Son’s nose put out of joint when dad sold butchers shop to rival
Business began back in 1831
In modern times the story begins with James Rayner Betts, who ran his butchers business from Week Street, Maidstone, in the pargeted building that is now the Tiger shop.
Mr Betts was a prominent figure in the town.
He lived at Greenhill in Otham and was an active member of the council, serving as the Mayor of Maidstone in 1910.
He may well have hoped to pass on the business to his son, Hubert, but regarded him as somewhat feckless – he felt he was rather too fond of a glass of whisky.
Instead, James sold the business to another butchering family, the Filmers.
Hubert was not amused and decided to set up on his own and in 1927 opened his own butchers – H Betts – a few hundred yards away in Earl Street.
This did not go down well with the Filmers – part of the deal with James Rayner Betts had been that the business was sold with the goodwill and that he shouldn’t start up a rival firm near by.
Subsequently, the Filmers opened a second branch of their own – right next to the Betts shop in Earl Street. As it was, James’ assessment of his son’s business acumen turned out to be right. Hubert Betts was never very practical and was more likely to be found in the Conservative club than behind the shop counter, leaving the business to be run by a manager, who may have taken advantage of the owner’s absence to doctor the books.
By the time of the Second World War, Hubert was in financial difficulties. Fortunately his wife Doris (nee Cannon) seems to have had more business sense. Her father owned the Medway Milling Company in St Peter’s Street.
The oldest of five children, she was clearly a character, and enjoyed riding motorbikes.
In 1939, she stepped in and took over her husband’s store, turning it into a limited company. She parted company with her husband, moving into a house in Queens Avenue, The Betts family have traced their family history back to Robert Betts, a Bearsted farmer, who died in 1572.
Seven generations later, Thomas Betts (1808 to 1893) was the first to go into the butchery trade, founding the Week Street business in 1831.
The business passed to his son, James Betts (1833 to 1879) before he passed it on in turn to his son, James Rayner Betts.
James Rayner Betts died in 1936.
The former mayor was knocked off his bicycle on the A20 and killed. while Hubert Betts moved away to work in a munitions factory in Slough.
The couple had already had four children, John, Alan, Sally and Wendy, and in 1943 John left school a year early to help his mother run the shop.
John was 18 in 1945, but with the help of Maidstone MP Alfred Blossom was twice able to defer his call-up, on the grounds he was needed for the business. In 1946, he did go into the Army with the West Kents and was stationed in Northern Ireland, Shoreditch and Colchester, until being demobbed after only 15 months.
His brother Alan, who was two years younger, had also decided to join the business and they ran the Earl Street shop together with a new manager, Joe Mercer, and three staff.
John married Enid Smith in 1953, and the couple moved into a flat above the shop.
A period of expansion followed.
First the brothers took over a small butchers premises at 48 Hedley Street. By the 1950s, Maidstone council was building the new Shepway estate and included a number of shops.
The brothers took out a lease on one in Cumberland Avenue and John moved out to manage it.
In 1958 another established butcher, Bert Older, wanted to retire and Betts Ltd bought his two branches one in Ashford Road, Bearsted, (now an estate agents) the other at 199 Upper Fant Road, Fant.
Around this time their father re-appeared on the scene.
The brothers gave him a job as a delivery driver for the firm and let him take a flat above the Fant shop.