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Two wars were being fought in the autumn of 1914. In France and Belgium, the forces of the Allies and Germany were playing out the first scenes in the long, drawn-out drama of the Great War. But at home, battles of an entirely different type were underway.

In small firms and large factories, in workshops, warehouses, offices and shops the fight was on to maintain business and keep afloat. Of course for some the outbreak of World War One was a godsend; war contracts from the government and the move to convert production lines to manufacture arms and munitions could be the making of a company.

But elsewhere the onset of hostilities brought grave concerns for commerce. Large numbers of young men were signing up to fight, depriving businesses of both experienced staff and valuable custom. Horses and transport were being requisitioned by the War Office for use on the Western Front. Political and economic uncertainty hung in the air, concerns about exports and imports surfaced and there was a lingering fear of invasion.

Businesses large and small depended on advertising and to get their message out relied on posters, pamphlets and newspapers. A few enterprising and well-off companies even made commercial use of gramophone recordings.

As news of the actions of the British Expeditionary Force reached home, the tone of most ads was certainly patriotic and in some cases positively jingoistic. Images of union flags, bunting, soldiers or sailors, British lions and John Bull were commonplace and the copywriters excelled in upbeat triumphalism. In fact there was sometimes a thin line between promotion and propaganda. But as the winter of 1914 approached, one advertisement appeared in a local Somerset newspaper which stood out for its honesty.

Millard and Sons was a well-established and much-respected cycle shop in the market town of Shepton Mallet on the edge of the Mendip Hills. Their clearance sale ad in the Shepton Mallet Journal on 27 November refers to ‘the struggling tradesmen, who are fighting strenuously to make the best of the bad times through which we are passing’. It goes on to make an out and out plea for custom: ‘Millard & Sons solicit the kind support of all the cyclists and motor cyclists who are still in our midst. All orders of every kind attended to as promptly as possible’. There is a question mark here, over just how quickly the firm could deal with customer demand. That was almost unheard of in an era of boastful claims with little in the way of advertising regulation.

So why was Millard’s advert so downbeat for the time? What were the special circumstances which prompted such a frank admission that trade was suffering? The answer lies in the state of Shepton’s economy. In the early 20th Century this was a struggling community; the local textile industry was in decline and in recent years the population of Shepton had almost halved. Unemployment was high and the rush of volunteers to the recruiting stations in the summer and early autumn would have affected every business, including farming.

The year 1914 also saw the beginning of the end for one of the town’s big employers, the Anglo-Bavarian Brewery. Anti-German sentiments at the outbreak of war resulted in its bottled beer being taken off sale throughout Britain and overseas. Local people even threw bricks at the brewery windows. None of this created much of an atmosphere for successful commerce.

Although Millard’s was part of life in Shepton Mallet for generations, today it is long gone and a trip through the town centre will offer no hint that the firm ever existed. In the decades after the company placed that remarkable advert in the Journal, it moved premises several times along the High Street. But by 1974 it was all over and Millard & Sons closed their doors forever.

Location: Shepton Mallet, Somerset BA4 5AS
Image: Millard & Sons advert 27 November 1914, courtesy of Shepton Mallet Journal

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