Item 2020.79 - Lillywhites RAF Escape String Vest

Lillywhites is the brand name for a store in London’s Piccadilly that historically produced and sold sporting goods and clothing. It was established by a family of cricketers in the mid-nineteenth century. Frederick William Lillywhite (1792–1854) began selling cricket gear and equipment and publishing a handbook of cricket. Members of his family opened a store selling cricketing goods on London’s Haymarket in 1863, the premises moving to Piccadilly in 1925. He was in partnership with George William Frowd (d. 1914) who carried on the business from 1873. The company name appeared to undergo a number of variations: James Lillywhite, Frowd, and Co. (1873–1919); Lillywhite Frowds (Haymarket) Ltd (liquidated in 1923); Lillywhite Frowd Sports Goods Ltd (liquidated in 1974); and Lillywhite Frowd Retail Ltd. Through the twentieth century, advertising for the company used the brand name ‘Lillywhites’ and referred to Lillywhites Ltd. At the British Industries Fair of 1922, they were listed as manufacturers of a wide range of sports equipment, including for lawn tennis, football, cricket, golf, hockey and croquet; the 1947 Fair listing added gymnasium apparatus and swimming pool equipment among other items. In 2002 the company was acquired by Mike Ashley’s firm Sports World International from Jerónimo Martins, and subsequently lost its Royal Warrant in 2003. The Piccadilly store is still branded as Lillywhites but is run as a branch of Ashley’s Sports Direct chain.
Sources: The London Gazette; Grace’s Guide to British Industrial History; The Sunday Telegraph; The Guardian.