Swaine Adeney Brigg

founded by

John Ross

about

Swaine Adeney is a leather luggage maker. Brigg is the umbrella division. There are walking canes for both sexes as well as a wide range of lady's umbrellas. They are based in a large shop at 54, St James's St, London, where it abuts Piccadilly at the end of Jermyn Street.

The firm has held a Royal Warrant since 1893 for umbrellas, and for leather travel goods and business cases.

Umbrellas start around £200 and go up to over a thousand for the ones with silk canopies. Leather bags start around £500 and go to £2300 for the Gladstone Bag. The more expensive versions are hand sewn. There is a range of country clothing and equestrian equipment of high quality as well. They offer, in addition, shirts, shoes, hats, cufflinks and ties as well as jackets and overcoats.

The company also owns Papworth leather goods which offers less expensive versions of the Swaine cases.

history

In the year 1750, John Ross founded a Whip making business at 238 Piccadilly, London W1.

James Swaine later purchased this business in 1798, having for some years been foreman of a successful whip making business in Holborn.

A royal appointment to His Majesty King George III and to his sons, The Prince of Wales and the Dukes of York, Clarence, Kent, Cumberland and Cambridge quickly followed and Swaine Adeney's reputation for quality and excellence was established.

The Royal appointments were renewed in the reigns of His Majesty George IV and His Majesty William IV. In the year 1835, James Swaine moved his business to larger premises at 185 Piccadilly. The business continued to flourish and in 1845 Edward Swaine took his nephew into partnership and Swaine Adeney was born.

In many ways, much remains the same today, the same artisan's crafts are used to hand-shape the fine leather goods: tooling, stitching and engraving each piece in time-honoured tradition.

The Swaine Adeney workshops near Cambridge are one of the UK's last studios left in the UK to craft fine leather in this way. This is where customers can send their favourite pieces for repair, however old!

In 1851, Swaine Adeney decided to put its fine products on show to the world at The London Exhibition held at the newly constructed Crystal Palace. The Exhibition was the largest the world had ever seen (attracting over six million visitors to a space four times the size of St. Peter's in Rome).

Swaine Adeney won several prize medals at the London Exhibition, prompting the company to show its fine goods at the Paris Exhibition of 1900 (at which further medals followed). Swaine Adeney's reputation was now growing on a worldwide stage, as the finest producer of leather goods.

Thomas Brigg and Son's was established in 1836 at No. 23 St. James's Street a stone's throw from Swaine Adeney Brigg's present location. The company specialised in the manufacture of the finest umbrellas, walking sticks and hunting crops.

During the Second World War, Brigg & Sons lost its Paris shop when France was occupied. Back home in London, help was at hand in the form of Swaine Adeney: the two firms joined forces mid-war in February 1943, to form Swaine Adeney Brigg & Sons Limited. The store became well known for the supply of its exquisite equestrian goods, which are still made to this day.