History
In Pigot's Commercial Directory of 1837 John Zair is listed as a whip-maker trading at 8 Exeter Row, Birmingham, in the heart of the manufacturing quarter by Gas Street Basin. [1] Recorded still in the 1841 census as whip-maker, he was by 1849 trading from 280 Great Colmore Street as a "manufacturer of every description of whips".
Gas Street Basin is a canal basin in the centre of Birmingham, England, where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal meets the BCN Main Line. It is located on Gas Street, off Broad Street, and between the Mailbox and Brindleyplace canal-side developments.
John Zair was something of a philanthropist: he served as governor of the Queen's Hospital and was an annual subscriber to the Lying-In Hospital and the Eye and Ear Dispensary and made donations to good causes.
Birmingham Accident Hospital, formerly known as Birmingham Accident Hospital and Rehabilitation Centre, was established in April 1941 as Birmingham's response to two reports, the British Medical Association's Committee on Fractures (1935) and the Interdepartmental Committee (1939) on the Rehabilitation of Persons injured by Accidents. Both organisations recommended specialist treatment and rehabilitation facities. The hospital, generally recognized as the world's first trauma center, used the existing buildings of Queen's Hospital, a former Teaching Hospital in Bath Row, Birmingham, England, in the United Kingdom. It changed its name to Birmingham Accident Hospital in 1974 and closed in 1993. A listed building it is now part of Queens Hospital Close, a student accommodation complex. A blue plaque commemorates its former role.
His two sons George and John Jr would later take over the business and become the G. and the J. of the company name. They had their own factory built in Bishop Street, possibly to drawings by the Birmingham firm of architects and surveyors, James & Lister Lea, who managed the building's affairs until well into the twentieth century. When John Zair Jr retired in 1893, George carried on with the assistance of his son George Percy.
James & Lister Lea was an architectural and property consultancy firm active in England between 1846 and 2001. Established by brothers James Lea and Lister Lea, the partnership was initially focused only on architecture. Together, the brothers designed buildings across Birmingham, with a heavy focus on public houses, especially towards the end of the 19th century and early 20th century. Later in the firm's existence, it changed its name to James & Lister Lea and Sons. On 2 January 2001, the property consultancy firm merged with Bruton Knowles to produce a combined workforce of approximately 300 people.
The silver mark of "G&J.Z." was registered with the Birmingham Assay Office in 1884.
The Birmingham Assay Office, one of the four assay offices in the United Kingdom, is located in the Jewellery Quarter, Birmingham. The development of a silver industry in 18th century Birmingham was hampered by the legal requirement that items of solid silver be assayed, and the nearest Assay Offices were in Chester and London. Matthew Boulton and Birmingham's other great industrialists joined forces with silversmiths of Sheffield to petition Parliament for the establishment of Assay Offices in their respective cities. In spite of determined opposition by London silversmiths, an Act of Parliament was passed in March 1773, just one month after the original petition was presented to Parliament, to allow Birmingham and Sheffield the right to assay silver. The Birmingham Assay Office opened on 31 August 1773 and initially operated from three rooms in the King's Head Inn on New Street employing only four staff and was only operating on a Tuesday. The first customer on that day was Matthew Boulton.
George Percy Zair took over running the firm after his father died in 1914. Having successfully steered the firm through the war, he incorporated the firm as G. & J. Zair Ltd in 1924. By the end of 1926 he and his widowed mother, who between them held most of the shares, decided to sell the company to Swaine & Adeney Ltd. George Percy stayed on as manager of the Birmingham factory with an annual salary and a share bonus and became a director of Swaine & Adeney Ltd.
The Zair name was kept alive and the whips continued to be made in Birmingham, as well as some other Swaine & Adeney leather goods. The making of whips for other companies and outlets also continued. The premises in Bishop Street remained in the ownership of George Percy and his mother and was leased out to the new parent company. On George Percy's retirement in 1947 the building was sold to Sir Robert Gooch, Bt of Benacre Hall, Suffolk. [2] He leased it to G. & J. Zair until 1965, when Swaine, Adeney, Brigg & Sons Ltd took the decision to concentrate their manufacturing at their new Great Chesterford factory in Essex. At that point the use of the Zair name was discontinued.
Output
Besides quality gift and presentation whips, the firm made more utilitarian whips in vast numbers for sale at home and abroad. Whips were made to meet the requirements and climates of their customers. Whips with flywhisks were popular in countries where flying insects were a nuisance. Long stock whips were essential for the cattle ranchers of South America and Australia. Whips conforming to the differing regulations of equine sports in various countries were also made. The firm's success at the world's fairs in Sydney and Melbourne reflected its concern to meet local needs.
John Zair Jr went to Melbourne to assess the market for himself. There he learnt the benefits of kangaroo skin that was to become one of the firm's most important leathers. The trade-mark of the kangaroo holding a whip was registered soon afterwards.
Zair also manufactured whips for local companies to sell abroad under their own names, such as Brace, Windle & Blyth, saddlers of Walsall; William Middlemore, saddler of Birmingham. The firm also made whips branded for retailers abroad such as Greatrex of Johannesburg and Kopf Manufacturing Company of New York.
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