Thomas Lipton Yachtsman

UPTON TEA QUARTERLY Vol 23 No. 3 Holliston, Massachusetts Summer, 2014 Reversals of Fortune in the Tea Industry Part XXXII: Thomas Lipton, Yachtsman THOMAS J. LIPTON ABOARD HIS BELOVED YACHT ERIN, SPORTING HIS TRADEMARK YACHTSMAN’S CAP. “T he acquisition of the Erin spelt for me a new joy. Only then did I begin to realize that it is not good for any man to be tied, neck and heel, to his office desk. No matter how hard I worked there was always the complete change and pleasure of a week-end on the Erin to break the monotony and to give me fresh vitality. Besides, I found I could have much more companionship on my ship than I could possibly have ashore. By and by, the Erin became famous for her visitors. Looking back now it gives me intense satisfaction to recall the many prominent and distinguished people to whom I had the honor of acting as host aboard my floating home. And here let me say that these people were not merely aristocrats — they were the men and women who were pulling their weight in the Ship of Life in one form or another.” — Sir Thomas Lipton Please turn to page 48. Copyright 2014 Upton Tea Imports, LLC. All rights reserved. Page 48 Upton Tea Quarterly Summer, 2014 Reversals of Fortune in the well established and rapidly growing, significant capital would have been required if he Tea Industry, Part XXXII expected to go head-to-head with them. Lip- As we learned in Part XXXI of Reversals of ton was opposed to debt, but in the long run Fortune in the Tea Industry, Thomas Lipton’s he discovered that answering to shareholders support for the charitable Jubilee dinner for was worse than carrying bank debt. the poor, in conjunction with Queen Victo- After careful consideration, Lipton wisely ria’s Diamond Jubilee, had a dramatic impact chose to forego entry into the American retail on his public image. Lipton was no longer grocery market and to concentrate solely on simply the proprietor of a successful chain of the wholesale tea market in North America. provisioning stores, catering to working class He kept this entity separate from his publicly patrons of modest means. Almost overnight, traded U.K. enterprise, Lipton, Ltd. he became a larger-than-life philanthropist While Lipton would come to regret tak- who rubbed elbows with royalty, while still ing his company public, it must have been maintaining the simple unpretentiousness gratifying to see how anxious the public was that endeared him to his customers. to own shares in his company when the pub- Lipton was always an advocate of adver- lic offering was announced. In The Lipton tising, but he soon realized that a press-wor- Story, Alec Waugh described the atmosphere thy contribution to a charitable cause was at the time of the stock offering: possibly more valuable than paid advertising Remarkable scenes took place. “It is only once of equivalent cost. In short, philanthropy was in a decade,” the Telegraph reported, “that the city sees an issue attended with so much excite- good for business. It would be cynical to state ment as that which has characterized the con- that this was Lipton’s only motive for step- version of Sir Thomas Lipton’s gigantic ping up his philanthropic activities, for he business, and it will undoubtedly serve as a landmark by which to estimate the magnitude had always been generous in that regard. of similar enterprises in the future.” Rather, he simply recognized that a contribu- “At the Lipton offices in the City Road,” another tion large enough to generate newsprint paper said, “some hundred extra clerks are trumped a handful of smaller doles. engaged, registering the shares, and even they are barely able to keep pace with the work. Sir By the end of the nineteenth century, Lip- Thomas Lipton has been besieged with personal ton had become quite wealthy. He had no applications.” debt and the rapid expansion of his business A private investor had previously offered was paid for with cash flow. There was no Lipton £2 million for his U.K. operations. need to take on investors or issue stock, but in With the public offering, he received a pre- May 1898 that is precisely what he did. mium of 25% over that price, while still Lipton did not even mention the public maintaining majority ownership. Financially stock offering of 1898 in his autobiography. it was a great deal for him, but as early as the In fact, there are many significant events in first stockholders’ meeting Lipton appeared his life that he chose not to chronicle because distraught over his lost autonomy. they were either too private or too painful for Alec Waugh explains it as such: him to make public. Selling shares of his On the second of June, in