Home / About Barbour / History / 1906-1944
By 1906, Barbour was a successful business and John Barbour made two of his sons, Jack and Malcolm equal partners in the business. The younger brother Malcolm expanded the business to supply Beacon oilskin clothing to landowners, farmers, farm workers and shepherds. He also produced the first Barbour catalogue in 1908, which as well as targeting seamen and farmers, focused on fishermen forming the core of its future business. By 1917, the mail order catalogue accounted for almost 75% of Barbour’s business including international orders from as far away as Chile, South Africa and Hong Kong.
In 1912 J. Barbour & Sons became J. Barbour & Sons Ltd with John Barbour as Chairman and Jack and Malcolm as joint Managing Directors. John remained as Chairman until he died on 7 July 1918 and was succeeded by Jack Barbour. In 1927 Jack resigned leaving Malcolm to run the business. In 1919, Malcolm introduced the Barbour’s Buying Agency which was founded to enable Barbour’s to act as purchasing agents – buying and supplying any goods that Barbour was unable to provide directly from the shop or the catalogue on behalf of anyone living overseas. This quite often proved to be a challenge with requests as obscure as half a dozen penny mousetraps to be sent to Tibet, or half a ton of ship’s biscuits to be sent to the Indian Ocean but it reinforced the commitment that Barbour had to customer service which is still so important today.
In 1928 Duncan Barbour, Malcolm’s only son joined the business, having learnt his trade at Bainbridge’s, Newcastle’s biggest department store.
During the First World War, demand was high in the army for oilskins and Barbour continued to grow. However, following the war with a general downturn in the economy and the Great Depression of 1929, the company’s sales fell significantly. It took until 1935 for the economy to improve and for Barbour to start making a profit again.
Duncan Barbour, a keen motorcyclist himself, introduced a motorcycling range in the 1930’s which quickly took off, and Barbour suits were worn by virtually every British International team from 1936 to 1977 when Barbour made the decision to pull out of the motorcycle clothing market. In 1957, 97% of all competitors who took part in the Scottish 6 Day Event rode in Barbour International Oiled Cotton suits.
With the start of the Second World War, Duncan was called away to fight and Malcolm Barbour took over full responsibility for Barbour again with the help of Duncan’s wife, Nancy. Again, they produced weatherproof outdoor clothing for both the military and civilians including the development of the Ursula suit which became standard issue for members of the Submarine Service. The Ursula suit was named after the U-class submarine, Ursula whose commander Captain George Philips was instrumental in getting the suits produced.