Keeping it in the family

There’s one criterion a family firm must meet to join the Tercentenarian Club: 300 years in business

- ETTIE NEIL-GALLACHER

Some 50 years ago, an advert was placed in the papers. The 17th-century blanket company Early’s of Witney was about to celebrate 300 years in business and was wondering if there were any other family firms out there of similar longevity; if there were, a free lunch was on offer. Geoffrey Durtnell, the then-chairman of Kent-based builders R Durtnell & Sons, saw the advert and, conscious that his family business was some 425 years old, responded and a jolly good lunch was duly enjoyed. Indeed, it was such a success that the men agreed to meet again the following year and, lo, the Tercentenarian Club was born.

Such tenacious survival in the commercial world is no mean feat. Three hundred years ago Britain was a very different place indeed. Society was still largely agricultural, with the Industrial Revolution some half a century off. George I was on the throne, and pretty unpopular, too, derided for his wooden manner and inability to speak English. Catholics and Protestants were still pitted against each other, with Whigs and Tories at loggerheads in Parliament, which was about to have its first de facto prime minister as Robert Walpole was propelled into office by the financial ruin of thousands of investors in the South Sea Company. Robinson Crusoe was the contemporary bestseller and George Frideric Handel topped the Georgian charts.