the Cannon Street company to strangers was one of these events. Hotel, Lipton directed his first shareholders’ Originally, the public offering may have meeting. been motivated by his consideration of entry It was the first time in thirty years that he had to into the American retail grocery market. Such answer for his actions. Since the day he had opened his first shop in Stobcross Street he had a move would have been expensive, and could been beholden to nobody except his mother. It possibly have exhausted even his substantial was he who had given orders. Now, when his cash reserves. With the A&P grocery chain fortunes were at their peak, there was something (800)234-8327 www.uptontea.com © 2014 Upton Tea Imports, LLC. All rights reserved. Summer, 2014 Upton Tea Quarterly Page 49 ironic, something inappropriate in his having to ner to four hundred thousand of the poorest justify his conduct before a group of strangers. people in Britain in commemoration of the Diamond Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victo- Perhaps he himself felt that the whole episode ria. ... was out of character. Certainly his manner at the meeting surprised some of his subordinates. The second of the interests which began to link He had memorised his speech, but he had me more closely with the outer world in the late memorised it inaccurately. He made mistakes ‘nineties was my passion for yachting. Through and needed the prompting of a fellow director. the strenuous years of building up my business I He had not the air of authority to which they had not lost one spark of my early love for the were accustomed. Nor did the meeting pass off sea. ... But it was not until the year 1898 that I without dispute, a gentleman of eighty ... rising found my thoughts definitely and longingly to protest against the sale of alcohol in the Lip- turning again to my boyhood’s passion — to the ton markets. If he had known, he said, that the wind and the waves and the salt spray lashing directorate was going to embark on such activi- and a mast bending under a well-filled sail. ties he would never have applied for shares. He Lipton was not satisfied with an ordinary was shouted down with offers by other shareholders to buy his shares from him and the inci- return to his “boyhood’s passion.” In the sum- dent was quickly over, but the protest had been mer of 1898, Lipton sponsored a challenge to made. Nor had it been handled from the chair with wit and ease. Lipton had looked shy and the New York Yacht Club for a chance to awkward. It was not the anticipated triumph. return the America’s Cup to the U.K. Things would not improve with time, but The America’s Cup got its name from a at least for a while good dividends were paid. sporting schooner, christened America, com- Lipton was a very private man when it came missioned by a syndicate of six members of to his emotions. He never revealed his feelings the New York Yacht Club. In 1851 the America about the loss of control of Lipton, Ltd., but was sent to England on behalf of the New premonitions of that loss may have been what York Yacht Club to participate in an annual sparked his interests in pursuits outside of the regatta sponsored by England’s prestigious office. Royal Yacht Squadron. The prize for the win- Prior to 1897, the year of Queen Victo- ner of a 53-nautical-mile race around the Isle ria’s Diamond Jubilee, Lipton was totally of Wight was a bottomless two-foot silver focused on, and driven by, his enterprise. Alec ewer weighing 134 ounces, referred to at that Waugh describes his life thusly: time as the Hundred Guinea Cup. Competi- tion included some of the finest sporting He went straight home as soon as he finished work. His staff party at Osidge [his home] yachts owned by members of the exclusive became an annual affair, but it was his only Royal Yacht Squadron. party in the year. Occasionally he would take The America handily trounced all com- home two or three of his associates to a dinner that would be in fact a conference. Occasionally, petitors, besting the second place winner by but not very often, a neighbour would drop in eight minutes. In 1857 the Hundred Guinea for billiards. But that was all. In London, a Cup was officially renamed the America’s Cup multi-millionaire in his middle forties, he was leading the same life that he had led in Glasgow and donated to the New York Yacht Club, to in his early twenties as the owner of two small serve as a “perpetual international racing tro- stores, when every now and then he slept under the counter rather than waste time walking phy.” Until 1983 the America’s Cup was suc- home.

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