Imperial Brands

1901 to 2000

The Imperial Tobacco Company was created in 1901, in response to the price war in the British market promoted by James Buchanan Duke's American Tobacco Company. It amalgamated 13 British tobacco and cigarette companies: W.D. & H.O. Wills of Bristol (the leading manufacturer of tobacco products at that time), John Player & Sons of Nottingham, Stephen Mitchell & Son of Glasgow, and 10 other independent family businesses.

The other, smaller companies, involved in the amalgamation included Lambert & Butler, William Clarke & Son, Franklyn Davey, Edwards Ringer & Bigg, Hignett Brothers, Hignett's Tobacco, Adkins & Sons, Richmond Cavendish, D&J MacDonald, and F&J Smith. The printing and packaging firm Mardon, Son & Hall was absorbed in 1902. In 1904, James & Finlay Bell Ltd was merged into the Stephen Mitchell & Son branch. The company's first chairman was William Henry Wills of the Wills Company.

In 1902, the Imperial Tobacco Company and the American Tobacco Company agreed to form a joint venture: the British-American Tobacco Company Ltd. The parent companies agreed not to trade in each other's domestic territory and to assign trademarks, export businesses, and overseas subsidiaries to the joint venture.

Imperial extended the tobacco-growing enterprises in the United States that W.D. & H.O. Wills had developed before the amalgamation of 1901. It also established its own leaf-buying organisation in the US based at the Imperial Tobacco Warehouse in Durham, North Carolina; this is now owned, and has been renovated by Measurement Incorporated. It built the Imperial Tobacco Company Building at Mullins, South Carolina, between 1908 and 1913.

Whereas American Tobacco sold its share of BAT in 1911, a divestiture prompted by Supreme Court rulings in an anti-trust case, Imperial maintained an interest in British American Tobacco until 1980. In 1973, the Imperial Tobacco Company, having become increasingly diversified by acquisition of (amongst others) restaurant chains, food services and distribution businesses, changed its name to Imperial Group while tobacco products continued to be sold by a newly formed subsidiary named Imperial Tobacco Limited.