The story
Founded by Montague Burton in 1904.1
The company was founded by Sir Montague Maurice Burton in Chesterfield in 1903 under the name of The Cross-Tailoring Company. It was first listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1929 by which time it had 400 stores, factories and mills.
After World War II, Montague Burton was one of the suppliers of demob suits to the British government for demobilising servicemen, comprising jacket, trousers, waistcoat, shirt and underwear. It has been speculated that this is the origin of the phrase "the full monty". In 1946, the company acquired the Peter Robinson department store chain. Montague Burton died in 1952. By this time, the company was the largest multiple tailor in the world.
The company expanded by purchasing various other brands, including competitors until it was split from Debenhams in 1998. At this time Burtons became a brand name, and the Arcadia Group name took over as the group name.
The companies purchased or merged with were:
1954 – Jackson the Tailor
1979 – Dorothy Perkins
1984 – Harry Fenton
1985 – Debenhams
Read the full text
1986 – John Collier
Burton was the official clothing supplier to the England national football team for the 1966 FIFA World Cup, UEFA Euro 1996 and the 2002 FIFA World Cup championships. In 1998 the company changed its name to Arcadia Group.
Philip Green purchased the company in 2002.
The Burton company archives are held at the West Yorkshire Archive Service in Leeds.
In July 2020, Arcadia Group, which comprised several brands including Burton, had been hit hard by the COVID-19 lockdown and planned hundreds of job cuts to minimise costs. As financial difficulties worsened, Arcadia entered administration on 30 November 2020. In February 2021, Boohoo.com announced it was buying the Burton brand from Arcadia (along with the Wallis and Dorothy Perkins brands) for £25.2 million, with the loss of around 2,450 jobs. All Burton stores closed as the company became an online only retailer.
From Wikipedia’s article on Burton (retailer), shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4