to join until 1978. It reflected a pleasing mix of those running family-owned firms and others working in senior roles for national concerns like the John Lewis Partnership and the House of Fraser group.
After the frenetic pace during the Second World War, the post-war era saw the club settle into a steady rhythm of six dinners a year, with only the occasional change to five or seven. Every dinner had a speaker and only on rare occasions was this a club member. Each dinner was chaired by a different member. As the modern period began to unfold, The Twenty Club expanded its embrace of the great and the good, the powerful and the influential, the experts and the visionaries.
Adding to its list of future prime ministers, in 1947 the club welcomed as its guest Harold Wilson, in Clement Attlee’s Labour government. He was the second-youngest cabinet member ever, beaten only by Robert Peel in 1812, when he was barely 24. A mere 17 years after addressing the club, Wilson was in charge at Number 10, so the club had nabbed its third premier.
Reading the subjects of the talks of this era is to realise that the members were still interested in the minutiae of retailing, but they were also eager to learn of other aspects of social change in the UK and the affairs of the wider world. Topics in 1946 included Population Trends in Great Britain by Angus Maude, an economic and political researcher who a few years later wrote a book called The English Middle Classes, which looked at social change. He became a Conservative MP in 1952. His son and fellow Tory MP Francis spoke at The Twenty Club in 1997 and again in 2005.
In 1951 The Outlook for Western Civilisation was the cheery subject dealt with by Cyril Osborne, a Conservative MP who was opposed to immigration from the British Commonwealth and chaired of the Anglo-Soviet parliamentary group. There was no doubt that The Twenty Club still kept an open mind politically.
Newness and design are recurring subjects among the club’s speakers of the period.
Gordon Russell, a noted furniture designer and director of the Council of Industrial Design,
regaled his audience with his speech entitled ‘The Look of Things’.
1946-1977
Dilys Powell
Sunday Times film critic Dilys Powell was the first female speaker of the modern era.
Sir Philip Joubert de la Ferté
1948 guest Sir Philip Joubert de la Ferté.
Gordon Russell
The furniture of Gordon Russell, who spoke in 1948, is now highly collectible.
Fenwick of Bond Street
Like the club itself, many businesses of many long-standing members had developed and grown over the decades. This is Fenwick of Bond Street in the early 1950s.
In 1948. The Planning of a New Town Centre in 1949 was delivered by Sir Thomas Penberthy Bennett, an eminent architect who was in charge of the development of Crawley New Town in West Sussex. It is likely he was well-known to members of The Twenty Club as his practice had in 1935 designed the John Barnes department store and a block of flats above it on Finchley Road (the store was acquired by the John Lewis Partnership in 1940 and was converted into a branch of Waitrose in 1981). Gerald Barry, a journalist who was appointed director-general of the Festival of Britain, spoke to the club about his landmark event at the end of 1950, several months before its launch in the summer of 1951.
The nature of business was still a primary concern. The title of Charles Bromhead’s address in 1951 The Future of Some Department Stores does not reveal whether he, as a director of the Harrods group, thought they had one or not. Club member John Bedford of Debenhams discussed Merchandising in a Chain Store Era in 1954, while Central Buying was dissected by Rex Cohen, managing director of Lewis’s, in 1956.
Another unconventional businessman was Peter Cadbury, who showed no interest in working in the family confectionery firm. In 1954 he bought the Keith Prowse ticket agency for £54,000 and floated it six years later to net himself £1.5 million. Known for his autocratic style and lax attention to the rigorous standards of Cadbury’s corporate governance, in 1960 in his address he styled himself as An Amateur on Management.
Another unconventional businessman was Peter Cadbury, who showed no interest in working in the family confectionery firm. In 1954 he bought the Keith Prowse ticket agency for £54,000 and floated it six years later to net himself £1.5 million. Known for his autocratic style and lax attention to the rigorous standards of Cadbury’s corporate governance, in 1960 in his address he styled himself as An Amateur on Management.
In 1961 Stella, The Dowager Marchioness of Reading, was the guest, no doubt talking about how she had set up the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) in 1938 to enable women to assist the government and local authorities if war were declared. By a strange coincidence, her son Gerald Isaacs, the 2nd Marquess of Reading and a former Conservative cabinet minister, spoke on Ladies’ Night two years before on the not-very-feminine subject of The Foreign Service.
