by their uncle and aunt, squeezing into theirsmall house, already home to the seven-strongfamily and their servant Leah. Thetwo boys worked for a shilling aweek plus their boots.

The experience made a markedimpression on both boys.Although they returned toPoland, they were determinedthat one day they too wouldfollow the example of their uncleJoseph and seek their fortune in Britain.

The boys stayed in Poland almostuntil the eve of the First WorldWar. When they returned toBritain, they came with theirbrides, having married sisters:Bertha, who was Sam’s wife, andShanka, who was married toJoseph. Bertha was bright andintelligent but quieter than her

outgoing and extrovert husband. Although Samwould learn to speak perfect English, Berthanever lost her accent. The couple brought withthem their first son, Solomon, always known asSolly, who had been born in Poland on 30 June1913. (Six more children would follow: threedaughters, Yetta, born in 1915, Sadie, born in1916, and Joan, born in 1923; and three sons,Nathan, born in 1918, Joseph, born in 1921, andLionel, born in 1928 .)

By now there were some 300,000 Jews in Britain.They may have seen the country as a safe havenbut many Jews still suffered anti-Semitic tauntsand discrimination from their non-Jewishneighbours. They continued to find safety innumbers in Jewish enclaves in major cities,including Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham,Leeds and Glasgow. Sam, Bertha and Solly renteda house in Plumbers Row, Whitechapel, lyingbetween Commercial Road and WhitechapelRoad, just a few minutes’ walk from uncleJoseph’s baker’s shop. A little later they moved toDuke Street, close to Aldgate, and it was herethey were living when war broke out.

7

Beginnings 1889-1924

In 1902, when Samuel Wernick first landed inEngland with his elder brother Joseph, he camenot as a refugee but as a visitor. Sam’s uncle,Joseph, had sought asylum in England in theearly 1880s. He had settled amongst anestablished Jewish community in the East End ofLondon where he ran a flourishing baker’s shop.He had invited his two young nephews (Sam wasonly thirteen years old) to come over and spendtime working for him in the shop.

The family Joseph Wernick left behind lived inWarsaw, the capital of Poland, although thecountry had been part of the Russian empiresince the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Thecountry also formed part of what was known asthe Pale of Settlement, a vast tract of landcovering the empire’s fifteen westernmostprovinces. In the 1880s this was home to nearlyfive million Jews, whose lives werecircumscribed by a plethora of discriminatoryrules and regulations. Many had already left fora better life elsewhere, with 350,000 believed tohave emigrated during the 1870s, most endingup in the United States.

In May 1881 the Russian tsar, Alexander II, wasassassinated. Although there was only one Jewamongst the assassins, it was the Jews whosuffered most from the subsequent backlash.The repressive reaction of the new tsar,Alexander III, caused the expulsion of thousandsof Jews from their villages, and resultantovercrowding in the towns to which they were sent. For many more Jews, the further decline in theirquality of life prompted a massive increase in

emigration. This time many of those whocrossed the North Sea decided to settle inBritain. Amongst them were Joseph Wernick andhis wife Rebecca, who headed for the well-established Jewish community in London’s EastEnd. In the twenty years between 1881 and1901 the immigrant Jewish population in the UK is estimated to have increased from 15,000to 95,000.

In the East End, the tightly packed Jewishquarter was concentrated in the streets leadingoff Petticoat Lane, although Joseph and Rebeccaheaded for the community centred on TenterGround, south of Whitechapel Road. WithJewish neighbours on every side, all speakingthe same language and sharing the samereligion and traditions, the Wernicks made theirhome in 9 Coke Street, and it was here in 1884that their eldest son Ruben was born. By thenthe community was expanding to accommodatethe steady influx of immigrants, and by the turnof the century it was reckoned that nearly one inthree residents in Whitechapel was Jewish.Although the area became overcrowded,housing conditions were often squalid and theimmigrants often received less than a warmwelcome from the citizens of their host nation,they had at last found a refuge from repression.

Born in 1889, Sam was one of five sons andthree daughters born to Issa and MiriamWernick in Warsaw. Sam and his brother Joseph,who was three years older, were following in thefootsteps of many thousands of their fellow Jewswhen they sailed across the North Sea in 1899.They would have been greeted enthusiastically

6

80 years of the Wernick Group

Beginnings 1889-19141

A young Sam Wernick.

Joseph Wernick'sbaker's shop in CokeStreet in the EastEnd of London.

during his time as a poultry dealer. Armed withthis experience, he set up in business after hisdischarge as a kosher butcher at 202 KensingtonPark Road, in London’s Notting Hill. But the1920s was not the easiest time for starting up anew business, particularly in an area that waspoor and run-down, quite unlike today’sfashionable, upmarket and expensive part of town.

