Church's

Church’s is a high-end English footwear manufacturer founded in 1873 by Thomas Church and his three sons.[1] During the 1990s the company came under the control of Prada which bought 83% of the company at US$170 million.

For the fast food chain, see Church's Chicken. For other uses, see Church's (disambiguation).
Church's Shoes
Private
IndustryRetail
Founded1873
FounderThomas Church and his three sons
HeadquartersNorthampton, England
ProductsShoes
OwnerPrada
Websitechurch-footwear.com
Church's works in St James Road, Northampton
Native American Indian on the front office of the building - see St. James End, Northampton

History

Between the two world wars Church’s became actively involved in the development of the footwear industry in general. In 1919 the British Boot, Shoe and Allied Trades Research Association was created with Church’s as a founder-member. As a result of this partnership, the Northampton Technical College was established in 1925. This went on to become the University of Northampton in 2005.

The family business was taken over by Prada in 1999, and has since then expanded its outlets overseas.[1] As of 2014, the company employed 650 people. The same year, Church's took over adjacent premises in St James Road, formerly a tram and later a bus depot, in anticipation of further expansion which could add up to another 140 jobs.[2]

Location

Its main installations are located in the St James area of Northampton, with an estimated production capacity of 5,000 pairs per week, 70% of which are exported all over the world. Besides products sold to resellers and individual customers, the company also has several of its own retail stores, including ones in Jermyn Street, London, George Street, Edinburgh, Pacific Place, Hong Kong, and County Arcade, Leeds. It has 50 stores across central and northern Europe, America, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Japan.[2]

Notable users

British Prime Minister, Tony Blair had a "lucky pair" of Church's black 310 brogues that he wore to every session of Prime Minister's Questions for ten years.[3][4]

During Pierce Brosnan's tenure as James Bond, various selections of dress shoes from the Church's range were used in production. Lindy Hemming, who was the costume designer explained the choice of Church's shoes as having the appropriate weight to complement the silhouette of the tailored Brioni suits she had commissioned for Bond.[5]

Mr Bean (portrayed by Rowan Atkinson) wore a pair of black Church's on the TV show and in the films.

gollark: > In the early 1990s, O'Sullivan led a team at the CSIRO which patented, in 1996, the use of a related technique for reducing multipath interference of radio signals transmitted for computer networking. This technology is a part of all recent WiFi implementationsAh, so they contributed somewhat to WiFi.
gollark: CSIRO, that is.
gollark: It says that they came up with some sort of Fourier-transform-based thing used in the signalling?
gollark: I'm trying to confirm what you said about WiFi there.
gollark: I think that's America-based?

References
  1. "Church History". Church's. Archived from the original on 8 April 2014. Retrieved 18 August 2014.
  2. "Church's To Take Over Old Bus Depot". Heart Radio. Retrieved 16 August 2014.
  3. White, Michael (23 June 2007). "Brogue Male". The Guardian. Retrieved 28 December 2011.
  4. Blair, Tony (2010). A Journey. Random House. pp. 110.
  5. "James Bond's shoes auction" Northampton Chronicle 4 November 2007
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