The Ladies’ Night guest in 1962 was Christina Foyle, who had been a director of the family bookselling business for more than 20 years and was soon to take over as the boss on the death of her father William in 1963. Hosted by Fred Riceman, owner of the Canterbury department store, the evening is significant as the first time in which a female retailer addressed The Twenty Club. In retrospect, it was an amusing choice as Miss Foyle (as she also was known in her own firm) was famously suspicious of change. She forbade the use of cash registers, computers, and calculators. Even in 1990, Foyle’s assistants relied on mental arithmetic or pencil and paper to add up bills. Anyone attempting to place an order by telephone would be told to write or visit, yet Foyle’s was the largest mail-order supplier of books in the
From a somewhat different era was John Snagge, the guest of Vernon Ely at the 1960 Ladies’ Night. A veteran BBC broadcaster, during the Second World War his plummy tones told the listening public about the invasion of north Africa, the fall of Rome, Arnhem, the D-day landings and VE Day. He read many of Churchill’s memorable speeches and announced the deaths of both George VI and Queen Mary. He is also remembered for his classic comment during the 1949 Boat Race: ‘I don’t know who’s ahead—it’s either Oxford or Cambridge’.
From a somewhat different era was John Snagge, the guest of Vernon Ely at the 1960 Ladies’ Night. A veteran BBC broadcaster, during the Second World War his plummy tones told the listening public about the invasion of north Africa, the fall of Rome, Arnhem, the D-day landings and VE Day. He read many of Churchill’s memorable speeches and announced the deaths of both George VI and Queen Mary. He is also remembered for his classic comment during the 1949 Boat Race: ‘I don’t know who’s ahead—it’s either Oxford or Cambridge’.
1946-1977
John J Fenwick
John J Fenwick continued the family- owned store group’s links with the club.
Jock Campbell
A speaker in 1959, Jock Campbell was a founder of the literary Booker Prize.
Roy Thomson
Publishing magnate Roy Thomson owned The Sunday Times and Drapers Record.
Vernon Ely
Vernon Ely CBE chaired several dinners at The Twenty Club between 1951 and 1973.
Sir Edwin McAlpine
In 1969 Sir Edwin McAlpine revealed the secrets of running The Dorchester.
Peter Cadbury
Peter Cadbury, a speaker in 1960, avoided joining the family confectionery business and made a fortune from the Keith Prowse ticket agency, hence the KP Bentley plate.
Few of the members of The Twenty Club were responsible for as many shops as Willoughby Norman, who had married a daughter of the Boot family of Nottingham and ended up as chairman of the chemists from 1961 to 1972. In 1964 he was able to celebrate with the club A Hundred Years of Boots.
In 1969 Sir Edwin McAlpine presented his thoughts on Running a Luxury Hotel. He presumably knew his stuff as his family construction firm, Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons, had built The Dorchester on Park Lane in 1929–31 and had operated it ever since.
Closer to home, the club continued to attract the crème de la crème of leaders of department stores, clothing multiples and even mail order firms. In 1953 Gerald Bentall welcomed a rare European speaker, Raoul Meyer, who ran the family business Galeries Lafayette from 1944 to 1970. His speech was entitled Observations of a French Retailer.
His son-in-law and successor Georges Meyer returned to the club in 1989.
In 1960 Arnold Burton spoke on The Origin and Growth of Montague Burton, the business founded by his father in 1904. Adding to its huge menswear business, in 1946 Burton had acquired the Peter Robinson and Stagg & Russell department stores, which laid the foundations for today’s Arcadia group. Arnold’s twin brother Raymond, another director of the family enterprise, was also an active member of The Twenty Club. At the 1969 Ladies’ Night,
From a somewhat different era was John Snagge, the guest of Vernon Ely at the 1960 Ladies’ Night. A veteran BBC broadcaster, during the Second World War his plummy tones told the listening public about the invasion of north Africa, the fall of Rome, Arnhem, the D-day landings and VE Day. He read many of Churchill’s memorable speeches and announced the deaths of both George VI and Queen Mary. He is also remembered for his classic comment during the 1949 Boat Race: ‘I don’t know who’s ahead—it’s either Oxford or Cambridge’.
From a somewhat different era was John Snagge, the guest of Vernon Ely at the 1960 Ladies’ Night. A veteran BBC broadcaster, during the Second World War his plummy tones told the listening public about the invasion of north Africa, the fall of Rome, Arnhem, the D-day landings and VE Day. He read many of Churchill’s memorable speeches and announced the deaths of both George VI and Queen Mary. He is also remembered for his classic comment during the 1949 Boat Race: ‘I don’t know who’s ahead—it’s either Oxford or Cambridge’.
