GEM FROM THE ARCHIVE
Boots archivist Sophie Clapp tells Rosemary Collins about the company’s collection of staff magazines published during the First World War
Boots‘ employee magazines from WW1
Boots, the UK pharmacy, health and beauty retailer, today has thousands of shops, but the company began life as a small herbalist store in Nottingham, opened by John Boot in 1849. Under the leadership of John’s son Jesse it became a national business.
Within a few months of the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, 500 Boots employees signed up to the forces. In total around 4,000 of the company’s 12,000 employees served in the war. Of these, 330 men, 125 from the offices and works and 205 from stores, died in active duty.
Boots continues to preserve its history through one of the largest retail archives in the UK. As Boots archivist Sophie Clapp explains, the collection includes issues of Boots’ wartime employee magazine, which brought men at the front news of the home they’d left behind.
What document have you chosen?
Comrades in Khaki was Boots’ first company-wide employee magazine. It was produced in the First World War to ensure that the bonds between those at home and the men from Boots serving overseas remained strong. The then chairman Jesse Boot believed the war had created “a bond of union” between Boots employees, and the magazine gave voice to those ties. Familiar in tone, the magazines brought news from home and sought to offer comfort to those in the armed forces by re-assuring them that they had not been forgotten.
One employee commented: “It is impossible to exaggerate the pleasure I had in receiving this copy. Anything with the name of ‘Boots’ on it is like a message from home to me”. There were 12 editions of
Comrades in Khaki, from April 1915 to May 1916, when it was unfortunately discontinued due to shortages in manpower and paper. Each edition, of around 40 pages, began with a letter from Jesse Boot or his wife Florence. The magazines were packed with news, letters from the front and photographs of people and events either overseas or at home. The cost was borne by the company with the proceeds from the sales all going to the Boots Comfort Fund, which supported the dependants of the men in the armed forces.
Why did you choose it?
Comrades in Khaki, through its success, created a tradition in the business that still lasts to this day of sharing people-based news across the organisation.
Shortly after the end of the First World War, Boots introduced The Beacon and The Bee, company magazines that are peppered with the achievements, both personal and professional, of former colleagues and remain the most valuable resource for genealogists who are looking for information on Boots employees.
The magazines are also full of news relating to sports and social events and activities, which provide a vivid account of the communal atmosphere that existed within the organisation.
What does it tell us about the lives of our ancestors during the First World War?
At the time of its launch, the editor of Comrades in Khaki wrote that he was “daring to cherish the desire that this record may in a modest way be valued as presenting an account of what was done in a time of national emergency by those we love for the land we love”.
Despite there being just a dozen editions of the magazine,
The magazines brought news from home and sought to offer comfort to those in the armed forces
they are undoubtedly the most significant resource that Boots has in the collection, relating to information on the men serving overseas in the First World War and their experiences.
Each edition contained letters and photographs from the front, lists of men joining up, their military progress and obituaries. The letters from the front give us a brief insight into the mens’ characters and the stoical approach adopted by them in response to their circumstances.
One typical account commented: “We are billeted in a barn where draughts are not
unknown: they do not believe in draught excluders here, and we do not know the luxury of having our clothes off or of a bed to lie in. Still, these things do not worry us, but we keep smiling, and perhaps we will appreciate home all the more in the future”.
The magazines reveal the reactions of Boots employees who remained at home and the extent to which they tried to bring comfort to those overseas through charity events, gifts and letters of support.
The first consignment of gifts to leave the company’s offices in Nottingham for the trenches, described as a “welcome and useful parcel”, included “2lbs cake, two tins Nestlé milk, one tin cocoa milk, four cakes chocolate, two tins Vaseline, two tins Foot Comfort powder, two tins boric ointment, one tin boric powder, one tin Hygeia Salts, one tablet soap, four candles, one pencil, notepaper and envelopes”.
Tell us a bit more about your collection…
The collection, which is approximately 5,000 boxes in size, is located at the Boots UK support office in Nottingham and is a colourful and eclectic mix of archives and artefacts.
The archive charts the development of the company from the first store of the mid-19th century in Nottingham through its progress into large scale manufacturing, product development, research and healthcare and beauty retailing. The archive contains a wealth of information relating to product development, formulations, packaging and merchandising records and serves as a fantastic source for social historians.
There is also an extensive collection of store and factory photographs and building plans, which provide a varied and visual account of the changing nature of Britain’s high streets, and may well be of interest to local historians.
Details relating to former colleagues and their working and social conditions are well represented in the records of the various sports and social club records. A series of training records, policy documents, photographs and oral history recordings can also help to re-construct the careers of individuals or to develop a greater understanding of industrial life in the past.