It is always sad when a well-known name disappears from the industry front-line.

Such is the case with Bartram Mowers, acquired last week by Ernest Doe following Ransomes decision to remove the franchise from the Norwich-based turfcare dealer and distributor. It is understood that Ransomes business accounted for almost a third of Bartram’s turnover so no amount of future business modelling would have realistically made up that shortfall, particularly in the current climate.

There is a certain satisfaction that a long-established family firm has been taken over by another long-established family firm. Established in 1898 as a blacksmith business, Doe’s have the bragging rights on longevity, with both companies getting seriously involved in the grass machinery business in the early 1970s. This was the start of the ‘heydays’ for the mower business that was to last for 20 years or so. The ‘sheds’ were in their infancy, local authorities had spending power (and spent to protect budgets whether they needed new kit or not) – and Tim Berners Lee was still a decade away from creating the internet.

The early days were notable for the amount of large scale distributors supplying the trade, a number of whom bit the dust when the DIY superstores started to take lumps out of the dealers’ traditional business during the 1990s.

The major sheds had taken over the light mains electric business, and companies (who were often major Flymo distributors) such as Stanley West in the South West and A M Russell in Scotland, folded as the volume business disappeared. Flymo themselves had owned their own dealer/distributor in Cheshire Light Tractors, later to morph into Cheshire Turf Machinery.

Bartram responded by being one of the first dealers to embrace the internet by setting up LawnmowersDirect in 1999 to bolster its consumer business (which stoked up lively comment from a number of fellow dealers!) and started expanding its professional turfcare business.

There is a fascinating dynamic in the relationship between big corporations and family businesses in this industry. In recent years, corporations like John Deere and Textron (Ransomes) have moved into appointing ‘super dealerships’ covering large territories with a multi-branch network. Their driving force is business efficiencies and the protection of shareholder values. They look at the market in calculated terms, but we are not yet in the realms of manufacturer-owned dealerships as in the car trade.

This industry is far too fragmented for that to be feasible – and single franchise dealerships have never really worked. Inevitably, when multi-nationals meet family businesses, their priorities are invariably different. Yes, potential and profitability are key factors, but equally so – people. People in a family business are rarely regarded as expendable commodities. They are the central core and fabric of family business. The protection of jobs will have weighed heavily in any decision taken by Bartram and Doe, and I understand a good number have been employed by Ernest Doe at the two branches (North Walsham and Framlingham) responsible for the additional business.

L-R: Colin Doe and Mark Bartram

So what now for Bartrams? Outline planning permission to develop the +20 acre Bluebell Road site has been in place for a few years, and recently retirement home specialist McCarthy and Stone announced plans to build 32 bungalows and 22 apartments on the site. Nonetheless it will be an obvious wrench for the Bartram family to exit the business that has been their focus for almost 48 years.

Of course it begs the question as ‘super-dealerships’ expand, will they start to exert extra pressure on manufacturers? The sheds dictated their terms to suppliers in the 1990s in a way that smaller retailers could never hope to achieve. And that changed the way that machines were sold into retail. Flexibility and ‘one-stop’ distributors emerged, largely at the expense of stock-orders and advance bulk ordering from manufacturers by dealers.

So, we wish the Ernest Doe team well in the expansion of their business, and say thank you to the Bartram family for their considerable influence in the garden machinery ‘biz’ over many years.

We should be proud that strong family concerns, large and small, are still the backbone of our industry, not hedge fund managers or venture capitalists.

Perhaps we are just not that interesting!