Twenty Club to Number 10
Harold Macmillan
Harold Macmillan was a speaker in 1942.
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George was The Twenty Club’s first guest speaker way back in 1907.
John Major
John Major spoke to the club in 1988.
Alec Douglas-Home
In 1981, Alec Douglas-Home addressed The Twenty Club.
Harold Wilson
A young Harold Wilson was a guest speaker in 1947.
Raymond’s guest was Hardy Amies, the Queen’s couturier and a pioneer of fashion licensing.
Another head of a family business from Yorkshire was Joseph Fattorini, chairman of the Bradford- based Empire Stores. Antonio Fattorini had come to England from northern Italy in around 1815 and settled in Leeds as a pedlar before graduating to market stalls. Empire Stalls was formed by his descendants in 1910 and Joseph began working there in 1930, aged 18. By the time he addressed The Twenty Club in 1964 he was chairman. The Grattan mail order business was also controlled by the Fattorini family.
Yet another retail colossus with Northern roots was discussed in 1970 when Raymond Burton introduced The Hon Marcus Sieff, the trading genius who presided over Marks & Spencer. The grandson of Michael Marks, the Polish Jewish immigrant who founded M&S in Leeds in 1884, Sieff had worked at the company (with a break for war service) since 1935. In 1970 he was joint managing director, but shortly after his Twenty Club appearance he was promoted to deputy chairman and knighted before being elevated to chairman in 1972. His era was M&S’s finest. He spoke on Philosophy of a Distributive Enterprise.
Outside of the commercial era, speakers in this period of social change touched on a wide range of artistic, aesthetic and leisure activities. Notable names on the speakers’ list include: Basil Spence, architect of Coventry Cathedral, in 1955; in 1957 Harold Abrahams, the 1924 Olympic sprinter (this was 24 years before Chariots of Fire celebrated his achievements); Ted Lewis, the founder of Decca Records, in 1958; 1930s English fast bowler “Gubby” Allen in 1962; legendary thespian Sir Donald Wolfit for the 1965 Ladies’ Night; the Queen’s shoemaker Edward Rayne in 1966; archaeologist and broadcaster Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1966; celebrity chef Robert Carrier for Ladies’ Night 1967; antiques expert Arthur “Going For A Song” Negus at Ladies’ Night 1970 and the BBC’s show jumping commentator Dorian Williams in 1977.
A rare female speaker, in 1974, was Prudence Glynn, who had been appointed as the first fashion editor of The Times in 1966. In her columns she championed British designers such as Jean Muir, Ossie Clark and Celia Birtwell, as well as more affordable brands like Stirling Cooper. It was all a very long way from the club’s first speaker Charles Bayer and his annual sales of 2m corsets in the late 1890s.
1978-2000
Managing changing times
Marcus Sieff
M&S boss Marcus Sieff was guest speaker in 1970.
Basil Spence
Architect Basil Spence, a 1955 speaker.
Edward Rayne
In 1966 the Queen’s shoemaker Edward Rayne delivered the address to the club.
Sir Mortimer Wheeler
Sir Mortimer Wheeler spoke in 1966.
Alan Sainsbury
A 1956 guest speaker, Alan Sainsbury.
Hardy Amies
Couturier Hardy Amies spoke in 1969.
Harold Abrahams
1924 Olympic winner Harold Abrahams.
The last two decades of the 20th century were marked by a significant reorganisation of the retail scene in the UK that had a negative effect on The Twenty Club as it approached its centenary.
Launches, closures and mergers dominated the headlines of the business pages and the trade press. Among the notable occurrences of the period was the arrival of Next in 1982, which saw the Kendalls and Hepworth chains converted into a new concept of shops selling colour-coordinated womenswear. Menswear followed in 1984, all headed up by the publicity-savvy George Davies.
The Burton Group, steered by flamboyant Ralph Halpern, was involved in an extraordinary expansion plan. Opening new units and buying failing regional and national multiples, its estate reached a remarkable 1,000 shops by the late 1980s. It also bought Harvey Nichols in 1985.
In a spectacular deal the House of Fraser group, including Harrods, was acquired by Mohamed Fayed and his family in 1985 after fighting off a rival attempt by controversial entrepreneur Roland “Tiny” Rowland. Retailing was beginning to be controlled by investors, not merchants.
In a spectacular deal the House of Fraser group, including Harrods, was acquired by Mohamed Fayed and his family in 1985 after fighting off a rival attempt by controversial entrepreneur Roland “Tiny” Rowland. Retailing was beginning to be controlled by investors, not merchants.
