A great photo from John Ball's website and this extract from the 1962 Kelly's Directory.
Bell & Nicolson Ltd. who. drapers, Cannon ho. 18 Priory,
Ringway 4. T A " Textiles " ; Central 7055
The wholesale drapery firm of Bell and Nicolsons grew from small Victorian beginnings to become one of the largest textile distribution companies in the country.
Its role was to supply the hundreds of small shopkeepers who were the main source of clothing, drapery and household goods for most people in the first half of the twentieth century. Small shop keepers would come to one of B&N’s warehouses, or be visited by one of its commercial travelers, and would place orders for goods that were then delivered by the company’s distinctive olive green vans.
John Macdonald Nicolson and Henry Bell jointly founded the company with Henry Bell, and Nicolson was its managing director for 40 years until his death in 1944, He studied the latest American retail, distribution and business methods and rather like his contemporary Gordon Selfridge applied these methods to an industry that was still often hide-bound by Victorian traditions. The firm prided itself on its relationship with its workers, providing various pension and welfare benefits that were ahead of its time, and creating a ‘family’ working environment that was often commented upon by visitors.
Bell and Nicolsons went from strength to strength as the century progressed. Their Cannon Street Warehouse was one of the largest blocks in the City, and 1936 the firm owned what was then the tallest building in Birmingham, Union Chambers. There were branches in Cardiff, Bristol, Nottingham, Stoke, Chester, and Belfast. But by the 1960’s the era of the small shop keeper, like that of the kelp gatherer of JMN’s grandparents, had passed. In high-streets across the country large retail chains which had their own distribution networks, were replacing the individual shopkeeper, and there was little need for independent wholesalers. However B&N’s still owned valuable real estate with offices and warehouses in most towns and cities in the Midlands and the North, and it was probably this that attracted the giant Courtauld corporation to buy out the company [albeit for a knock-down price] in the 1960’s. It soon became clear that Courtauld had bought B&N’s for its real estate value rather than to maintain a business that was shrinking year by year. Warehouses, offices and garages were sold off inexorable year by year, until by the late ‘70’s nothing remained of the business that my John Nicolson had spent most of his life building up.
In 1924 JMN bought ‘Winterbourne’, a large ‘Arts and Crafts’ house in the leafy suburb of Edgbaston, close to the University, which had been built in 1903 by the metal tycoon John Nettlefold, and over the next 20 years John Nicolson developed these into one of the most magnificent private spaces in the city. When JMN died in 1944 he bequeathed the house and gardens to the University of Birmingham on condition that they were well-maintained and remained open to the public. For many years Winterbourne was used by the University for the extra-mural department, as a botanical research centre, and as a women’s’ Hall of Residence. Whilst the gardens were maintained meticulously by the University, the interior of the house had taken on a rather shabby academic tattiness, but in 2010, after a major refurbishment costing several millions, Winterbourne was reopened in its original Edwardian splendour.