Instead, Sam and Joseph returned to poultrydealing, travelling to mid-Wales to pick up oldhens long past laying for a shilling apiece, andtaking them back to the East End, where theysold them to the local kosher butchers. It wouldhave been hard work. Motor traffic was stillscarce, with just 150,000 motor goods vehicleson the road in the early 1920s, and the vehiclesthemselves were primitive and unreliable. Long-distance haulage could be a hair-raisingexperience, driving vehicles with under-poweredengines, brakes fitted only to the rear wheels,and no windscreen wipers. Journeys at anaverage speed of just 12 mph on oftenunmetalled roads seemed to take forever, withdrivers often working all day and all night.

Sam was never afraid of hard work. As well asthe long hours he put into driving back and forthto the East End, he also turned his hand tomaking the wooden crates for carrying the hens.He was so practical that his wife Bertha wouldsay to him, ‘Samuel, you have golden hands!’When one farmer asked him how much he paidfor his crates, Sam told him, ‘Don’t be a bloodyfool! I make them myself!’ But the questionprompted Sam and his brother to begin sellingthe crates, priced at a shilling each, from theroadside.

Sam obviously decided that selling poultry cratesto Midlands poultry farmers had more of afuture than selling old hens to the kosherbutchers of the East End. His youngest son Lionelrecalled that the family moved to Oswestry, asmall town on the Welsh border west ofShrewsbury, when Lionel was two years old in

1930. Sam and his family shared the same semi-detached house with his brother Joseph, his wifeand four children. Eighteen months later thefamily moved again, putting a pin in a map andsettling on Wolverhampton, a larger town betterlocated for sending poultry to London. For tenshillings a week Sam rented a house inPrestwood Road from the local brewery, whichowned the pub, The Prestwood Arms, next door.When the brewery wanted the property back toexpand the pub, the family left with £50compensation, and moved to a larger house at127 Waterloo Road, with a spacious back garden.While Joseph carried on working with Sam, healso ran the poultry business, employing his ownson, known as ‘Big Solly’ to distinguish him from‘Little Solly’, Sam’s son, to drive the hens toLondon. Lionel Wernick rememberedaccompanying his uncle back from Wellington inShropshire to Wolverhampton, the two dozenhens Joseph had just bought flapping aroundexcitedly in the back of the car.

The early 1930s were even more difficult. In1931-32 the level of unemployment averagedfifteen per cent, compared with a maximum rateof a little over eight per cent during the mostrecent recession. In reality the figures were evenworse, since the official statistics covered only

9

Into business 1914-1947

On 4 August 1914 Britain declared war onGermany. Men from Jewish families establishedin the UK for several generations believed theyshould fight for their country and many of themwere quick to enlist. By the end of the war morethan 55,000 Jews were serving in the Britisharmed forces. Sam Wernick was not amongstthem. As an alien immigrant without citizenship,he was forbidden from serving on the front line.Instead, Sam was making a living dealing inpoultry, capitalising on the particular fondness ofthe Jewish community for chicken soup.

This situation changed following the revolutionin Russia in 1917, after which Britain viewed the

Bolshevik state as an enemy. In April 1918 the 8th

and 9th Russian Labour Battalions were formedfrom aliens of Russian origin living in the UK. Thetwo battalions were separated, one based inKent, the other in south Wales, apparently incase they came together and began spreadingrevolution. Sam Wernick was called up forservice into the 9th Battalion on 27 September1918, just six weeks before the end of the war,when he was a little more than 29 years old. Hewas discharged on 22 November 1918.

It is said that Sam learned butchery during hisservice but it was so short that it seems morelikely that he had already picked up the trade

8

80 years of the Wernick Group

Into business 1914-19472

During the late 1920s Sam Wernick

made his living fromdealing in poultry.Judging from this

photograph, takinghens back to London

from the middle of Wales must have

been a slow, uncomfortable and

precarious business.

Waterloo Road,Wolverhampton,where Sam Wernickfounded the businessthat became theWernick Group.

internment until Germany invaded Russia andRussia joined the Allies. Instead, he was sent to afactory making Wellington bombers inPontypridd in Wales until he was released tocome back and help out at Waterloo Road afterSam had seriously injured his hand in an accidentin the workshop.

Nat too was a keen sportsman. As a ballboy atthe local tennis tournament in the summer of1934, he was able to get the autograph of thatyear’s winner of the Wimbledon men’s singlestitle, Fred Perry, the last Briton to win the titleuntil Andy Murray in 2013. Nat won a place tostudy economics at University College, Hull, thenan external college of the University of London.He also won the valuable scholarship that wouldhave enabled him to take up his place. Butevents conspired against him. As a member ofthe Territorial Army, he was called up on thedeclaration of war in September 1939. Sent toFrance with the British Expeditionary Force, andemployed as an interpreter – he was adept atlanguages – he was amongst the men evacuatedfrom Dunkirk, wading out to the small boatswaist deep in water, striving to keep his preciouscigarettes dry. Committing the sin of returning tocamp a day late from leave, which lost him hiscommission, he was sent to the Middle East,where he was wounded. He saw action inGreece where, following the arrival of theGermans, he left on a raft with two colleagues,both of whom perished before he was picked up.An artillery gunner, he went back to France on D-Day but ended his active service in the City ofLondon, where he used his skills to bring downthe V1 flying bombs and V2 rockets whichbrought fear and distress to the capital duringthe final months of the war. Nat married his wifeHetty while on leave during the war, and neverdid take up his place at university.

