Rags to riches: the life of a master tailor
IN HIS lifetime, Montague Burton was often described as ‘‘the tailor of taste’’. With great courage and tenacity, he raised himself above anti-Semitism and extreme poverty to achieve phenomenal business goals that found work for thousands.
Montague Burton was born Meshe David Osinsky in 1885 at Kurkel, Kovno which formed part of the Jewish Pale of Imperial Russia. This was a time when Jews living within the Pale suffered persecution, legal restrictions and poverty. Certainly, Kovno was one of the most poverty-stricken provinces within the Pale.
Meshe’s father died shortly after he was born and although his mother married again, he was brought up by an uncle, Soliman Osinsky, described as leader of the Jewish community and proprietor of saw-mills and flour mills in Kovno. Details of Meshe’s early education are scarce though it is speculated part of this would have involved the intensive study of the Talmud.
With the deteriorating position of Jews in Russian society, particularly when the pogroms took hold, he courageously left Russia, along with two friends, in 1900. He may also have been escaping the prospect of conscription though this was some six years away. His uncle provided him with funds – the equivalent of £100 – and it is unclear whether his intended destination was America or Britain. Between 1880 and 1914, around 2,250,000 Jews fled Russia, with around 200,000 settling in the UK and Meshe was one of them. A number of Jewish people from Kovno had already settled in Leeds and a few were working in tailoring. The size of the overall Jewish community in the city at this time was estimated at 12,000. A proportion of them lived in a slum area known as Leylands.
Few details exist of where Meshe lived or earned a living on arrival in Leeds. Arguably, with the intention of branching out on his own and to perhaps escape anti-Semitic prejudice in Leeds, he had moved to Chesterfield
– a flourishing town – by 1904. Establishing himself at 20 Holywell Street as a ‘‘Hosier and Draper’’, he worked very long hours to cater for the needs of the working man. Buying wholesale and retailing cheaply, in 1906 he offered a man’s suit for 11s 9d (around 60p) and boy’s suits for 1s 9d (about 20p).
In these early days in Chesterfield he adopted the name Maurice (or Morris) Burton. How the names were derived is another mystery but he lived frugally. One recollection of him notes the ‘‘sole of one of his boots was tied on with string’’. It is also mentioned he had a great enthusiasm for knowledge and a keen desire to educate himself.
Initially, Burton concentrated on the ready-to-wear trade though entered the bespoke trade about 1906 which was in its infancy at this period. Progression in this area would lead Burton to have the world’s largest wholesale bespoke tailoring business.
In the years leading up to the First World War, Burton became very resourceful, finding capital to establish a branch in Mansfield in 1908, another in Sheffield on the Moor a year later. He engaged in clothing manufacture, trading under the name of Burton and Burton, with factories set up in both Leeds and Sheffield. In time, the firm’s headquarters moved from Sheffield to Leeds.
In 1909, Burton married, in Worksop, Sophia Marks, the daughter of a local furniture dealer. The couple lived for a time in a small terraced house in Sheffield and in 1910, Burton became a naturalised British subject. Further retail outlets were opened in Manchester, 1910; Leicester, 1912; Stockport, 1913 and by 1914 the Burton empire boasted 14 outlets.
Apart from supplying his own stores and others with clothing, Burton completed contracts to make thousands of uniforms for the armed forces.
By 1917, there were 29 Burton stores and in the same year Burton registered his business under the Companies Act with the trading name of Montague Burton Limited. He was employing up to 400 people, paying wages of about £10,000 per year, with an annual business turnover of £100,000. During the hostilities, Burton avoided being conscripted in 1917 and 1918 on the grounds that he was medically unfit and a war contractor. However, he was constantly under pressure to replace his male staff who had been drafted into the forces.
In 1919, Burton’s shops numbered 40, and 60 a year later, demobilisation creating an enormous demand for men’s clothing. In spite of the depression years of the 1920s and the following decade, the Burton firm continued to enjoy massive growth. By 1929, he boasted 333 stores and in 1939 there were 595. He was shrewd enough not to expand into depressed areas where there was a heavy concentration of old industries. Instead, stores were established in the London area, the south and Midlands where the economy was buoyant.
From the mid-1920s, Burton like other retailers, adopted a new attitude regarding a shop’s external and internal appearance. A good early example was Burton House, a six-storey building faced with Portland stone in New Oxford Street, London. Some of the stores were quoted as being
‘‘a cross between a bank and a gentleman’s club’’. A slogan was also incorporated into the firm’s logos ‘‘Burton The Tailor of Taste’’.
Burton kept complete control of his business and exercised strict economy. He personally wrote manuals for shop managers, meticulously outlining ways in which the public eye was to be made aware of the shop and its merchandise in addition to how staff should conduct themselves.
During 1930, Burton turned down the opportunity to be Mayor of Leeds though in 1931 he was knighted. Besides expansion in retail, Burton created a giant modern clothing factory at Hudson Road, Leeds in 1934. Before the outbreak of World War Two, further factories were established at Walkden and Worsley. This meant Burton’s employed 10,500 workers at Hudson Road and a further 6,000 in the Lancashire factories. Overall, the firm was one of the six largest employers of labour in the UK.
During World War Two, Burton, known for his strong opposition to Hitler and fascism wholeheartedly supported the war effort, donating cash interest free to the government. A proportion of the Burton staff joined the forces while those who remained, as well as Burton himself, contributed towards the cost of building a Spitfire fighter plane. Becoming known as the ‘‘Montague Bee’’, it was operational with a Polish squadron.
For most of his married life, Burton lived with his wife at a secluded house in Harrogate where they raised their three sons and one daughter. He died at a private dinner party at a Leeds hotel on September 21, 1952. The party of business associates were celebrating the Jewish New Year and the founding of the Burton firm which at that point had 635 stores. Sir Montague had just risen to reply to the speeches when he suddenly faltered, swayed and collapsed.
■ Further reading: Eric M Sigsworth, Montague Burton – The Tailor of Taste (1990).
One recollection of him notes the ‘sole of one of his boots was tied on with string’.