1900-1950

PLACING BETTS

 

September 3rd 1903, my grandfather, Arthur Betts (right), joined the firm.

 

Additional premises in Vittoria Street in the Birmingham Jewellery Quarter were bought 1921 but a difficult period of business followed until 1929 when at last the company was able to pay its shareholders a dividend again.

 

It was not to last, war broke out in 1939, followed by a general strike and the Great Depression.

 

Exactly thirty years to the day after his father, my father, John Francis Betts had joined the firm on 3 September 1933. Those first difficult years in his professional career became rapidly worse when he joined the army: he was shot when leading his men at Dunkerque, and captured, spending the rest of the war as a prisoner.

 

In 1945 my aunt, Peggy Betts, joined the company to run the London Office, firstly in Eagle Street (sold in 1960), and then Kirby Street in Hatton Garden.

 

In 1946 my father was released and returned to England to take up running the business with his father.

 

The post 1945 war years were hard on almost everyone.  The Betts factory had not shut down as its furnaces and services were needed for the war effort, but making any kind of income to support a family was tough indeed.