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Burberry Clothing 1918 - New Photos

As part of researching for my book, "Leaning on a Lamp Post", I was required to find everything I could about life in Basingstoke, England, during the nineteen-tens. This entailed working out the layout of the town at that time as well as the locations of specific premises, including the shops owned by Thomas Burberry, founder of the Burberry empire. I also went through the Johnstone & Johnson family photographic archives as both my great grandfather and maternal grandmother worked for Thomas Burberry, my great grandfather from the late eighteen hundreds through to the nineteen-thirties. My grandmother was a buyer in the Haberdashery department for two years and that is how she was introduced to Fred Johnstone, my mother's father. Somehow I overlooked two important photos that show my great grandfather sitting with his employees in the Burberry Emporium building shortly after the Armistice in late 1918. William Johnstone was the foreman of the tailoring department and had more than 130 staff under his control. Throughout the whole of his time working with Thomas Burberry, my great grandfather always wore an immaculate three piece suit, made to measure of course at Burberry, a habit he continued well after his retirement whenever we visited his home in Worting Street, Basingstoke, only a walk away from where he once worked. Shown below are the two family photos I recently discovered. My great grandfather is seated amongst the 130+ seamtresses who worked for him at the new Emporium building In Winchester Street, Basingstoke.


William Johnstone of Burberry Clothing 1918 sitting with his staff

William Johnstone of Burberry Clothing 1918 sitting with his staff at the Emporium, Basingstoke

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