The retailing landscape in London, the home town of The Twenty Club, was changing as the sort of business that had once been at the club’s core disappeared as retailing evolved.
Among the department stores that were closed in the capital during the early 1980s were Whiteleys in Bayswater (1981), Swan & Edgar at Piccadilly Circus (1982), the Civil Service Association Store on Strand (1982) and Bourne & Hollingsworth.
The rapidly shifting dynamics in the industry, the faster pace of business and the loosening of the clubbable personal relationships between family businesses and long-serving executives from rival firms probably all contributed to The Twenty Club losing much of its strength, potency and relevance during the run-up to 2000, before its subsequent contemporary revival.
One notable advance, at the AGM of 1978, was to change the club’s rules to admit women as members. This reflected the changes within national retailing, yet the female influence within the club was still limited.
Old-school retailers like Christopher Bourne of Bourne & Hollingsworth, Nigel Beale of Beales of Bournemouth, Rodney Brimacombe (whose family business of the Dingles stores became part of House of Fraser from 1971), Aleck Craddock, the legendary managing director of Harrods, and Christopher Fenwick of the Newcastle-based group were still chairing the dinners. These settled into a routine of six meetings a year – January, February, March and September, October, November – with the chairman normally changing for each one.
Although some significant names were still addressing the club, in some years the subject matters had drifted some way from the high points of the past. In 1978, for example, some of the topics covered included: Problems of Energy Policy from Sir Derek Ezra, chairman of the National Coal Board; Electoral Reform by Tory peer Lord Harlech; and The National Enterprise Board, by its chairman Sir Leslie Murphy. The NEB had been formed in 1975 to monitor problem companies in which the government had a stake, such as Rolls-Royce and British Leyland.
1978-2000
Bourne & Hollingsworth
Bourne & Hollingsworth, Oxford Street: closed in 1983 and converted in to The Plaza.
Christopher Fenwick
Christopher Fenwick hosted John Major.
MD Aleck Craddock
Harrods’ elegant MD Aleck Craddock.
Nigel Beale
Nigel Beale followed his father Norman into The Twenty Club
Swan & Edgar
Piccadilly Circus landmark Swan & Edgar closed in 1982
There was also an intriguing repetition of subjects, such as Future of Private Education in 1978 by Sir Patrick Dean, a career diplomat and chairman of the governors of Rugby School, and in 1981 Have the Independent Schools a role to play in the National System of Education? by Dr John Rae, the headmaster of prestigious Westminster School.
Police, policing and law and order were clearly concerns in those times of social turbulence, as speakers included Sir David McNee, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, who in 1979 spoke on The Police and the Public and Sir Thomas Hetherington, director of public prosecutions, who in 1982 asked: To prosecute or not to Prosecute? In 1979 John Alderson, the left-leaning chief constable of Devon and Cornwall addressed the club on Policing Britain Today, while Policing Today – U Turns or T Junctions? was the talk offered by Geoffrey Dear, chief constable of West Midlands Police, in 1985. Ten years later Sir Paul Condon, another Metropolitan Police commissioner, was a speaker.
Military speakers declined in number in the period but one important topical guest in 1983 was Max Hastings, who had been the first journalist to enter Port Stanley during the 1982 Falklands War. His talk was called Britain and the South Atlantic. Curiously, he is listed in the club archives as Macdonald Hastings, which is part of his full name and was the more commonly used name of his father, another famous journalist, who died in 1982. As noted in a previous section, Max’s mother, fashion editor Anne Scott-James, had spoken to The Twenty Club in 1954.
It is noticeable that there were surprisingly few talks about retailing itself in the period, although the standard was high when they did occur. In 1983 Terence Conran, founder of Habitat, spoke on Retail Design to the club. This was a couple
of years before he merged Habitat with British Home Stores, Mothercare and Heal’s to form Storehouse
In 1984 Barry Ercolani, whose family founded the Ercol furniture company, discussed The Furniture Business: A Tower of Babel. In 1985 John Fenwick introduced Marvin Traub, whose subject was American Stores, their Presentation and Promotion. Traub was CEO and president of Bloomingdale’s for 22 years from 1970, where he revolutionised merchandising and marketing, and later was an influential consultant.
