Pipe Brands
Bowles & Son Ltd
A family firm founded in 1888 that distributed wholesale and retail tobacco and pipes from Cardiff's Butetown district across South East Wales. It passed into history when sold in 1979.
Bowles & Son Ltd was a Welsh tobacconist company based in Cardiff that operated from 1888 to 1979. It did not make pipes; it delivered pipes and tobacco to the user — retailing through its own shops on one hand, and supplying pubs, clubs, and small tobacconists across South East Wales wholesale on the other.
Because the history of British pipes is usually told through manufacturers, this intermediate link, often overlooked, matters for showing the routes by which the product spread into the provinces.
Three Generations Within the Family
The company remained in the Bowles family's hands throughout its ninety-year existence, effectively bearing out the "& Son" in its name. In the 1950s the business was headed by Reginald Bowles and his brother Ivor Bowles. Management passed to the next generation, two cousins: Reginald's son Tom and Ivor's son William (Bill) Bowles; it was these two who made the decision to sell in 1979. With the sale, the Bowles name withdrew from Cardiff tobacconism.
A Network of Shops
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Source: Pipedia, adapted under the CC BY-SA licence.