John (Jack) William Upton
20th September 1873 - 5th June 1959
"It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail."
Mark Twain.
"It is strange the way the ignorant and inexperienced so often and so undeservedly succeed when the informed and the experienced fail."
Mark Twain.
The names of places in this document are those used in John Peter Upton’s original memoir. Some of the place names have changed, others have been obliterated. I take no responsibility for the accuracy of place names.
John William Upton was born on 20th September 1873 in Bristol, England. His father was also a John Upton (no middle name). His mother’s name was Matilda Goslin (maybe a French connection). He died on 6th May 1959 in Bournemouth, England. He was 85 years, 7 months and 16 days old. I believe he died of old age, aggravated by a heart condition. Although he was christened with the names “John William”, he was universally known as “Jack”. He had two sisters, Rosie and Nellie, both thought to be younger than him.
I am Jack Upton’s grandson, Hugh Upton. I am telling you as much as I know of the significant periods of his life based on my memory of him and my own father’s memoir. This is an abbreviated summary of my grandfather’s life with some personal recollections. For anyone interested in more detail, there is significant information in the digital version of my father’s memoir.
To set the tone of this summary, my first recollection of my grandfather was at age three, maybe just toddling around, when I tried to climb into his car. He was amused but firm that “it” was not going to happen. My final memory of him was a day or so before I emigrated to Canada in 1956. I was with my father and Uncle Cecil. He was in a nursing home, in bed, physically frail although his voice was firm and strong. He was not expected to live, but he did; for about three more years. In between my first and last memory of him, I saw him about as frequently as anyone sees their grandfather, but those stories belong in another memoir.
To me he was a rather stern commanding man, always very smartly and expensively dressed, who lived in a huge house with a gorgeous garden, cared for by two gardeners, and who drove, or was chauffeur driven, in huge cars. The house was magnificent with beautiful furnishings but many of the rooms were off limits to grandchildren. He was always kind and generous to me but that may have been my grandmother’s influence. After any visit with him I always left with pocket money. There are stories that he was a “lady’s man”, several of them are recorded in my father’s memoir. He was certainly a handsome man as his portrait attests. That portrait now resides with the eldest great grandchild, David Upton in Boston, Massachusetts.
I do not know much about his early life other than, according to his sisters, he tended to be a sickly child and was the apple of his mother’s eye. He showed some strong mental ability early in life and instead of attending the local church school, he was educated at the Merchant Venturers School in Bristol. This was a very tough school where corporal punishment was liberally used as discipline and punishment, a philosophy he embraced with his children. There is a story in my father’s memoir describing a rather trivial incident of a small broken window. It belonged to a neighbour who probably demanded compensation, being broken somehow by my father. My grandfather was outraged that he had to pay for the window and took a stick to give my father a “good thrashing”. Unfortunately, my grandfather hadn’t noticed that my father was now as big as he was, and he “removed” the stick from his father without difficulty. That was the last time my grandfather attempted physical punishment on my father however, brow beating continued well into my father’s adult life. There is no evidence of intellectual development in the arts or literature and business training, as we know it today, did not exist.
At age 19, in 1892, his father, who was a butcher, died (probably from tuberculosis) and he took over running the family butcher shop. Sometime later, he closed the shop or leased it to someone else, which is more probable. This may have been possible because he inherited some money, probably from his father or grandparents, since his mother did not die until 1900.
About 1895 he joined an Iron and Steel Merchant company as a department manager. Based on the experience he gained from this job and using money he inherited, he bought an interests in the Bristol Butchers and Western Counties Hide and Skin Market Limited. This company had been formed about 1785 and was later incorporated in 1887. It was owned by a gentleman named Willis, along with some prominent local butchers in Bristol. In about 1900, through the influence of other shareholders, Mr. Willis recruited my grandfather to learn the Hide and Skin Trade. Over the following years Bristol Butchers grew to become the dominant dealer in the Hide and Skin business in southwest England and my grandfather rose to become the Managing Director and major shareholder.