In 1987 architect Richard Rogers spoke of Commercial Centres as Places for People at the invitation of Nigel Beale’s father, Norman Beale, a long-standing club member. Two years later, a spring guest was Georges Meyer, CEO of Galeries Lafayette, who had married into the controlling
Meyer family in the early 1960s. His father-in-law Raoul, as mentioned previously, had addressed the club in 1953. Georges was introduced by Mair Barnes, the managing director of Woolworths and the former MD of Dingles stores, who was only the third woman to host a Twenty Club dinner.
Given the frenetic pace of corporate activity in the retailing sector, the talk by Professor Roland Smith in 1986 entitled House of Fraser – The Past Three Years may have been revealing. Smith had been made chairman of HoF in 1981 when shareholders lost confidence in Sir Hugh Fraser and he led the defence against Tiny Rowland’s takeover attempts before recommending that the store group accept the Fayed family offer in 1985.
Perhaps leading financial journalist Ivan Fallon, sometime City editor of The Sunday Telegraph, made mention of that extraordinary saga in his 1987 talk, tantalisingly called The Darker Side of Takeovers. Among the other media figures who spoke at the club during the last two decades of the century included the BBC’s Hugh Scully (Television and Current Affairs, 1980) and Brian Nicholson, joint managing director of the Observer, whose talk, Newspapers – Popular and Unpopular on the Eve of Channel 4, was made just one week before the new TV station waslaunched in November 1982.
1978-2000
Roland Smith
HoF’s Roland Smith was a guest in 1986.
Max Hastings
Max Hastings was the first journalist into Port Stanley during the Falklands War.
Marvin Traub
US guru Marvin Traub spoke in 1985.
Richard Rogers
Architect Richard Rogers, a 1987 gues.
Michael Cole, one-time BBC royal correspondent, was media director to Mohamed Fayed at House of Fraser in 1990 when he spoke on Television News – From both sides of the Screen. As the 1990s progressed, senior media figures appeared more regularly. They included: Charles Golding, executive editor of The Sunday Express, which was selling around 2m copies a week at the time; the chairman of the BBC, Marmaduke Hussey, in 1993; and in 1995 – a busy year for journos at the club – BBC business reporter Peter Day, Times columnist Matthew Parris and BBC newsreader Martyn Lewis.
The club’s most remarkable media catch of the period, however, was Rupert Murdoch, who in 1985 was introduced to speak by Harrods’ suave managing director Aleck Craddock. Aged 53 at the time, Murdoch was possibly the best-placed person to speak on his chosen subject: Britain and the United States – Comparing Press, Politics and Business.
Despite this part of the club’s history seeming to lack some of the power of what came before or since, it is remarkable also for continuing the club’s tradition of attracting British prime ministers as speakers. In spring 1981 Alec Douglas-Home, who had been PM from October 1963 to October 1964, spoke on The Politics of Power, a subject one presumes he knew much about. The guest of Harold Salmon, whose family ran J Lyons, he was introduced to the club with his full aristocratic Scottish title of The Right Honourable the Lord Home of the Hirsel.
In late 1988 Christopher Fenwick introduced what was to be The Twenty Club’s fifth prime ministerial guest, but at the time the Conservative MP for Huntingdon was known as the Right Chief Secretary to the Treasury. Two years on, he replaced Margaret Thatcher as Tory chief and PM.
Culture and the arts was still on The Twenty Club agenda, as reflected in the talk in 1979 on Museums and the Heritage by Dr Roy Strong, director of the Victoria & Albert Museum. His successor in the post, Elizabeth Esteve-Coll, addressed the club in 1992. English Heritage was the subject covered in 1986 by Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, while The National Trust was described in 1989 by its chairman, Dame Jennifer Jenkins. The appearance of Sir John Tooley, general director of the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 1984 was followed a year later by that of celebrated Welsh bass-baritone Sir Geraint Evans. Showing a disappointing lack of imagination, both evenings were billed as A Knight at the Opera.
Sir Peter Hall, director of The National Theatre, was a speaker in 1998 and a rare link between the theatrical and the political worlds was perhaps provided in 1993 by Glenda Jackson, one-time sales assistant in Boots on Merseyside, twice an Oscar-winning actress, and Labour MP for Hampstead and Highgate from 1992.
Despite the admission of female members since 1978, Women’s Liberation seemed to have passed The Twenty Club by. Of the 129 dinners held between 1978 and 2000, only 12 had female speakers. And a very eclectic bunch they were. Womanpower was the title of the talk given in 1978 by Heather Brigstocke, who was headmistress of Francis Holland School in London from 1965 to 1974 before moving to the role of High Mistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School until 1989. Appropriately for her club audience she had had a short stint as a management trainee
1978-2000
Rupert Murdoch
In a brilliant scoop, The Twenty Club attracted Rupert Murdoch as a speaker in 1985, when he compared the UK and the US.
