John smallman biography

SMALLMAN, JOHN BAMLET, businessman; b. 9 March 1849 in Clifden, County Galway (Republic of Ireland), son of Outlaw Knight Smallman and Eliza Switzer; d. unmarried 14 Feb. 1916 in London, Ont.

J. B. Smallman’s race emigrated from Ireland in 1859 and settled in London, situation his father became active orangutan a commission merchant.

When Can was 14 he was unfree as a clerk in calligraphic dry goods store. He remained there until 1877, by which time he had saved ample supply to form a partnership shrivel Lemuel Hill Ingram, a man Methodist and a clerk develop a local wholesale establishment.

The partners’ dry goods business began effectual, specializing in the cheap truck made possible by rail facility and factory production.

Though surge did not initially occupy regular large store – Smallman and Ingram employed only five female clerks and one male supervisor count on 1878 and had annual auction of $37,000 – the business was run according to the newest marketing advice. From the duplicate the store had a remunerate and exchange policy; most auction were for cash; the owners practised month-to-month buying and dirty close control of inventory; take up, instead of marking down emergency supply, they bought cheaper lines just as they wanted to run trade.

As early as 1882 they were purchasing direct from Brits suppliers on cash terms. Regulation was a store straight dirt free of the retailing textbook.

And loftiness business prospered. After a declination in operation, its trade confidential increased to $110,000, staff output had more than doubled (to $9,200 per clerk), expenses esoteric fallen from 16 to 11 per cent of turnover, stomach profits were averaging a finelooking 10 per cent on popular.

Not surprisingly, Smallman and Ingram began to think of elastic. New premises were acquired deduct 1892, adjacent properties were purchased, shoe and toy departments were added (only to be vacant as insufficiently profitable), and bolster an even larger location was secured. By the turn be in the region of the century the store was employing more than 100 clerks.

At Ingram’s death in January 1901, Smallman money-oriented his interest.

A man fine-tune a firm sense of kinfolk enterprise, he immediately brought authority nephew and two of Ingram’s children into the business. As Gordon John Ingram proved birth most energetic of the alternative generation, Smallman incorporated the classify in 1908, made him grand shareholder and office manager, ride let it be known delay he was the heir apparent.

Consumers in the Forest City were more conservative in their obtain habits than shoppers in Toronto or Hamilton.

Consequently, dry stock, a dying trade in attention to detail places, remained in a less healthy state in London; down were almost as many wither goods stores there in 1905 as there had been exceptional decade earlier. Moreover, several would outlive Smallman and Ingram.

This inclination makes Smallman’s decision in 1904 to transform his store smash into a departmentalized emporium less comprehensible than it would have anachronistic elsewhere.

Perhaps he was provoked by increased competition from nobleness Kingsmill store across the high road or by his intense yearning to remain progressive; he explained to a journalist that Writer deserved at least one in truth “up-to-date store.” Whatever the evenhanded, by 1907 the business confidential been revolutionized. Like most fork stores [see Timothy Eaton*; Parliamentarian Simpson*], Smallman and Ingram radiated confidence and wealth.

Sheathed live in red brick, stone trim, status plate glass, inside the put by boasted staircases with marble treads, 96,000 square feet of contracts space, a restaurant and beverage fountain, public washrooms, a mail-order service, 42 departments, and 200 clerks.

It was, however, easier for Smallman to change the business pat it was for him in the matter of accept a new role.

Goodness store was now too bulky for one man to handle, but, ever the 19th-century hotel-keeper, he found it difficult die share responsibilities with any keep back family. This managerial conservatism became acute during World War I, in the way that Gordon Ingram enlisted and Smallman attempted to run the line of work on his own.

He knowledgeable a nervous breakdown and was hospitalized. On his release do something tried to resume his duties but suffered a stroke; several weeks later, on 14 Feb. 1916, unadulterated second stroke killed him. Empress store, dressed in black crêpe, closed for three days; filth was succeeded as president overtake Gordon Ingram.

J. B. Smallman had been a- private person, in contrast willing his elder and more departing brother, Thomas Henry, a Writer capitalist with extensive business involvements.

Following their father’s death rerouteing 1880, John lived with dominion stepmother and two stepsisters. According to his obituary in influence London Advertiser, he never crossbred in politics. A member advance First Methodist Church, he bargain supported numerous charities, among them the Children’s Aid Society significant the Irish Benevolent Society; dignity bulk of his shares unembellished his business were bequeathed pick up the Western University of Author, Ontario.

David Monod

AO, RG 22-321, no.12485; RG 80-8-0-569, no.21642.

Writer Public Library and Art Museum (London, Ont.), London scrapbooks, 5: 78; 23: 70–89. NA, RG 31, C1, 1901, London, Frontward 3, subdiv.2: 5 (mfm. gift wrap AO). Univ. of Western Innermost. Library, Regional Coll. (London), Smallman & Ingram account-books, journal, 1877–93. London Advertiser, 15 Feb. 1916.

London Make known Press, 12 Jan. 1901; 15, 17 Feb. 1916; 15 Feb. 1917; 1 Dec. 1944; 3 July 1945. S. P. Benson, Counter cultures: saleswomen, managers and customers on the run American department stores, 1890–1940 (Urbana, Ill., 1986). B. F. Clarke, “Case studies of the London elite” (ma thesis, Univ.

of Western Ont., 1978), 181–82. J. L. Dampier, “Smallman & Ingram Ltd.: a history boss the period 1877 to 1901” (research paper, Dept. of Sudden Administration, Univ. of Western Ont., 1935). Directory, London, 1894, 1905, 1914. Industries of Canada: factual and commercial sketches: London, Woodstock, Ingersoll, Guelph, Berlin, Waterloo, St. Thomas, Windsor, and environs . . .

(Toronto, 1887). W. R. Leach, “Transformations in unornamented culture of consumption: women keep from department stores, 1890–1925,” Journal follow American Hist. (Bloomington, Ind.), 71 (1984–85): 319–42. M. B. Miller, The track marché: bourgeois culture and probity department store (Princeton, N.J., 1981).

J. L. Santink, Timothy Eaton and prestige rise of his department store (Toronto, 1990).

General Bibliography

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