Cope Bros & Co

Cope Bros & Co was a company based in Liverpool that manufactured tobacco products from 1848 until 1952.Cope's and the Promotion of Tobacco in Victorian England, by A. V. Seaton, Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic“Gallaher takes over Copes Tobacco”, The Times, Monday, Dec 01, 1952

History The company was started in 1848 in Old Post Office Street, Liverpool by Thomas Cope and George Cope.“The Late MR Thomas Cope JP” -Liverpool Mercury (Liverpool, England), Friday, 19 September 1884; Issue 11448

In 1853 the business moved to the Old Church for the Blind in Lord Nelson Street, Liverpool. The company also obtained buildings and warehouses nearby over the following decades.“Sold to Thomas Cope” Liverpool Mercury (Liverpool, England), Friday, 6 August 1875 By the 1880s the company was employing nearly 2000 staff and producing multiple brands of snuff, cigars, cigarettes and tobacco.Cope Bros letter to the Times. The Times, Monday, Jul 30, 1888 It was estimated that in the late 1800s the company was contributing £400,000 in tax revenues to the Exchequer annually.Hatton, J., "A Day in a Tobacco Factory", Cope's Smoke Room Booklets, No 14, reprinted from the English Illustrated Magazine, January, 1892,

The Company became public in 1885 County Gentleman- A Sporting Gazette and Agricultural Journal (London, England), Saturday, 17 October 1885; pg. 1331 following the death of Thomas Cope in 1884. George Cope became the first managing director in 1885,“Death of George Cope” - The Leeds Mercury (Leeds, England), Saturday, 4 February 1888 and on his death in 1888 was succeeded by the newspaper-owner John A. Willox.

1904 was one of the company’s worst trading years as tobacco duty was increased.“Cope Bros and Co Limited” - The Times, Tuesday, 23 August 1904

John Arnold Cope, the son of Thomas, took over the running of the company and retired from the role of managing director in 1948 to become chairman.“Business Changes” - The Times, Monday, 10 May 1948; pg. 7; Issue 51067 He retired completely in 1949 being the last Cope to be involved with the business.“Business Changes” - The Times, Thursday, Feb 24, 1949 The company was taken over by Gallaher in 1952.

Locally The company employed mainly women and girls and was regarded by local press to be a model employer of the age "Local Hives of Industry", Liverpool Citizen, 21 January 1891, p. 6Fun (London, England), Saturday, 7 September 1872 with better working conditions than other employers. The company gave cooking lessons to the women Co-operative News 26 August 1876 and the company was also known to have an annual Soiree and ball that was often reported in local newspapers and other regions newspapers of the time.“Annual Ball at Copes” Liverpool Mercury (Liverpool, England), Saturday, 1 January 1859; issue 3394“The Use of St Georges Hall” - Liverpool Mercury (Liverpool, England), Saturday, 17 October 1863“Annual Ball Cope’s Cigar Factory” - North Wales Chronicle (Bangor, Wales), Saturday, 8 January 1859“Cope Brothers Christmas Eve” - Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper (London, England), Sunday, 13 January 1867 The factory in Lord Nelson Street Liverpool, and the Copes in particular, were praised for providing favourable working conditions for women by Charles Dickens and Emily Faithfull.The Times, Saturday, Sep 20, 1884; pg. 9; Issue 31244; col F Obituary

Marketing Cope's held a leadership position in British advertising. Smoking had been common for centuries but the innovations comprised brand names, heavy advertising, and market segmentation according to class. An innovative appeal was to health consciousness; the ads directed at the middle-class promised that "smoke not only checks disease but preserves the lungs." A rugged heavy taste was pitched to working men, soldiers and sailors, while "delicately fragrant" was part of the appeal to the upper-class. The packaging was attractive, posters were omnipresent to show that smoking was a normal part of English life; lobbying was used to undercut the anti-tobacco lobby.A. V. Seaton,"Cope's and the Promotion of Tobacco in Victorian England." European Journal of Marketing (1986) 20#9 pp: 5-26.

From 1889 the company produced their own publicity material and literature publishing Cope’s Tobacco Plant and Smoke Room booklets. The literature promoted the company’s products and also smoking in general and was combative in nature to the Anti-Smoking campaigns of the time.Cope's Smoke Room Booklets, Nos. 1-14, 1889-93“Do You Smoke it” Fun (London, England), Saturday, 11 February 1871 In 1893 John Ruskin took out an injunction against the company to stop them publishing his works in advertising.The Pall Mall Gazette (London, England), Saturday, 25 November 1893RUSKIN v. COPE BROTHERS & CO., LIMITED The Belfast News-Letter (Belfast, Ireland), Monday, 27 November 1893 Many of the Cope Bros cigarette cards are still collected, bought and traded on auction web sites such as eBay.

References

Cope Bros & Co

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