At the beginning of the 20th century, he bought a property at 14 Ashley Hill in Bristol called “The Elms”. The story has it that he was out riding and fell off the horse in front of the property. Having suffered some scrapes and cuts, he asked the owner of the property for help and was ushered inside to be cared for by the servants. He was so taken with the house and its impressive interior and the view from the back that he decided to buy it. Somehow the opportunity came about, and he bought the property. Being unmarried at the time and having no furniture, he leased it to a gentleman for a period of maybe ten years.
Sometime after buying "The Elms", he met the beautiful Annie Florence Cotty who he courted aggressively. Annie, according to records, was born on 25th December 1872. His courting was much to the annoyance of his good friend Frank Newton, who also aspired to marry her. My grandfather, being a decisive and somewhat impetuous character, proposed to Miss Cotty, who promptly accepted. They were duly married in November 1904, I believe in Clevedon, Somerset, and settled into married life in Bristol in a house at 1, Wolferton Road, in Bristol which was already owned by his new wife, my grandmother. At the time of marriage, Grandmother Annie was not without financial assets. She was, I believe, the sixth of twelve children. Her father, a miller, probably in Somerset, had invested in a start-up company in 1829 and that became a significant miller and baker called Spillers Flower Limited. A portion of this holding would one day be inherited by Grandmother, who also inherited many of her siblings shares when they died, unmarried or childless. At that time in history, tuberculosis ran rampant through communities. I always had the impression from my father that this holding made Grandmother quite a wealthy woman and she held the shares until her death. By then, 5th October 1964, Spillers Flour had slipped to being a subsidiary of another company and the shares passed to my father and Uncle. By then they were worth very little. So much for the investment strategies of those who grew up in the late 19th century. In 1905 his first son, my father – John Peter Upton, was born. My father was also known as “Jack” by everyone so for the purposes of this biography, I refer to him as “my father”. In 1908 his second son, Cecil Mainwaring Upton, was born and, according to my father, occupied much of his mother’s attention – much to his displeasure apparently. That was the total of John Williams heirs.
My grandfather was now about 32 years old. He would have been typical of the Edwardian era (1901 to 1910) of elegant dress, a carefree world and social change. Business in the Hide and Skin business during that period was booming, but my grandfather’s health did not fare so well. He either experienced his first bout of pleurisy or he developed an anxiety syndrome, or both, probably due to business pressure.
After his recovery from pleurisy, he discovered Christian Science as an avenue for restoring his health. Together with other influential people, also followers of the Christian Science philosophies, he went to London and attended a lecture given by an American advocate of the church. They were so impressed that, on their return to Bristol, they founded the First Church of Christian Science in Bristol. This flourished up to the beginning of the first World War and afterward. My grandfather was admirably suited to be the leader of a large congregation, forming, and sitting on all committees, directing church activities, engaging speakers, and having social gatherings at "The Elms".
The First Church of Christians Science blossomed and expanded, requiring new and larger quarters. Again, my grandfather led the charge, organized the funding, the architectural planning and furnishing. He was in his element. Still later, when the congregation got too big for the building, part of it split off and created another “church” in an area more convenient, and affluent, to where the members lived. I recall being taken to services a few times at the original church when staying at the Elms as a preteenager. Why I stayed at the Elms is not clear but probably related to marriage difficulties being experienced by my parents. I have no idea what happened to my brother and sister during these episodes. As to any influence on me from exposure to these excursions into Christian Science teachings, I recall being bored to tears. Perhaps that was a hint to my Grandparents that, like my father, I was “beyond redemption”. The only reading material that entered The Elms was Church material requiring my father as a young boy, and probably my Uncle Cecil, to find other literary resources of more interest to them.
