BULMER, Edward Frederick

(1865-1941)

Cider manufacturer

Edward Frederick ’Fred’ Bulmer was born at Credenhill, near Hereford, on 26 May 1865, the elder son of Rev Charles Henry Bulmer, Rector of Credenhill, whose family were wine merchants skilled in cidermaking, and of Mary Grace Parnell Cockrem, daughter of a Torquay newspaper proprietor.

Educated at Hereford Cathedral and Shrewsbury Schools, he won a classical exhibition to King’s College, Cambridge, where he found widespread questioning of accepted Victorian ideas. He gained an honours degree in classics, a half blue for running and friends who would later invest money in his business.

In 1887 he helped his younger brother, Percy, to make cider commercially at Credenhill, and then in Hereford. In June 1889 he joined Percy on a permanent basis. Percy borrowed £1,760 on the security of his father’s life insurance policy, bought land and in 1888 built a small factory in Ryelands Street, Hereford. The firm was now called H P Bulmer & Co. Both young men did the hard manual work of cidermaking with one employee, but from the start Percy specialised in production, Fred in buying apples and in marketing. Each January he set off to tackle wine merchants in the Midlands and North where cider was then virtually unknown. After many rebuffs he built up a substantial trade in draught and bottled ciders. He also attacked the market by circularising landowners and professional men; friends and relatives helped by asking for Bulmer’s cider at hotels, clubs and on the railways.

For thirty years Fred and Percy worked as close partners, pioneering modern methods of manufacture and improving control of fermentation. When in 1918 Percy was dying of cancer, the partnership was turned into a private company. After Percy’s death in 1919 Fred became chairman and managing director. His style was highly personal; he opened all the firm’s mail himself before breakfast and twice a day walked round every department. He had a sharp eye, a ready grasp of the essentials of a problem, and a great sense of humour and compassion. In 1938 with some of his own shares he formed a trust to provide family allowances before state allowances existed.

Under his guidance between 1919 and 1937 the annual sales increased from £79,000 to over £360,000. This period included the introduction of Bulmer’s well-known Woodpecker brand which rapidly gained national distribution. In 1937, the firm’s golden jubilee, he withdrew from day-to-day management, but remained chairman.

From 1898 Fred Bulmer found time for public work on Hereford City and County Councils, and was twice mayor of Hereford; in 1934 he became High Sheriff of the county. He was a local JP and chairman of the governors of the Girls’ High School. In a speech as mayor in 1925 he said that business should be regarded primarily as a social service, rather than a means of personal gain.

He married in 1899 Sophie Fredericka Rittner, daughter of a Liverpool merchant, George Sebastian Rittner, who gave him great support and happiness, and bore him three sons and three daughters. He retired from the chairmanship of Bulmers in March 1941 and died on 2 September the same year, leaving £48,369 gross.