At the liberation of Brussels in 1944, Nat had metup with his brother Joe, an officer in the RoyalEngineers. Like Solly, Joe had left school at 16since he was expected to find a job to bringmuch-needed money into the Wernick

household. He found employment in theresearch laboratory of Tubes Ltd (later part of theTI Group). He showed promise, becominginterested in metallurgy, and was given theopportunity to study part-time for a degree atthe Wolverhampton and Staffordshire TechnicalCollege (now the University of Wolverhampton).He won the silver medal for the best student inhis age group in the country. When war brokeout, he was in a reserved occupation, but he wasdetermined to join up. He served in Europe afterD-Day, ending up in the German city of Hanover,where he too acted as an interpreter. In themeantime, he had married his sweetheart Eileenin 1942. Tubes Ltd kept his job open for him but

11

Into business 1914-1947

insured workers. Many families experienced longperiods of extreme poverty in an era without thesafety nets brought by the post-war Beveridgesettlement.

Sam Wernick just about kept the business afloat.As Lionel remembered, the family was ‘totallyimpoverished’. Every year his birthday presentwas a new shirt. His sister regularly pawned theSabbath candlesticks during the week to raisemoney for food, reclaiming them in time for thenext Sabbath. Although food was often scarce,Bertha was a resourceful woman as well as agood cook, and her children rarely went without

anything to eat. And theWernick household was also alively one. For Eileen Wernick,who later married Sam’s sonJoe, the bright, vibrant, openand friendly Wernick familywas a complete contrast withher own rather more strait-laced home life. The WaterlooRoad house was only a fewhundred yards fromWolverhampton Wanderers’ground and the boys fell in lovewith football. In later years thefirm’s vans and lorries boasteda livery of the Wolves coloursof gold and black. On the otherhand, Lionel could alsoremember listening at the ageof six or seven to his brothers

and sisters debating whether Ravel’s Bolero wasanything more than mere rhythm. This eclecticrange of interests was perhaps in line with whatSam told his children, that ‘in any activity yourely on your fellow man, and you will onlysucceed by understanding the values of yourfellow man’.

Sam was also resourceful. When the familymoved from Prestwood Road, Sam brought toWaterloo Road a couple of doors from the oldhouse. In the back garden of Waterloo Road heturned them into his first poultry shed. He also

bought the eight feet by three feet boxes used toimport cheap Polish eggs, taking out the nailsand using the timber to make more sheds. Theboxes, stuffed with straw, often smelled stronglyof rotten eggs, but sometimes a precious goodegg was found. By 1933, Sam was confidentenough to put up a hoarding at the front of thehouse that declared, ‘Sheds For Sale – EnquireWithin’. This has always been seen as thebeginning of the business that became today’sWernick Group. But the business had a difficultstart, and there were often weeks when not asingle shed was sold, leaving the family to live onlittle more than fresh air.

By 1936 Sam Wernick’s was one of ninebusinesses listed in the Staffordshire CountyDirectory as makers of portable buildings. LionelWernick remembered his father sending off forcatalogues from all the major shedmanufacturers, cutting out the pictures and,puffing away on his pipe at the kitchen table,mixing flour and water together to paste theminto his own home-made catalogue, carefullywriting down his own descriptions and prices.

Sam and Bertha were strong believers ineducation, wanting their boys to have what theyhad been denied. They encouraged them to stayon at school and aspire to further education, butin the end only one of them, Lionel, would leaveschool for university. All four boys won places toWolverhampton Grammar School. Solly, aschoolboy boxing and snooker champion, had anunconventional streak, and developed a love ofgambling, at which he would later be verysuccessful. Very bright, he was often suggestingbetter ways of doing things to his father, whowould usually respond, ‘Listen, Solly, don’t youcome here with your gambling ways!’ Timeswere too hard for Solly to have any other choicethan help out his father in the business. Whenthe Second World War broke out, Solly wasineligible to serve in the armed forces since hehad never become a British citizen. Born inPoland when it was part of Russia, Solly was intheory an enemy alien, in constant threat of

10

80 years of the Wernick Group

Top - Nat Wernick(centre back) with hisfellow soldiers in theEgyptian desert withthe 8th Army in 1942.

Nat Wernick on thefar right with friendsin Israel in the late1940s.

Bertha Wernick, wife of Sam.