My grandfather was undoubtably influenced by the commercial and social expansion that the Edwardian period created: the arrival of the motorcar and the airplane and the introduction of aluminum among other advances. The Boer War (1899-1903) was well in the past, there was a sense of calm and stability giving rise to a belief that there would be an indefinite period of peace in the world.
He had another bout of pleurisy about 1910, requiring him to convalesce for an extended period. At about this time, he met a man named Arthur Ball, a butcher in Blagdon, Somerset, who was developing a commercial methodology for refining animal fats and bones. Their common interest was making money from this by extracting what is known as “tallow” and “greaves” from parts of animals that are considered unfit for human consumption. Tallow was used in the production of soap and greaves contributed to commercial animal feed. In collaboration with Arthur Ball, he began what was to become Springfield’s Limited, although Arthur Ball does not appear to have been a shareholder.
At some point, date unknown, Bristol Butchers purchased the Temple Hydon (or Eyden) Farm, at Charterhouse in Somerset on which to build the Springfields Limited factory. This was accomplished by borrowing an undisclosed amount through the Agricultural Board of the time. Between 1910 and 1920, a factory evolved from what had originally been a shed to store farm equipment. After several re-engineering projects to improve the production capacity and efficiency of the process, Springfield’s began to make money, notwithstanding the absence of a plant manager and the economic collapse in 1929.
Part of Temple Eyden farm was productive agricultural land, where the factory was located, but probably half was virtually useless having been the site of lead metal refining in Roman times. There is extensive documented history of this area in the Bristol Museum (among others) and the Blagdon Historical Society on this. Interestingly, a huge discovery of Roman coins occurred in either the late 20th or early 21st century in the area, probably worth a couple of Kings ransoms! Imagine if that discovery was on the farm property and it had remained in the Upton family!! Another interesting sidebar to Temple Eyden farm is that one of my grandfathers’ nieces was reputed to be clairvoyant. She is said to have been able to see the actual mining activity going on as it was during the Roman occupation. To prove her point, she directed an archaeologist to dig in a specific location where a particular mining artifact was buried. She was correct but refused to assist further for unstated or recorded reasons. The history of this property is significant due to the ruins of a Roman village and early lead metal mining operations buried there. There is also a connection to the fabled Knights Templar and anyone who is interested is encouraged to investigate this further through the Blagdon Historical Society.
Concurrent with the development of the Springfield’s factory, my grandfather had bought the Mendip Bungalow Hotel in Blagdon in 1911, the evidence of which is recorded in the Census of that year. My father’s memoir does not explain why he bought it. Speculation is that it was to replace the rudimentary structure that my grandfather had previously built on “the lots” as a weekend getaway from Bristol and business. “The lots” were an area either adjacent to, or in the vicinity of, Temple Eyden farm. Over the years this structure was developed and is believed to have been later used as accommodation by “managers” of the Springfield’s factory. The Mendip Bungalow hotel had opened for business in 1909 and had eight bedrooms, seventeen rooms in total. Various people ran the hotel during my grandfather’s tenure including his sister, Rosie and my mother, before she married my father. In the 1920’s the hotel was popular with the more affluent residents of Bristol. Besides recreational fishing in Blagdon Lake, it was a base for walking in the Mendip Hills, the Cheddar Gorge (of “Rock of Ages” fame), the caves at Cheddar and other recreational activities pursued by the wealthy. The building caught fire sometime in the 1960’s or 70’s and was demolished. It has been replaced by a big conference center attached to Bristol University. As a very early teenager, when my father was in Germany after the war, my mother, brother, sister and I, lived in the hotel along with the caretaker and his wife. We had free run of the building and I learned to roller skate on the long second floor corridor, which had beautiful wooden floors, ideal for roller skating! There were no guests.
In 1914 the first World War caused much upheaval in many quarters. My grandfather enlisted in the Yeomanry (“The Reserves”) but was discharged because he had bad lungs and was on work of national importance. He did a lot of work for the government and became the Controller of all the hides and skins businesses in Bristol, so other dealers had to report what they collected from butchers, and he directed them where to send the hides.
