"HOW I BUILT UP A BIG BUSINESS."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 11, 6 February 1909, Page 3

"HOW I BUILT UP A BIG BUSINESS."

CONFESSIONS OF SOME WELLKNOWN MEN. It is not many years since Mr. Joseph Lyone, one of the most successful business nun of our day, was contemplating a career in art. and with, a very fair prospect of making more than bread and butter out of it (says a Home paper). Four of his pictures had been hung at the Royal Institution in Albemarle Street, and had-quickly found a purchaser.

MK. lA'oNfS' sroKY. "fliat success/' he say?;, "was encouraging, but 1 became, convinced that b. continuing as an artist I should take many years to climb the ladder of fame. I relinquished art as a calling. My first business success followed. I conceived the idea of establishing shops for supplying light refreshments in all parts of London which would be different to any then in existence. This brought my first business success, I commenced with Mr. Montagu Cluckstein, a great organiser. Our small shops immediately became popular, and as they grew in popularity we increased their number." To what' enormous and profitable proportions this enterprise had now grown cverv Londoner knows. HOW MR. GAMAGE GOT O.N.

It was a chance visit to a barber*.shop that, started Mr. A. W. Carnage on the road to wealth. '*[ was looking out for something that would go/' he says. 'The barber had various things that were good for the hair, and he brought to mv notice a new wire brush, sold at 2s. 1 thought 1 saw business in that brush, and I considered that if it were sold at Is 9d there would be a iair profit. My partner agreed. I bought half a gross from the manufacturers, and offered them to the public at the reduced price. The little brush shop in Ilolborn created quite a sensation, and that idea proved the foundation 0' ! our business." GREAT SHIPPING VENTURES. Sir Donald Currie, the- great shipowner. who has done more than any other man to make South Africa, began his strenuous life on a stool in a Greenock shipping office, and saved the small capital on which he himself started as au owner of ships while working for the newly-formed Cunard Company. Mr. Ismay, the founder of the great White Star Line, spent his earliest workiug years as an apprentice to a firm of' Liverpool shipowners, and proved so energetic and thrifty that at twenty-five, he was able to start ia business. FROM BLACKSMITH TO KNIGHT-

HOOD. , Sir William Arrol. the famous engineer and builder of the Tay and Forth bridges, was working in a cotton-mil! at nine, and spent many years of drudgery'as blacksmith, mechanic, and jobbing boilermaker before Fortune condescended to smile on l,is industry. And lie was already within sight of his thirtieth birthday when he was able to set up in business 011 his own account 011 savings amounting to .CSo, .CI3 of which lie spent on an engine and boiler. At iiftecu Sir Alfred Junes, the "mail who made Jamaica," and the millionaire owner of a vast Heel of steamships, was working early and late, iu the olliee of Messrs. Laird, Fletcher and Co., who managed the African Steamship COlll- - "Small pay aud plenty of work were my lot," he says, "but 1 continued to study ill the evenings at the Liverpool College." EHKAND-IiOY TO YACUTSMAX.

Sir Thomas Upton began his climb of the ladder of riches from the very lowest rung. As a boy of nine he was adding half-a-cruwn a wcrk lo lie scanty Uamily purse us err.and-l>o\. a lowly part Cvhich he played for haifa-dozen years. came that adventurous trip to America in search of fortune, with (Is tale of hardship and disillusion, and the homeward return with IIUI) in his pockciv with which the embryo Tea Kin;; opened Ihin small provision store in llla.s--I(JW. 1 Mr. Ei'nest Cassel, millionaire anil philanthropist, spent the iirst tin' l '!-' vcars of hft working life in the office of a Liverpool grain merchant before migrating toVondon tu spc " J ' l ft ' w ' more vcars as in a linanu-nl hoii^e Here'his great fecial talent starlod him on the road t\lortune, and while he was still in the tfVrties lie was negotiating important foreW loans and was accounted one of theW astl;to anJ successful financiers m Iwropc, TIIE TAXGYE At fourteen tins late >ir l.ichavd was learning the art of tenchin- ri,h<' at live o'clock eve\-y morning ami working until late into the nig.it for a salary of less than 2s a mont.i. including his board and lodging: and four vear* latfr he was ■'passing "ch on "I-' 11 yt»r clerk lo a finn Birmingham engineers. I lie turn of ■ tide came when, in partnership with brothers, he rented a manufacture! ~ at 4s a week, with steanr I lower' thrown in. and the firm ol • Tangyc brothers. Engineers. which wes to become one of the most famous ill the world, was obseurelv cradled.