ROMANTIC STORY OF COMMERCIAL FIRM

Radio Record, Volume VII, Issue 10, 15 September 1933, Page 41

ROMANTIC STORY OF COMMERCIAL FIRM

Suttons, Seedsmen, Founded At Time of Trafalgar

MOST interesting address was given to a large gathering in Wellington recently on the subject of "Some News and Views on a Walk through Suttons, the King’s Seedsmen." The lecture, which was illustrated by lantern slides, was given by Mr. R. Duthie, of the Christchurch Horticultural Society. i" ‘ The firm of Suttons was established in Reading, on the Thames, an important agricultural centre 86 miles from London, Mr. Duthie said. The soil there was noted especially for its seedproducing qualities. In the early years of the nineteenth century the business of distribution of seeds to the public did not exist as a definite trade; seeds were sold by any type of tradesman in just fhe same way as he sold the rest of his stocks. In the year of the Battle of Trafalgar and the death of Nelson, 1806, John Sutton established in Reading the firm bearing his name; it was a firm that was soon to revolutionise the whole practice of agricultural science. The actual buildings of the firm now coyered an area of over seyen acres and, from the one centre, its business has spread over every civilised counfry in the world. For more than.a century the whole concern had been under the sole ownership and active management of John Sutton’s direct descendants. "In keeping with the firm’s proud commercial position, its premises are a beautiful and impressive landmark," Mr. Duthie concluded. "In the daytime passengers on the Great Western Railway have unfolded to them a great vista of flowers in vivid bloom, forming an immense, brilliantly-coloured earpet, while at night there is the spectacle of. the huge illuminated greenhouses," ‘ |