After the war, in 1919, the atmosphere in the country was one of expansion. My grandfather and grandmother had money in the bank, a thriving business and social standing in the Church community. He also had the opportunity of increasing the Bristol Butchers Hide and Skin collections by buying ex-army trucks and sending them around to the butchers in nearby towns and villages. Further, he set up new collection centers in towns too far away to reach with his own transport, bringing the product to Bristol by rail and finally, and most importantly, he had and controlled the selling of the hides with his auctions. As a visual demonstration of his wealth, my grandfather indulged himself with automobiles and frequently had three or four models stored in the Elms spacious carriage room, now converted to a garage. As new models came on the market, he would dispose of one or more of the current models and replace them with new ones. He had a distinct preference for the Alvis and I well remember looking enviously at a particular sporty, long hooded (bonnet) model with huge headlights and scheming of ways to get him to let me drive it. I never did. He also had an eye for the ladies and did not hesitate to exploit his position in the church to gain the acquaintance of favoured figures. He was an energetic, lean and businesslike man who impressed women with his capacity and control. To them he was a strong man, which most women admired.
In his memoir, my father recalls and incident of my grandfather’s appreciation of both automobile and female figure. My father, a young man at the time, and grandfather were driving some where and came up behind a woman driving a most beautiful Isehotta Fraschini. This car had a beautiful hand-built tail (back end), made of polished strips of wood, in alternate shades. It was shaped like the bow of a boat yet had a dicky seat in it. The lady drove very fast, and they could not overtake her. My grandfather was driving an open tourer (convertible) Talbot. He followed her into the marketplace of some town, where she stopped, and my grandfather pulled up as well, got out of the car and spoke to her. After a chat they went into a café, and my father was invited to join them. He observed that the lady was very well spoken, most attractive and obviously one of the “country class”. My father records that grandfather put on a manner that he not witnessed before, that of the charming gentleman, making a fuss of the lady, flattering her, admiring her and the car, and altogether really making an effort to impress. When they parted, it was like old friends, taking leave.
By chance, this lady in the Italian sports car led my grandfather to yet another woman, also wealthy but married. She had lived in a large country house with her husband who was known to my grandfather. He was an art dealer and artist. When he died suddenly, my grandfather stepped in and handled a lot of the business of succession, comforted the widow and was given several large paintings for his trouble, which, coincidently I have, in Canada.
My father implied that there was a close and affectionate connection with this lady. He always fetched her from her house, took her to church and then took her home, everyone else left to walk. My grandmother was not amused! The first shadow of disaster.
By 1925 he was in a good position. Springfield’s had grown and a lot of money was being made. Trucks arrived daily delivering raw materials, taking barrels of tallow and greaves back to Bristol for distribution to customers. But a new menace had arisen. The factory now required a lot more water and although there was a good spring about a quarter of a mile away and on the farm property, the "heads" had been sold to the Bristol Water Company and the agreement allowed only for the surplus to be used for farming purposes, cattle drinking, etc. The water company also objected to keeping pigs at Springfield’s as their urine had been found in underground streams, which surfaced in Cheddar, about 3 miles away. The pigs were kept for consuming the waste from Tallow and Greaves production. The water pollution was exceedingly serious, and I do not know how he solved it, but he did.
In early 1930’s, after the stock market crash in 1929 and the recession which followed, there came a point where production of the Springfield’s factory exceeded sales. This almost brought business to a halt with Bristol Butchers caught between a rock and a hard place. They could not afford to refuse the raw material (bones, fat etc.) that was used at Springfield’s. The supply of these raw material was virtually free but tied to the supply of hides and skins from the butchers. Had they refused the raw material, the supplying butchers would have simply sold their hides to Bristol Butchers competitors and once lost, could not be recovered without significant cost, and the resulting loss of profit. The result was a massive, and growing, inventory of tallow and greaves piling up in the field around the Springfield’s plant. What could not be sold was stored until the market rebounded. Bristol Butchers, which maintained a healthy balance sheet due to demand from consumers for leather goods, financed Springfield’s production at zero cost to Springfield’s by simply not invoicing Springfield’s for their raw material!
