Founded: 1953
Founder(s): Charlie and Jean Macsween
Currently owned by: James Macsween

Charlie and Jean Macsween met when they were working at Orr’s butcher in Edinburgh. When Mr Orr died they were encouraged to set up their own business by Mr Orr’s daughter, who gave them a £5,000 loan. They opened their first shop in 1953 and this is where Charlie created the first Macsween haggis and black pudding.

Son John and his wife Kate took over the business when Charlie passed in 1975 and passed it down to son and daughter, James and Jo Macsween. With an ever-expanding product line, James are Kate Macsween are now at the helm as directors.

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Founded: 1690
Founders: The Field family
Currently owned by: Charles, Christine and Jeremy Field

It’s fair to say that C.P.J Field & Co Ltd has some history. The original family firm was set up in the 17th century, building coffins for use in funerals. The Field family assisted with the arrangement of funerals for high-profile figures such as Edward VII, the Duke of Wellington and Queen Victoria. By 1899 the firm was operating as JD Field and Son.

Edward Ernest Field resisted a takeover bid in 1956 from the Amalgamated Tobacco Corporation who were keen to get into the cremation market. The board then took steps to give 100 per cent of ownership back to the family. The firm was approached for a takeover again 38 years later by a US conglomerate and family ownership was lost.

The family came together and C.P.J Field & Co was launched in 2005. They now work across 30 funeral homes in the south of England and the Home Counties.

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Founded: 1730
Founder(s): Juan Famenias Floris
Currently owned by: Edward Bodenham

Floris is the oldest fragrance and toiletries brand in the UK. Founder, Juan Famenias Floris, moved from Menorca to London in search of his fortune, securing premises in St James which he originally set up as a barbershop. But he missed Mediterranean aromas so much that he and his wife made them to sell.

The brand has gained quite the reputation over its time. Writer and creator of James Bond, Ian Fleming, was a frequent Floris customer. No.89 eau de toilette was created the year before his first novel was published in 1951 and the scent soon became the author’s favourite. The fragrances appear in the novel version of Moonraker, published in 1955. Historic receipts hint that Winston Churchill and Marilyn Monroe were previous customers too.

Formulas were passed down through the generations, right through to current perfumery director, Edward Bodenham, who is a ninth generation family member.

Floris has a factory in Devon. The heart of the business is still in Jermyn Street where the first store opened in 1730.

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Founded: 1865
Founders: William Timpson
Currently owned by: John Timpson and James Timpson

Timpson established in 1865 by William Timpson, great grandfather of current chairman, John Timpson. William opened the first shop in Oldham Street, Manchester. It started by making, selling and repairing shoes but has added key cutting, phone repairs and engraving into its repertoire.

It’s almost always been a family business, apart from “a break” in the 1970s and 1980s with a management buyout from UDS. In 1983 UDS was acquired by Hanson Trust who quickly agreed a venture capital-backed management buyout led by John Timpson.

As mentioned, John Timpson is the current chairman and owns the business with his son, James. James Timpson has been chief executive since 2002 and is a regular columnist in The Times.

The company runs employee schemes such as free holiday homes, dreams come true and weekly lotteries alongside mental health support. James pioneered the recruitment of ex-offenders and employs over 600 prison leavers, which is about 10 per cent of the company. He’s also chair of the Prison Reform Trust as well as supporting prison charities and support groups.

Timpson has grown massively, with almost 2,000 stores and 119 Snappy Snaps photo franchise outlets throughout the UK and Ireland.

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Founded: 1905
Founder(s): Thomas Fentiman
Currently owned by: Eldon Robson

Thomas Fentiman, an iron puddler from Cleckheaton in England, was approached by a fellow tradesman for a loan. They struck a deal with Fentiman’s botanically brewed ginger beer as security. The loan was never repaid so Thomas became the owner of the recipe. He’d deliver the drinks door-to-door using a horse and cart. The ginger beer was stored in stone cans known as grey hens.

Thomas’s dog, Fearless, is the famous pooch on the label. She won the Crufts obedience class of 1933 and 1934.

The original business ended in the 1960s and was revived many years later by Thomas’s great grandson, Eldon Robson. His uncle Joe, who ran the factory in Leeds before the company closed, had the recipe on a piece of paper “tucked away in a drawer”.

“So we resurrected this craft process for making soft drinks, and I suppose by doing that I was a little ahead of my time. It’s quite a complicated process but we take great pride in what we do,” he told Chronicle Live.

“It was an absolute nightmare to begin with. Everything went wrong – I put my foot through the ceiling dashing to the telephone one day, I bought a second hand wagon and the gear box fell out the week I bought it. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but we battled through it.”

The company is now based in Fearless House, Hexham.

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Founded: 1954
Founder(s): Arnold Clark
Currently owned by: The Clark family

Automobile firm Arnold Clark has been going for over 50 years and was founded by Sir Arnold Clark. Clark was jobless after leaving the RAF in 1954 and, to support himself, started repairing and selling cars, with the first showroom opening in the same year in Glasgow’s Park Road. Over time he was joined by his children and grandchildren, adding rentals and dealerships to its operations. The company got its first contract hire client in 1966 and launched insurance services in 1993.

In the 1980s, the firm became the largest car dealer in Scotland, with its first English branch opening in Liverpool in 1994. By the early 2000s it has become a national UK car dealer.

Clark passed away in April 2017 while he was still running the business. His son, John Arnold Clark and the founder’s widow, Philomena Butler Clark, are two of the current board directors in the business.

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Founded: 1984
Founder(s): Doug and Mary Perkins
Currently owned by: The Perkins family

Husband and wife team Doug and Mary Perkins started the business around a ping pong table in their spare room in 1983, opening their first store a year later. A change in UK regulations meant that, as professional opticians, they could advertise their products and services for the first time. They had the idea of making the opticians like going to the shop rather than going to the doctor.

The pair had already set up an established opticians by this point. In 1967, Doug borrowed money to buy Mary’s father’s optician’s business in Bristol. They built up a local chain of 23 opticians in the west of the UK under the name of Bebbington (Mary’s maiden name) and Perkins.

“We had 15 years in optics before we started Specsavers, so we’ve learned a lot and we knew exactly what we needed to do in the market we were in.” Mary told Business West. In fact, the pair have a combined 100 years working in optometry.

Reaching this goal wasn’t without its difficulties. “I’m not teaching physics to girls” Mary was told when she wanted to study science at A-Level. She “won the battle” with the headmaster insisting that she and the other girl in her physics A-Level were taught, according to The Times.

The first Specsavers store was opened in Guernsey – now there are 1,300 stores across the UK, Europe and New Zealand.

“When we started, we thought we would end up with 100 businesses – enough to cover England perhaps,” Mary told Inspired magazine. “We never, ever thought we would get to the huge scale we are now.” She reportedly dresses up and goes undercover to inspect stores from time to time.

Doug and son John are joint CEO but each store is part-owned and managed by its own directors.

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