Hope Brothers - Hope On

Author: Miss. E. R. Gill
Newsletter: #28, July 1998

A SAD END - AFTER 116 YEARS

With the closure of Burberry's factory at the end of May, and the loss of over a hundred jobs, we feel it appropriate to reprint Miss. E. R. Gill's account of its builder, Thomas Peacock, a great benefactor of the village.

Hope Brothers - Hope On

Among several documents I have received was a newspaper from Mrs. Gladys Clarke of Hampstead, the only surviving daughter of Mr. Thomas Peacock, who founded the Shirt Factory in Littleport. It is perhaps not generally known that the three seats which were placed in the Old Cemetery Park were presented to the village by Mrs. Clarke and bear the inscription:-

"Given in rememberance of Thomas Peacock, formerly of Littleport, by his daughter, Gladys Clarke".
Now sadly only one of these is left

A few weeks ago a leading citizen of the village remarked to me, "You know Thomas Peacock really made Littleport", and when one stops to think about the wages and conditions of life in the nineteenth century, this could well be true. I thought therefore, that it would be interesting to find out a little about him and being privileged to know Mrs. Clarke, I write the following with her consent and approbation.

Thomas Peacock was born in Littleport and was apprenticed to Mr. Robert Sayle, a well known draper and hosier in Cambridge. After carrying out the terms of his indentures in a satisfactory manner, he spreads his wings and went to firms in India and Hong Kong before returning to London to set up his own shop at Ludgate Hill. He lived with his family in Littleport, having purchased the Grange from Canon Hopkins when the latter moved down to the new vicarage. Some of the older people of the village remember looking through the hedges of the Grange when they were children and seeing the Peacock family roller skating around the garden paths, or walking around in summer in their evening dresses.

Thomas Peacock was very aware of the poverty of the people of his native village, and wished to do something to alleviate this. He had early realised that to produce his own goods would yeild a larger margin of profit, than if he bought from other firms. He had quite quickly made a success of the Ludgate Hill store, and had opened twenty-four more in other parts of the country. He had also built two factories and realising that Littleport was becoming a dying village, as its young people were leaving to find work elsewhere, he wished to build a shirt factory here. Littleport was suffering greatly from agricultural depression; wages were low, corn was dear and people lived practically on the bread line. Mr. Peacock looked around for a suitable site in Littleport where he could build a factory to provide work for the women and girls of the village. He coined the name Hope Brothers, his daughter told me, from a saying of his own - "Hope on" - his ambition at that time being to give the people of Littleport something to hope for.

Fortunately in 1881, the effects of one Mr. John Smith came up for auction. Among these effects was a site in Victoria Street which Mr. Peacock purchased for £540. By February of 1882 the factory was built and business operations commenced. About two hundred women were wanted, and there was no shortage of applications for the jobs. People began to come into Littleport to find work, and soon there were no empty houses; in fact Thomas Peacock had cottages built for his workers. Beaconsfield Terrace was built at this time. More shops were needed and Littleport became a small industrial town; the wages earned by the women of the family made all the difference to the well-being of the people. Many were women employed at the machines in the factory making shirts and pyjamas, but women who could not go out to work because they had sick parents or small children to care for, were allowed to have work to do in their homes. Linen shirts of best quality had to have hand sewn buttonholes, and these were done in the homes of the village. I know many of my readers will remember this, and also recall the days when they used to run to the factory before or after school, to deliver a finished "dozen", and take another lot back so that mother could continue with her buttonholing.

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