A benevolent employer, Montague Burton provided numerous welfare facilities at his Leeds factory, including a modern canteen that could seat 8,000 staff.
Montague Burton, Born 1885
TAILORING ENTREPRENEUR
Born a Lithuanian Jew (Meshe David Osinsky) in Lithuania, Sir Montague Burton came alone to Britain in 1900, at the age of 15, to escape the Russian pogroms. He was well-educated, having studied in a yeshiva, but arrived unable to speak English. In 1901, he was staying in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. He started as a peddler, then set up as a general outfitter in Chesterfield in 1903 selling ready made suits bought from a wholesaler. By 1913 Burton had five men's tailoring shops with headquarters in Sheffield and manufacturing in Leeds. By 1929, when his firm went pubic, he had four hundred shops, and factories and mills. His firm made a quarter of the British military uniforms during World War II and a third of demobilisation clothing. He was notable for his benevolent employee policies, and endowed chairs in industrial relations at several universities. He also had a keen interest in architecture. Many of his shops were in purpose built Art Deco buildings, often with a temperance billiard hall on an upper floor. He lived his last years in Charters, a spectacular modernist house near Ascot, Berkshire.
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