75 Years Of Local Businesses Trading Together

Romerils & B R Biddles

75 Years of local businesses trading together

As part of our celebrations, and marking 75 years in business, since 1950, we’ve dug into the archives to find some of our customers, who were already around when we started trading in 1950.

One of those, and a customer that we have worked with since we started, is local Plumbing & Heating engineers, B R Biddle & Son Ltd.

As part of showcasing our history in this celebratory year, we would like to feature this business, its people, and a bit of history around this even older (91 years) local company.

1934 Founder: Albert “Bert” Biddle

MD between 1974 – 98: Anthony “Tony” Biddle

The Early Days Of B R Biddles

Since they began trading, the company has only been in the ownership of two families, and with common strong family values. There was a close working relationship with both the Biddle and Carswell families, and how it has moved from one father & son management team, Bert & Tony, to another one, now in the safe hand of George and Jonathan Carswell.

B R Biddle began trading in 1934, with Albert “Bert” Biddle at the helm, and he was soon joined in the business by his son Anthony “Tony”, who eventually became the owner and Managing Director. One interesting point about Bert Biddle was that he had a crystal radio set cut into a plumbing manual which he used during the Second World War.

Between them established “Biddles” as one of the leading plumbing and heating business in Jersey, and were innovative front runners with introducing residential central heating in the early 1960’s.

The 2^nd Father & Son combination: George & Jonathan Carswell.

The Second Generation Of Biddles

George Carswell joined the company 48 years ago in 1977, working for then owner Tony Biddle, and in 1998 George bought the business from Tony, and took on the role of Managing Director.

Bringing the family business story up to present day, George’s son Jonathan joined Biddles in 2005 and now is at the helm, successfully leading the business of 12 people.

Hedley Therin spent his working career at Biddles. Starting as an apprentice he was at the business for 55 years.

A company social function taken around 1960, with “Bert” front & centre and his son Tony, to his right. On his left is Hedley Therin.

1988: Tony presenting Hedley for his 50th year of service

George Carswell (future owner) – Furthest on the right of this picture
Dean Burnouf – Furthest on the left, now managing the Trade Centre (plumbing again) at Romerils

In 1965, we published in the Jersey Evening Post a feature about the new building and showrooms in Dumaresq Street and it was great to see in our archives that B R Biddles were ever present then. They were the contractor entrusted to do all of the plumbing & heating & took an advert in our feature:

Reflecting on the Romerils & Biddles long trading relationship, Romerils Managing Director Steve Jewell commented:
“I do remember from my early days at Romerils, I was a teenager, and I did have some dealings with Tony Biddle when discussing pricing of plumbing materials. This would’ve been in the mid to late 1980’s and then soon after working with George as he took over the business. From then and through various management roles, even to my present day one, I still deal personally with George and Jonathan and count them both as friends-in-business. It isn’t only the family values that have held constant in the Biddle history, but clearly the integrity and social way of doing business holds very firm & in the safe hands of the present-day father & son management.”

Reflecting on the Biddles & Romerils strong history together, George and Jonathan said:
“Reflecting on our many years of dealing with Romerils we have found the whole of the staff are always helpful from the members on the counter to the management team. We consider them to be the best stocked merchants in the Island and you can always count on them to have the parts you require. The integrity of Steve and his team is beyond reproach and our business dealings with him have always been excellent.

My daughter – Jonathan’s sister – recently built a new home. We trusted Romerils to be a one stop shop for all her requirements from tiling to an air source heat pump.

It has been a pleasure doing business with Romerils over the years and we look forward to many more years of working together.”