Rodbers of Richmond Ltd started life in October 1906 as Rodber & Sons. It was originally owned by William Walter Rodber, William Stanley Rodber and Ernest Bright Rodber of Richmond and traded from 28 Market Place, Richmond as “Wholesale and Retail Ironmongers and Glass and China Merchants”
Rodber & Sons was sold in the early 1950’s to G.Shaw Ltd, a local builder. Ken Hutchinson was employed by Mr Shaw as General Manager. He was given a car and a bag of cash by Mr Shaw and set off visiting wholesalers in Leeds, Newcastle and Manchester, paying cash for goods and bringing them back in his car.
Mr Shaw’s son, George W Shaw joined the business and took over the running of it in 1960. In 1979 the business was sold to D.Garner & Sons Ltd who changed the name to Rodbers Of Richmond Ltd.
In the early 1990’s Rodbers bought the old cinema in Queens Road, Richmond and after renovating it moved the retail shop part of the business there, leaving the builders merchants at the rear of the Market Place store in Waterloo Street.
We have built a very loyal customer base and we like to think our customer service and product knowledge is first class, we certainly should have product knowledge – 4 of our staff have a total service of almost 150 years !!!
Unfortunately 2009 was a sad year for Rodbers, Ken Hutchinson who had carried on working at Rodbers until the 1990’s died and Alan Cooper who had worked for us for over 25 years until he had to leave due to ill health also died. Alan was a loyal employee in our builders merchants who was extremely popular with customers and fellow staff and he is still greatly missed by everyone. His knowledge of the building trade was second to none, unfortunately his knowledge of football was anything but – he supported Middlesbrough!
In 2014 it was decided to move the retail business back into Waterloo Street as many of our customers had told us that they preferred everything under one roof.
In 2017 Rodbers was back up for sale when Richard and Derek Garner made the decision to retire from the retail business. They kindly gave first option to buy to two of the staff who had expressed an interest, Ray Longstaff and Jonny Parsons, who between them had worked at Rodbers for 77 years so as from July 1st 2017 Rodbers is under owners number 4.
Despite new owners, probably even more so as both Jonny and Ray have known our customers for many years and have a great working relationship with them, one thing has not and will not change and that is our customers come first in every decision that we make, no other Company has the same level of customer service that we have.
Go on…check us out,,,you won’t be sorry.
Thank you..thank you very much