Henry Percy Bulmers Background - Case Study Example

Henry “Percy” Bulmer was the youngest son of Reverend Charles Bulmer and Mary who had the passion and behavior of pressing apples from the family’s orchard (Halley106). This therefore implies that Bulmer had a passion to make cider, a traditional practice that was carried out by the family. Percy usually unable to go to school during his child age due to his severe asthmatic condition thereby making it difficult for him to be employed in the later stages of life. This led him to consider starting his own business as a means to survive, thereby taking in his mother’s advice that food and drinks “do not go out of fashion” (Leader, 2014, para. 1). Doing this would enable Percy to sustain himself without seeking employment. Previously, Percy and Edward Frederick (his elder brother), had engaged in making small amounts of Perry and cider through the use of their neighbor’s stone mill. Percy used this as the foundation for spurring his trade and therefore he started manufacturing larger quantities. In 1887, Percy manufactured 40 casks and as a result, he established a minor commercial premises at Maylord Street (Mac, 2003, p. 80). Due to this, his brother decided to abandon his intended teaching career in King’s College situated in Cambridge so as to pool with Percy in running the cider making business. Percy then borrowed a loan of up to £1,760 from their father thereby using it to relocate the premises to a one acre land spot at Ryelands Street, where they built a small hut with an underground room. During this period, Thomas Kennett was the only external staff and they used the mill wheel to produce cider since the business could not ye afford any steam powered machinery. This therefore made work quite hard and tiresome since they were using their hands to rotate the mill wheel. During the year 1889, Percy sent Fred to attend the Royal Agricultural Show which was hosted at the Windsor Great Park (The Genealogist, 2011, para. 5). However, during the show, their cider won the second award in every single class that it entered. As a result Percy then sought to travel all-round the country in order to try to sell much of their cider thereby anticipating to gain more customers. However, he realized that the salesmen were only willing to buy products that were being ordered or requested for by the consumers. Cider was therefore not popular among the citizens in other parts of the nation and hence Percy realized that there was an absolute need to create awareness of their product in order to increase demand and growth of their business (Watson, 2013, p. 22). This made Percy and his brother to look extensively for all the addresses from trade directories and wrote messages in booklets after which they sent these messages out to as many people as possible. This action would highly create awareness of cider among the residents of the region and the country in general. Percy was forced to purchase highly expensive apples from Somerset during the year 1890 since their crops were highly affected with poor weather. This factor therefore affected the revenue of the company since the apples were highly expensive. In the subsequent year, Percy and Fred were betrayed by their uncle, who purchased up to ten acres of land that was surrounding their firm at Ryelands. Percy knew that for the firm to grow they would need this land for expansion (Graham & Smart 2012, p. 290). However, they managed to eventually purchase the land after the demise of both the landlord and their uncle. After ownership of the land for a few years, they vended off three acres to builders and used the money to settle the remaining cost of purchasing the additional ten acres. This was such a wise idea since the price of the land had highly appreciated over the few years. After the land subject had been resolved, Percy started experimenting with several pressing machines in manufacturing cider. However, he found out that a big number of the machines were designed for wine pressing as opposed to cider. Percy therefore decided to travel abroad, particularly to France (Blocker, Fahey & Tyrrell 2003, p. 160), in order to gain the scientific knowledge behind cider making. To do this, Percy decided to borrow some additional help in terms of loans from one of Fred’s Cambridge friends who was a bank manager. They gained knowledge that enabled them to invest in large oak containers, which could permit the storage of more apples when the prices were low, thereby consequently allowing them to seize the opportunity of selling the apples when the market prizes were high. Besides, the two brothers expanded their basement, which was built on sand and gravel. This made it easier for them to dig deep into the soil during construction, thereby enabling them to sale the surplus sand and gravel to the constructors. Equally important, they met Robert Worth who was a highly reputable engineer and as a result they were able to get important advice concerning their machinery. This therefore greatly reduced their maintenance cost since Percy became more knowledgeable in using the different machines. After a few years, Percy and Fred started manufacturing champagne cider that Percy had learnt how to make when he had gone to France. The firm, which was known as Bulmer’s was then granted a Royal License in 1911 (Herefordshire Council 2012, para. 7) and as a result, Percy and Fred were able to employ other people in order to expand the business. This increased the number of employees in Bulmer’s to almost 200 in the year 1919. Charles Bulmer and Geoffrey, their father and Percy’s eldest son respectively, passed away in the year 1918 during the First World War. This was a tragedy to the family and in addition to that, Percy also fell terminally ill. This resulted to the decision to disband their partnership thereby turning the company into a limited liability corporation. Percy eventually passed on in 1919 and his brother acquired the solitary control of the business. Works Cited Blocker, J. S, Fahey, D. M, & Tyrrell, I. R 2003, Alcohol and temperance in modern history: an international encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, Calif, ABC-CLIO. Graham, J & Smart, S 2012, Introduction to corporate finance, Mason, Ohio, South-Western Cengage Learning. Halley, N 2005, The Wordsworth Dictionary of Drink an A-Z of Alcoholic Beverages, Wordsworth Editions Ltd. Herefordshire Council, 2012, Herefordshire through Time, Retrieved 28 November 2014 from http://htt.herefordshire.gov.uk/540.aspx. Leader, 2014, The Guardian: In praise of Cider, Retrieved 28 November 2014 from http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/may/10/food.comment. MAC, F 2003, Cider lore: cider in the three counties. Herefordshire, Logaston Press. The Genealogist, 2011, Bulmer's Cider: Past and Present, Retrieved 28 November 2014 from https://www.thegenealogist.com/featuredarticles/2011/bulmers-cider-past-and-present-54/. Watson, B 2013, Cider, hard & sweet: history, traditions, and making your own. Woodstock, VT, Countryman Press. Read More