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Cave Austin and Co., Ltd.
Cave Austin and Co., Ltd was a chain of Grocery Stores and Cafés in the South East of England. At its height, there were over fifty branches over South-East London, North-East London, Kent, and Surrey as well as cafés in many major South Coast resorts such Deal in Kent and St Leonards-on-Sea and Hastings in Sussex.
History
The firm was established in 1896 as an amalgamation of several companies - Wholesale and Retail Grocers, Tea Dealers and Blenders, Provision Dealers, Wine and Spirit and Beer Merchants and General Purveyors. The original board of directors consisted of A.J. Cave, C.H. Cave, Alfred Austin, Charles Stamp, E Underwood, James McCabe, and E.J. Mansfield. There were two sides to the business: Grocery Stores and Cafés. The stores held a range of goods including fish, meat, green groceries, spirits, and hardware. The wholesale tea business was abandoned in 1903 and an intensive campaign was started to popularise roasted coffee with all coffee roasted, blended, and ground in the company premises by their own staff. By 1931, the decision was made to focus on becoming a 'High-class Grocers'.
Cave’s Cafés
Early in its history the company established a chain of cafés known as Cave’s Oriental Cafés with a distinctive oriental decor. They had premises in Brighton (1896) Eastbourne (1899), Folkstone (1900), Dover (1903), Ramsgate (1904), Hastings (1905), Canterbury (1905), Cliftonville (1907), Hythe (1909), Broadstairs (1911), and Deal (1912). The chain was controlled and developed by Mr C.H. Cave. After World War I Cave’s Cafés were further developed and modernised by his nephew, Frank Cave.
Grocery Stores
From 1932, after Mr C.H. Cave’s retirement, the Grocery branches were developed in London, Kent, and Surrey under the Chairmanship of Mr Charles Stamp (founder Secretary and Director). Soon after the death of Charles Stamp in 1935, Frank Cave was elected Chairman. During World War II the company suffered greatly with bomb damage: the warehouse in Lewisham, South London was bombed twice, and in 1943 the Eastbourne café was destroyed. The following year Hastings and St.Leonards branches were totally destroyed, and the Blackheath Grocery Store was badly damaged in 1945 by a V2 rocket. Despite the damage expansion continued, with new premises in Dorking, Beckenham, Mottingham, Worcester Park, Shirley, Rotherfield, Petts Wood and Crofton. In 1950 Frank Cave died and was replaced as Chairman by Charles Alfred Stamp (son of Charles Stamp). Expansion continued including premises at St John’s Wood, Downham, and Hayes, Bromley in 1952 - the company’s first self service store. In 1956 a Mobile Grocery Shop equipped with cold cabinet was put on the road. In 1954 a new Warehouse was built in Lewisham which included offices, coffee roasting department, cold store, ham cooking department, wine and spirit stores and sale room. At the same time the company was developing its own label lines.
“Sixty years of trading”
In 1956 the company published a booklet, ‘Sixty Years of Trading. A History of Cave Austin and Co., Ltd, Cave’s Cafés. 1896-1956.” In it was recorded the following statistics: over 400 staff, 24 vans, over 30 tons of coffee roasted per annum, 5000 gammons cooked per annum, 54 tons of tea sold and 2,600 tons of food delivered from warehouse to branches. It also noted the inclusion of “fancy groceries” including “okra, puppodums (sic), lychees, Bombay duck, bamboo shoots”. The Board of Directors were Charles Stamp, Dudley Stamp, Barry Hartnell Stamp, Stanley Rogers and Leonard Elwood. The publication concluded “The directors are confident that sixty years of progress will be followed by yet another period of similar development.”
Competition and takeover
Charles Alfred Stamp was subsequently succeeded as chairman in 1963 by his elder son, Barry Stamp. By this time, it was clear that the unmatched range, value, and buying power of the big Supermarkets, notably Tesco and Sainsbury, was squeezing the smaller operators. Even though Cave Austin by this time had 40 Grocery stores, they were unable to effectively compete in an aggressively competitive and expanding market. Barry Stamp was the last managing director and negotiated the company takeover by Burton, Son and Sanders of Ipswich in 1963. The name Cave Austin disappeared soon after, and by 1993 Burton business was sold to Unilever.
References
External links
- [1] London Metropolitan Archives
- [2] Sixty Years of Trading