During his school holidays, Stuart Hampson used to help his mother behind the counter of the family drapers shop in Oldham, Lancashire. But as he grew up, he set his sights higher than mere retailing. ‘I always had a fixation on becoming a civil servant,’ he says crisply, in an accent stripped of any hint of northern origins. ‘I just thought it was the right thing to do; I still think working in government service is extremely important.’
Now the chairman of the iconic John Lewis Partnership, where the staff owns the company, Hampson retains a strong sense of that early virtue. Tall and clean-cut, with a steely gaze, in another life he would have made a good archbishop. His lay congregation may be somewhat broader than the Church of England’s, but its heart is quintessentially English. Whether Hampson is opposing Sunday trading as he did in the 1990s, speaking out against the destruction of our town centres, leading the Royal Society of Arts inquiry into ‘Tomorrow’s Company’, or writing about a sustainable future for British farming as president of the Royal Agricultural Society, Hampson has his long, elegant finger on the pulse of middle-class sensibility.
As a high-ranking civil servant under old Labour he was sent to Geneva on a mission to the European Free Trade Association. ‘I learnt to ski and met my wife Angela,’ he says, smiling. From there he worked at the Board of Trade for Shirley Williams, using taxpayers’ money to keep the price of bread below three shillings a loaf. ‘Of course it was a nonsense thing to do, but I do feel passionately that it is not for civil servants to take a view,’ he says firmly. He then became Roy Hattersley’s private secretary and ended his Civil Service career working for John Biffen.
Just short of his 35th birthday, with Margaret Thatcher installed in Downing Street, the power of the genes and early upbringing kicked in. He replied to an advertisement by John Lewis aimed at people considering a career change, and to his surprise he was taken on. ‘I gave up Cabinet secrets and started selling men’s pyjamas.’ From there he was whisked up the system via gardening and ladies’ fashion — a source of some amusement to his wife. Within four years he was on the board.
Hampson, 59, has been executive chairman for 13 years and will — unlike Lord Browne at BP — be able to stay until 65 should he wish. Two managing directors report to him — Steven Esom of Waitrose and 39-year-old Charlie Mayfield, the new broom for the John Lewis department stores appointed last year.
We meet in Hampson’s large but austere office — white walls and mahogany furniture — at Partnership House, a valuable chunk of real estate in the shadow of Westminster Cathedral in Victoria. Three secretaries attend him in the outside office, bringing tea but no biscuits — a clue to his trim figure. He wears an ice-blue shirt, matching his eyes.
Hampson is only the fourth chairman since the first John Lewis opened his shop in Oxford Street in 1864. He has done much to bring the company, unwillingly, into the 21st century. ‘John Lewis has more of an impact today,’ he says. ‘I have taken the view that it is part of my duty to talk about the company to the outside world because there are so many things that are relevant to other organisations.’
Even so, it is a ‘different kind of capitalism’, in which the welfare of the 64,000 partners comes before that of the customers or the shareholders — in stark contrast to a company such as Tesco. Spedan Lewis, son of John, founded the new model company in 1929 and wrote its constitution, which began, ‘The ultimate purpose of the John Lewis Partnership is the happiness of its members …’ Hampson is swift to point out the second half of the sentence which reads ‘… through their worthwhile and satisfying employment in a successful business.’
Some partners are more equal than others, but all have access to holiday homes on the Leckford Estate, the 4,000-acre Hampshire farm bequeathed by Spedan Lewis, while more than 700 partners a year sail on the company’s five ocean-going yachts. ‘One of our managers walked down the jetty at Cowes and took great delight in saying, “That’s my yacht moored out there”,’ says Hampson. ‘How many supermarket managers can say that? It allows you to do something you couldn’t do if you were not working for this business, which all adds up to the feeling it is rather a special place to work,’ he says, with just a hint of smugness. But if this was a public company, I said, there’d be an uproar about such perks. ‘Yes,’ he replied, ‘but here there’s no divergence between shareholders and partners.’
However bizarre this set-up may sound, the company has not only endured, it has become a national treasure. Surveys by Verdict Research and Which? last year rated John Lewis and Waitrose as the nation’s two favourite retailers.
In the past decade, J Sainsbury’s troubles have enabled Waitrose to step into the role of the premier supermarket that keeps quality rather than price at the heart of its philosophy. Its success means that in 2006 Waitrose’s operating profits outstripped those of the John Lewis department stores for the first time.
Although the company ethos initially appealed to Hampson’s zeal for doing the right thing, it also appealed to his ambition to initiate change. Under him the tills have become electronic — if somewhat later than those of the competition — the company now accepts most credit cards and there is a sizeable investment in internet shopping through the online grocer Ocado and John Lewis Direct, where sales are soaring. When Hampson joined the company the stores closed on Mondays and Sundays and, although he personally opposed Sunday trading, they now open seven days a week. ‘We are not crusaders,’ he says firmly. ‘In the end we will do what the customers want.’
‘He is always seen as on the side of the angels,’ remarks one rival drily. ‘But as he generally falls in with the consensus, the profits of the company do not suffer.’
Indeed, 2005–06 was a particularly good year for the Partnership, which owns 27 John Lewis department stores including Peter Jones, and 180 Waitrose supermarkets. Group profits before tax and bonus jumped by 10 per cent to a record £252 million. The partners received a handsome 15 per cent of their annual pay as a bonus. Hampson’s bonus came to £96,000, bringing his total pay to £752,000 — enabling him live in some style, indulging passions for opera and for driving his 1955 Jaguar XK140.
Born in January 1947, Hampson lost his father when he was four. Fortunately his father was a freemason and Stuart and his older brother were educated at the Royal Masonic School in Bushey, Herts. He swam and acted at school but his main focus was academic. ‘I was good at work,’ he says — so good that after taking his O-levels early he won an English Speaking Union scholarship to the Wilbraham Academy in Springfield, Massachusetts. At 16 he sailed across the Atlantic on the Queen Mary. He was in the United States when President Kennedy was shot in 1963 — ‘I was very much influenced by that.’
Back in England he was torn between science and languages. Languages won, and at St John’s College, Oxford, he eschewed sex, drugs and rock and roll for choral music and rowing. ‘You didn’t find him at pop concerts,’ recalled one contemporary. ‘He was well liked but very straight.’
Apart from his love of ancient Jaguars, the same could be still said of him today, although his ambition has increased with age. ‘We believe we can double the size of this business without departing from the basic stance,’ he says, suddenly passionate. ‘We are outperforming the competition at the moment because there is fun, there is modernity. We work very hard on value you can trust but also on style that you want. It’s a winning combination.’ He is also about to appoint two non-executive directors — one male, one female — for the first time in the company’s history. ‘We don’t want to miss the peripheral vision,’ he says. The new board members will be ‘people from very different backgrounds to help us spot the opportunities — and the threats’.
Yet the vision of Spedan Lewis remains sacrosanct. ‘Our business is built on integrity and trust,’ he says firmly. As John Betjeman said, nothing unpleasant can ever happen in Peter Jones.
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