About 1933, my Uncle Cecil, took over management of the Springfield’s plant after several years with poor management. My father’s memoir is not clear on what happened next, but it appears that in 1934, my grandfather bought a large building on Feeder Road in Bristol in which to store the tallow and greaves until the market demand built up after the 1930 economic collapse. The world was now in the full throes of the global economic depression, also known as the “dirty thirties”. In about 1935, things began to disintegrate for my grandfather. The inevitable consequence was, that over the next ten years, he managed to stumble along until 1946.
From an early age, my father was encouraged to believe that he would inherit a very substantial business and comfortable life as the major shareholder and succeed his father as executive director of Bristol Butchers. He actively and vigorously pursued the belief in his succession, working hard and learning the business from the bottom up to impress his father and to be recognised by him. Uncle Cecil, who would inherit the Springfields plant, also believed in the promise of succession and worked diligently to make Springfields a profitable venture. Both men clung to those beliefs as the key to their and their families’ futures, but it was not to be.
In the post World War One period and the 1920’s, my grandfather had expanded very quickly, building up Bristol Butchers, buying Temple Eyden Farm, buying the Mendip Bungalow Hotel, and starting Springfield’s Ltd. During the years from 1920-1939, he had several financial crises brought on by directing revenues that should have been used to pay taxes but were redirected to fund the expansion and support of the operation of Springfield’s Limited. To satisfy the tax issue, money was borrowed from the bank and Kindersley Bros., who were the agents that sold all the output of refined fats, tallow and bone meal produced by Springfield’s. This loan had been arranged by Frederick Coates, the external accountant providing services to Bristol Butchers Ltd. while also being the external accountant for Kindersley Bros.
Coates and Kindersley were given assurances that the loan would be paid off as quickly as possible and agreed that Coates would monitor the company books. This did not last long on account of my grandfather’s “entrepreneurial” character. Not withstanding Coates monitoring, or not monitoring the accounts, the problem arose again with the tax department and my grandfather again approached Kindersley for financial aid. This time Kindersley, fearing the loss of their existing loan, and as a condition for renewing it and providing a new one, wanted their own resident company accountants to randomly examine Bristol Butchers books. They also demanded shares in the company as collateral. The bank took a similar position on their loan. These conditions were quietly but vigorously opposed by Coates, who saw an opportunity to gain total control of Bristol Butchers, and eventually everything else.
To solve my grandfathers’ financial woes, Coates offered to personally loan my grandfather the necessary money, which he could borrow from his own family’s extensive financial resources. This would be used to cover the taxes and pay off the debt to Kindersley Bros. In doing so he eliminated any intervention by Kindersley to impose their own resident accountant to check the books, which would hamper and probably abort Coates pending swindle. As security for the loan, he demanded that he be given shares in Bristol Butchers. The shareholders at the time were my grandfather, my grandmother, my father, and Uncle Cecil.
My grandfather said that he gave Coates his own shares “In Trust”, to be returned to him when the company was back on its feet making a profit. He also claimed that Coates gave him a transfer document showing the shares were transferred “In Trust”. This is questionable because my grandfather could not produce the “transfer” document. Furthermore, the Minute Book had no record of a transfer of shares. Coates, as the Corporate Secretary and Accountant, had control of recording all shareholder transactions. Was the share certificate fraudulently re-issued under Coates name? The “Coates Loan”, amount unknown, was deposited, and recorded as capital - not as a loan!