Sir Geraint Evans
Bass-baritone Sir Geraint Evans, a 1985 speaker on opera.
Roy Strong
Roy Strong, director of the V&A, addressed the club in 1979.
In 1983 civil servant and consumer rights’ campaigner Dame Elizabeth “Betty” Ackroyd gave a talk whose subject would be just as relevant today, at least in its second part: The Fast Changing Business of Post & Telecommunications. Presumably telecommunications were something of a concern to Stella Rimington, who spoke to the club members in 1995, three years into her spell as director-general of the Security Service, aka MI5. Less well-known was former Conservative MP Dame Peggy Fenner, who was a guest in 1989, and Lady Miloska Nott, the Slovenian-born wife of former Tory Defence Secretary John Nott, who spoke in 1999 about her fund for Balkan refugees.
Ladies’ Nights were only an occasional feature of this period. Jean Rook, assistant editor of The Daily Express and one of the best known columnists in the old Fleet Street, was the guest of David Riceman in 1990, four years after Fenwick had acquired his family’s department store in Canterbury. Suzy Menkes, doyenne of fashion journalists, a guest of Graham Barber of Barbers of Fulham, spoke about The Press and the Fashion Industry in 1988. The fashion industry itself was represented by two designers whose styles and appearances could not have been more different – the pink-haired Zandra Rhodes in 1986 (the guest of Harrods’ Aleck Craddock) and the prim Jean Muir in 1994, who was introduced by Tim Daniels, managing director of Selfridges.
Another notable female speaker in 1991 was Patience Wheatcroft, co-founder of Retail Week, who asked the still pertinent question: Do Retailers get the Press they deserve?
While the club was in something of a decline as 2000 approached, on a few occasions it did finally elevate women to the top position. The first female host of a Twenty Club dinner, in January 1987, was Helen Robinson, former marketing director of Debenhams, who at the time was marketing director at Vogue publisher
Mair Barnes, Woolworths MD, hosted the Georges Meyer dinner in 1989. After her and Helen Robinson’s solo efforts, a more frequent female host was Mary Pedlar, the club’s first female president. The family of her husband Anthony owned the Broadbents and Boothroyds department stores in Southport. Anthony had hosted a Twenty Club dinner in 1979. After his death in 1982, Mary took over as managing director of the family firm. She proved to have a wide network of contacts, having as her speaker- guests Nicholas Coleridge, editor of Harpers & Queen, in 1988, British Telecom boss Michael Bett in 1991, Lord Sainsbury (Subject: Business Sponsorship of the Arts) also in 1991, and the leader of the Liberal Democrats Paddy Ashdown MP in 1993 and, as noted above, Glenda Jackson.
As the 20th century turned to the 21st Alison Richards, former Habitat board member and the founder of The Pier homeware stores was club president. One of her guests, in 2000, was David Bull of Unicef UK a charity she supported.
Although the club had a hardcore of supporters – such as Rodney East, managing director of Etam, Nigel Whittaker, chairman of DIY chain B&Q, and Fortnum & Mason MD Gerry Hamilton – it was much in need of a relaunch and a new direction. One person who can remember the situation well is Paul Taylor, one-time MD of Dickins & Jones and later of restructuring specialist Hilco, who joined the club in 1987 and is its current longest-standing member.
At least The Twenty Club celebrated its 100th anniversary in style. Chaired by Gerry Hamilton, the centenary dinner at Fortnum & Mason had as speaker Jeffrey, Lord Archer, who was described as Author and Politician.
2000 to the present
The modern resurgence
Jeffrey Archer
Centenary dinner guest Jeffrey Archer.
Elizabeth Esteve-Coll
V&A’s Elizabeth Esteve-Coll.
Jean Muir
Fashion purist Jean Muir, a 1994 guest speaker.
Zandra Rhodes
Zandra Rhodes, guest speaker in 1986.
The Twenty Club barely deserved the name after its centenary. Membership had dwindled so much that attendance at one dinner was as low as just 15 people. The club had no permanent base, instead meeting in various locations like the River Room at The Savoy and the Inn on the Park (now The Four Seasons). Fortunately, a small group of senior executives decided that the values of the group, the fellowship and the need to bring together like-minded colleagues regularly in a confidential setting was worth saving and developing.
