Contents

Early Days

In March 1919 when it seemed likely that their brother Leslie would soon be discharged from military service, Stanley Rose and Charles Rose formed a partnership which they called Rose Brothers.  Later that year, Leslie Rose joined them, and a small establishment was set up in tiny premises at No 16Rosoman Street in London's Clerkenwell district.  Here, at a rent of £1 a week, with a staff of one lad at 10 shillings a week and negligible capital, the brothers began to trade as merchants, mainly dealing in toys and similar merchandise.  Their sister, Clara, (later to become Mrs. Freeman, Company Secretary for 43 years) opened the partnership's first set of books, though at that time she was employed by a company of East India merchants.  After a few months she was invited to become the first office staff of Rose Bros., and the firm began the uphill task of establishing itself.  Progress was slow - too slow for Charles, who left the partnership and went abroad.

Prior to the war the mouth-organ had been a popular music maker, particularly with London's Cockney stratum: being made exclusively in Germany at that day, mouth-organs had well-nigh disappeared from the scene.  Their reappearance after the war was an opportunity for the Rose Brothers.  Severely hampered by lack of funds, nevertheless the company was to become one of the largest stockists of mouth-organs by the nineteen-thirties.

1920 saw continuing slow progress.  It was not easy to obtain supplies of merchandise: considerable opposition to the newcomers was experienced in those early days, from many established manufacturers and suppliers.  Years before, Stanley Rose had been employed by a wholesaler of musical small-goods (Ball, Bevan & Co. - now extinct) where he had met and worked beside one Alfred Victor Morris.  Both had acquired an excellent knowledge of the small goods trade, and had remained in touch ever since.  In October, 1920, A. V. Morris joined the Rose brothers and the name of the company was changed to Rose, Morris & Co., Ltd.  This, then, was the foundation of the company in the name which it now bears.  Adjoining premises at No. 18 Rosoman Street

Leslie Rose, Victor Morris, Stanley Rose – from a photo taken in the early years of their partnership.

16 Rosoman Street – the beginning of the story.  Our original photograph of the premises was destroyed with the City Road building: this is a recent photo.  This part of Rosoman Street is now scheduled for demolition.


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Harry Williams, Merchandise Manager.

were taken and a travelling representative was employed.  Leslie Rose and Victor Morris also travelled while Stanley Rose organised the operation of the tiny warehouse.  Those days, of course, were not the days of travelling in luxury by car: the representative travelled by train from town to town, with his samples in wicker hampers or 'skips'.  At destinations he would hire a waiting barrowman to trundle the skips to the customer's premises, there to show and re-pack them before catching the train to the next station of call.  In the early days of the company the partners after returning to London each Friday, were then involved in packing and despatching the goods they had sold during the week!  In August 1920 Henry George (Harry) Williams was engaged: joining the staff as a lad he was to become manager of the warehouse eventually, Merchandise Manager.  He is still with company today, though nearing retirement.  In 19 another lad was engaged, this time for the office Frederick James Pendle is still actively employed the company, now as Import Manager.  Lack of capital was a severe brake on progress, and the company's records of those formative years include mentions of the directors having waived their salaries.  Such profit as there was was at once ploughed back into the company.

There was at that time an active importer specialising in toys, skilled in the ways of importing, a fine linguist with useful contacts abroad - Adolf A. Juviler. With him the directors of Rose, Morris & Co., formed a separate company in Old Street nearby, calling the new company Sellinghouse Ltd.  Through Adolf Juviler the partners were brought into contact with Max Grimm, who became their buying agent in Germany and so remained until the second war.

In 1922 Sellinghouse Ltd. was absorbed by Rose Morris & Co., Ltd. (now operating from Old Street and Mr. Juviler was appointed to the Board of latter.  By 1923 better premises were justified, and company took up residence in Goswell Road, not from Old Street, where it remained for the next years of steady growth.  Rose, Morris & Co., Ltd was  becoming known for fair dealing, good service and excellent merchandise - and it has been the company's aim, ever since, to uphold the reputation established by its founder-directors.  Now there came upon the scene another representative, one Joe Harris, an irrepressible cockney who travelled the London area in an ancient motor van, becoming so much part of the London music trade that he is often spoken