The Coates version of events is that my grandfather issued 500 new shares to him. This sounds a bit doubtful since this would have given Coates control of Bristol Butchers and the other companies, something my grandfather was unlikely to do under any circumstance! There is no doubt that five hundred new shares were issued, and money was paid into the bank. Again, since Coates was the Corporate Secretary, he could record all this in the Minutes Book, which he did. He was also the accountant, so he wrote it into the cashbook but, as capital, not as a loan. Being the auditor, he then approved the transaction. Everything appeared proper and in line with accounting procedures.
Standard business practice is to present a proposed capital transactions to the shareholders for ratification since it would dilute their own holding. None of this was brought before the shareholders in any special shareholder meeting or in any Annual General Meeting. None were ever called.
In 1946, my father got a panic call from my grandfather telling him that the business, his and Uncle Cecil’s inheritance, was being stripped away and that my father had to do something to stop it. My father, who had previously totally disassociated himself from his father due to influence by Frederick Coates, was also in a difficult financial situation, his marriage “on the rocks” but having to support his family non the less and unemployed having just been discharged from the Combined Control Commission after World War II. At this point and having no idea what had transpired, my father did some quick independent investigating and learned that there had been some questionable behavior by both Coates and my grandfather, to the detriment of the shareholders.
After an extended discussion between my father and Uncle Cecil, they decided to sue my grandfather and Coates, but first they had to persuade the third shareholder, their mother, to add her support to a court action otherwise they would have been in a minority shareholder position. This was done and a trial was held in London.
The court action by my father, Uncle Cecil and my grandmother proceeded. In the proceedings that followed, the shareholders petitioned the court to re-set the share structure back to a date before Coates was given or bought shares in Bristol Butchers. By that means, the majority shareholders could, by a vote of hands, remove my grandfather and Coates and take control of the companies – as should have been done thirty years before. They also asked to court to grant damages on the grounds that Coates, as the Corporate Secretary had, for many years, withheld information from the shareholders which placed them in a position of significant disadvantage to protect their interests.
While the court was sympathetic to the re-set of shareholder structure, it ruled against the petition saying that too many years had passed and many problems, legal and financial, would be created by doing so. The court did however award a substantial sum to the three shareholders for damages. Thus ended the “Upton empire” of Bristol Butchers Hide and Skins Limited, Springfields Limited, the Blagdon hotel and the Temple Eyden farm. Uncle Cecil was thrown out of Springfields because of suing Coates, who now owned it and everything else. Both my father and Uncle Cecil reconstructed their business lives by financing and taking total control of an initiative, ironically created by my grandfather, and jointly prospering to the extent of educating of all their children at private schools, enjoying lifestyles to suit their own tastes and embarking on other respectable and very profitable ventures.
My grandfather spent his remaining years in retirement homes and nursing homes, divorced from his businesses, a sickly old man, rejected by his wife because of his business deceit and disenchanted with the philosophy of Christian Science. There was eventually reconciliation with his sons, Uncle Cecil overseeing his, and our grandmothers’ final years in a nursing home in Bournemouth, on the south coast of England. She remained a believer of Christian Science to the end.
Having now spent a lot of time over the last twenty-five years plus editing my father’s autobiography and extracting this account of his father, I have formed the opinion that John William Upton was a classic entrepreneur, very autocratic, devoid of certain ethical behaviour with respect to his sons, poorly educated, untrained in business practices and probably distrusting of accountants and lawyers. He was certainly dynamic, a bit of a gambler, handsome, attractive to women and lived the life of a successful businessman. The death of his father at a critical point in his life, a doting mother, marginal health, and limited education undoubtedly contributed to his attitudes and his adoption of a religion which dominated much of his nonbusiness attitude. Had there been a better relationship with his sons, both of whom contributed to the dysfunctional relationship with their father; it was not one sided by any means, the story might have been totally different. We will never know and perhaps it is better that way.
And thus ended a sad chapter in the Upton family. What happened to my grandfathers’ “Empire”? The simple answer: who knows! The complicated answer: find Fred Coates’s heirs - and ask them!