Central to the turnaround in the club’s fortunes was Bernard Dreesmann, the Dutch-born entrepreneur whose Morleys Stores Group included exactly the sort of suburban London department stores, like Elys of Wimbledon, that the original members ran. He had been a member of The Twenty Club for more than 15 years.
Among the other stalwarts of the club’s committee who rallied around were Peter Williams, finance director at Selfridges, who had been the club’s treasurer since the mid-1990s, Nigel Beale, Etam’s Rodney East, Tony Rammelt, a director of the Regis hairdressing salons, and Allders’ managing director Stan Kaufman, who had been a member since 1998.
Their aim was to raise the profile of the club by attracting excellent speakers who would inspire the retail industry. The Drapers’ Record had described it back in November 1897.
In an important departure from precedent, the system of changing the president every 12 months was suspended as Dreesmann put in a five-year stint from 2001 to 2006, followed by the very well-connected executive recruiter Lesley Exley, who steered the club for the next five years until 2011. Former Sears executive David Carter-Johnson was president from 2012 to 2014, but apart from his tenure The Twenty Club for the past 10 years has been directed by women, possibly making up for its over-long reputation as solely a male preserve.
Denise Shepherd, managing director of Escada UK & Ireland, chaired the five dinners in 2011- 2012, while Wendy Hallett MBE of concessions operator Hallett Retail has held the reins since 2014. In 2012 Lindsay Page, chief operating officer of Ted Baker, succeeded Peter Williams as the club’s treasurer. He supports the president along with a voluntary committee.
As part of the new consistency and efficiency, the elegant private members’ club Home House at the appropriate address of 20 Portman Square was set as the venue for the new schedule of three dinners in the autumn and two in the spring.
From its worrying low membership around the year 2000, the club now has a very healthy roster of about 60 members, comprising senior executives with a retailing background and well- regarded service providers to the retail sector.
2000 to the present
The modern resurgence
Prue Leith
Cookery expert and author Prue Leith spoke in the 2001-2002 season.
Eve Pollard
Editor Eve Pollard was a speaker in 2010.
Richard Farleigh
Richard Farleigh, partner in the club’s venue Home House, spoke in 2011.
Nigel Whittaker
B&Q boss Nigel Whittaker was a member for years.
In recent years several members of The Winnowing Club, another retailers’ association with a long history, transferred allegiance to The Twenty Club when the Winnowers ceased to meet.
Home House provides fine food and excellent wine, the members provide good conversation and stimulating company, and the incumbent president introduces the speaker on the night.
The mix of speakers since the millennium has brought together eminent retailers from different disciplines, expert observers of the trade, media personalities and a few less obvious candidates. Among the last group were founder of charity Kids Company Camilla Batmanghelidjh (2002) and PR maestro Max Clifford (2006), whose reputations now are not as high as they were when they addressed the club. Someone who was able to talk about fluctuating reputations from personal experience was Lord Charles Brocket, who had served time for insurance fraud but became something of a British cult hero when he appeared on I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here. He spoke to the club in 2006.
Politicians have been less in evidence in recent years, although in 2003 Tory grandee Michael Howard would have felt at home as his parents ran womenswear shops in Wales when he was a child. Tory MP Francis Maude is one of the few people to speak at the club more than once, making an appearance in 2005 as well as 1997. As previously mentioned, his father Angus Maude addressed the club back in 1946.
In a neat link with the Welsh politicians who attended the Victorian meetings, Kim Howells, the Labour MP for Pontypridd, was a speaker at the start of the new century.
Henry Wyndham, chairman of Sotheby’s, cookery expert Prue Leith, and Mark Killick, a nutritional expert specialising in anti-ageing diets. A guest speaker who would have literally felt at home in 2011 was Richard Farleigh, one of the Dragons’ Den panellists and an investor in the modern Home House, the club’s now-settled venue.
Representing a wide selection of the media were Kelvin McKenzie, the ex-editor of The Sun (2010), BBC business news presenter Declan Curry (2008), former editor of Sunday Mirror and Sunday Express, Eve Pollard (2010), Terry Mansfield, former CEO of Hearst Corporation in the UK (2011) and Alexandra Shulman, editor of British Vogue (2006). The club’s links to the trade’s leading journal, which date back to 1897, was renewed in 2016 when Eric Musgrave, twice editorial director of Drapers and the author of this history of the club, was guest speaker.
