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Biography of Thomas Lipton
Thomas Johnston Lipton was born on May 10, 1848 in the Scottish port city of Glasgow. His parents – Irish immigrants – settled there. My father ran a grocery store. Thomas helped his father from childhood, learning the basics of the trade in practice. Unfortunately, he had to drop out of school when his brother and sister died.
A childhood that didn’t exist
At the age of ten, he was already working as a shop assistant and a shirt cutter in a small factory. Later, the teenager got a job as a cabin boy on a ship sailing the Glasgow-Belfast route.
As a fifteen-year-old teenager, Thomas went to America. First of all, he visited the tobacco and rice plantations. Then he traveled around the country. He took up any job to feed himself and pay for housing.
Labor or Luck?
Four years later, in New York, fortune smiled at him! He becomes a clerk at a prosperous grocery store. This work becomes a school of successful business for the young Lipton. He mastered non-standard advertising techniques and a competent sales system.
In 1871, with a baggage of knowledge and a hundred pounds sterling, the young man returned to his native Glasgow. Soon he opened a store, in which he was a manager, purchaser and seller. Low prices and beautiful windows attracted buyers.
The trade was going well. 15 years later, a simple grocer was already the owner of a chain of stores throughout the UK. At the same time, his shops appear in the United States.
Sir Lipton’s personal life
The eternal bachelor did not have descendants who would continue his father’s work. The well-known entrepreneur was also an avid yachtsman. In his company, Kings George V and Edward VII loved to sail on a yacht.
During World War I, he donated his yachts to Red Cross medical volunteers. He visited Serbia at the height of the typhus epidemic. Communicated with soldiers in hospitals and ordinary Serbs. Everyone noted his modesty and mercy.
At the age of 77, the businessman retires from the management of the company. In his place, the shareholders appointed two young managers. The multimillionaire died at the age of 83 on October 2, 1931. Sir Lipton was buried in his homeland – in Glasgow. He bequeathed his millions to spend on charity.
The history of Lipton tea
In 1890, the successful entrepreneur focused on the tea business, and his name became known throughout the world. He bought several tea plantations in Ceylon. The goal of the large planter was quality tea at an affordable price. And such tea appeared: after all, Thomas did without intermediaries, having his own fleet for transporting goods.
Queen Victoria loved this tea and became a fan of it. In 1897, businessman Lipton was knighted. It is worth noting that in the old days, tea was sold by weight. Lipton was the first to come up with the idea of packaging goods in neat cardboard packs.
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