Learning how others view the retail industry has a recurring theme in the period as the club entertained several eminent retail analysts, including Richard Hyman of Verdict (1999), Richard Ratner from stockbroker Seymour Pierce (2002), Tony Shiret from BZW/Credit Suisse (2011), and two director-generals of British Retail Consortium, Kevin Hawkins (2005) and Stephen Robertson (2009).
For practical experience and vision, the club turned to some of the most well-respected names in modern retailing. From the department store sector, the original heart of The Twenty Club, the speakers included Vittorio Radice, innovative CEO of Selfridges (2002), and his financial director and successor (and Twenty Club treasurer) Peter Williams (2013). The John Lewis Partnership was well represented, by chairman Sir Stuart Hampson (2007), his successor Charlie Mayfield (2009), John Lewis MDs Luke Mayhew (2001) and Andy Street
2000 to the present
The modern movers
Bernard Dreesmann
Bernard Dreesmann, president 2001-06.
Lesley Exley
Lesley Exley, president in 2006-11.
Peter Williams
Peter Williams, former club treasurer.
Wendy Hallett
Wendy Hallett, president 2014-17.
Denise Shepherd
Denise Shepherd, president in 2011-12.
Stan Kaufman
Stan Kaufman, club member since 1998.
David Carter-Johnson
David Carter-Johnson, president 2012-13.
Rob Templeman, former CEO of Debenhams, was a speaker in 2013, while the luxury department store sector was represented by Harvey Nichols’ CEO and Twenty Club member Joseph Wan (2012) and HN’s long-serving director Patrick Hanly (2011), plus Harrods’ chief merchant Marigay McKee (2006) and MD Michael Ward (2012). Iain Renwick, CEO of Liberty, joined the select group of speakers who returned with his talks in 2006 and 2009.
Fashion specialists were well involved too with names including David Shepherd, long-standing boss of Topman and a main board director of Arcadia (2012), entrepreneurs Maurice Bennett (2008) and Jeff Banks (2014), who were co-founders of the Warehouse chain, and Derek Lovelock, chairman of Aurora Fashions, the latter-day owner of Warehouse (2012). Roger Pedder, chairman of footwear firm Clarks and a retail turnround specialist, addressed The Twenty Club in 2013.
Other names on the impressive list of speakers from different levels of the fashion sector included Kate Bostock, CEO of womenswear chain Coast, Debenhams’ designer Julien Macdonald and Caroline Rush, CEO of the British Fashion Council (all 2015). The viewpoint of wholesale brands was provided by ex-England rugby union international Phil Vickery, founder of rugby- inspired menswear range Raging Bull (2013), Andy Rubin, CEO of Pentland Brands (2014) and Ted Baker founder Ray Kelvin (2015).
Notable in recent years has been the club extending its welcome outside the familiar sectors of department stores and fashion. Included in the retailing talent from other spheres was Brent Wilkinson, CEO of hardware chain Robert Dyas (2004).
James Timpson, CEO of the ubiquitous Timpson shoe repair chain (2009), Mark Dunhill, CEO of Faberge (2010), Angus Thirlwell, Hotel Chocolat co-founder (2015), Jim McCarthy, CEO of high street staple Poundland (2016) and in 2007 from Kingfisher, at separate dinners, CEO Sir Geoff Mulcahy and his successor Ian Cheshire.
Food retailers of note included Allan Leighton, CEO of Asda (2005), Marc Bolland, boss of William Morrison (2008), Tim How, Majestic Wine’s MD (2009), Simon Burke, chairman of Irish grocery group Superquinn (2010), and Tim Steiner, founder of Ocado (2016).
The rise of ecommerce was covered at the club by talks from Mark Newton-Jones, CEO of Shop Direct (2011), co-founder of Asos Nick Robertson (2007) and Asos’ chairman Brian McBride (2015), continuing the club’s traditional interest in newer forms of retailing.
Completing a neat circle of history, in 2012 the club welcomed Michelle Mone, the founder of Ultimo Lingerie, followed in 2014 by Vanessa Gold, MD of Ann Summers. This lingerie duo represented a direct line from corset manufacturer Charles Bayer, the first speaker at The Twenty Club way back in 1897.
After almost 120 years of existence and around 670 dinners, The Twenty Club remains a unique forum that is far more than a typical networking dining club. Its members meet not to do business, but rather to discuss business and any other “matters of interest” in a friendly, informal and totally confidential setting.
With a revitalised membership interested in the retailing community and national life, The Twenty Club looks likely to add to its astonishing list of Members and Speakers.