The Postcard
A Milton Miltona Series postcard that was published by Woolstone Bros. of London E.C.
The card was posted in Margate on Friday the 29th. March 1918 to:
Mrs. Esling,
74, St. Dunstan’s Road,
Hammersmith,
London W.
The message on the divided back of the card was as follows:
"126, Oxford Street,
Margate.
Just to let you know we
really got here at 6.10 pm,
not so bad for the SECR –
only 50 minutes late.
We found everything
nearly normal, there were
plenty of people on the
trains – we had to stand
part of the way.
I trust your head is better.
Best love to all,
Winnie".
Margate
Margate is a seaside town in Thanet, Kent, England, 24 km north-east of Canterbury. It includes Cliftonville, Garlinge, Palm Bay and Westbrook.
The town has been a significant maritime port since the Middle Ages, and was associated with Dover as part of the Cinque Ports in the 15th. century. It became a popular place for holidaymakers in the 18th. century, owing to easy access via the Thames, and later with the arrival of the railways.
Popular landmarks include the sandy beaches and the Dreamland amusement park. During the late 20th. century the town went into decline along with other British seaside resorts, but attempts are being made (2021) to revitalise the economy.
History of Margate
Margate was recorded as "Meregate" in 1264 and as "Margate" in 1299, but the spelling continued to vary into modern times. The name is thought to refer to a pool gate or gap in a cliff where pools of water are found, often allowing swimmers to jump in.
Margate gives its name to the relatively unknown yet influential Battle of Margate. It started on the 24th. March 1387, and was the last major naval battle of the Caroline War phase of the Hundred Years’ War.
Despite the battle being named after Margate, very little actually happened near the coastal town – the battle is named after Margate as this was where an English fleet of 51 vessels was anchored.
Margate has been a leading seaside resort for at least 250 years. Like its neighbour Ramsgate, it has been a traditional holiday destination for Londoners drawn to its sandy beaches. Margate had a Victorian jetty which was largely destroyed by a storm in 1978.
In the late 18th. century, the town was chosen by the physician John Coakley Lettsom as the location for the Royal Sea Bathing Hospital, which was the first of its kind in Great Britain.
Like Brighton and Southend, Margate was infamous for gang violence between mods and rockers in the 1960’s, and mods and skinheads in the 1980’s.
The Turner Contemporary Art Gallery occupies a prominent position next to the harbour, and was constructed there with the specific aim of revitalising the town. The Thanet Offshore Wind Project, completed in 2010, is visible from the seafront.
Margate Tourism
For at least 250 years Margate has been drawing Londoners to its beaches, Margate Sands. The bathing machines in use at Margate were described in 1805 as:
"Four-wheeled carriages, covered with canvas, and
having at one end of them an umbrella of the same
materials which is let down to the surface of the water,
so that the bather descending from the machine by a
few steps is concealed from the public view, whereby
the most refined female is enabled to enjoy the
advantages of the sea with the strictest delicacy".
The Dreamland Amusement Park (featured in "The Jolly Boys’ Outing" episode of the TV series Only Fools and Horses) is situated in the centre of Margate. After its closure in 2006, it reopened in 2015 following a lengthy campaign by the "Save Dreamland" Campaign Group.
The Scenic Railway roller coaster at Dreamland, which opened in 1920, is Grade II* Listed, and is the second oldest in the world. It was severely damaged by fire on the 7th. April 2008, but has now been fully restored and reopened to the public.
Cliftonville, next to Margate, had an Arnold Palmer mini golf course. It closed, and was illegally converted into a skate park, which was later shut down by the council amid safety concerns.
Margate Theatres and Exhibitions
There are two notable theatres, the Theatre Royal in Addington Street – the second oldest theatre in the country – and the Tom Thumb Theatre, the second smallest in the country, in addition to the Winter Gardens.
The Theatre Royal was built in 1787, burned down in 1829 and was remodelled in 1879. From 1885 to 1899, actor-manager Sarah Thorne ran a school for acting at the Theatre Royal which is regarded as Britain’s first formal drama school.
Actors who received their initial theatrical training there include Harley Granville-Barker, Evelyn Millard, Louis Calvert, George Thorne, Janet Achurch, Adelaide Neilson and Irene and Violet Vanbrugh.
An annual jazz festival takes place in June.
In September, an annual car show commences known as "Oh So Retro" featuring classic and retro vehicles, trade stalls and family-friendly entertainment.
Margate Museum in Market Place explores the town’s seaside heritage in a range of exhibits and displays.
The Margate Grotto and Caves
The Shell Grotto, has walls and roof covered in elaborate decorations of over four million shells. These cover 2,000 square feet (190 m2) in complex patterns. It was discovered in 1835, and is of unknown age and origin. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.
First discovered in 1798, the Margate Caves (also known as the Vortigern Caves) are situated at the bottom of Northdown Road.
The Walpole Bay Tidal Pool
The Walpole Bay Tidal Pool is a Grade 2 listed tidal sea bathing pool built in 1937. The pool covers over four acres, and its dimensions are 450 ft long, 300 ft wide at the seaward end and 550 ft long at the landward end. The water in the pool is refreshed by the incoming tide twice a day, and fresh water springs rise from the beach within the walls.
The Turner Contemporary Gallery
The former chairman of the Margate Civic Society, John Crofts, had a plan to develop a centre that would show the link that the painter JMW Turner shared with Margate. Turner described the Thanet skies as "The loveliest in all Europe."
Crofts became increasingly determined to create such a gallery, and in 1998 the Leader of Kent County Council met a number of people from the art world to discuss the idea.
They hoped that the centre would regenerate the once-thriving town of Margate and offer an alternative to Margate’s traditional tourist trade. The County Council offered to partly fund the building of the Turner Gallery. In 2001 the Turner Contemporary was officially established. The view from the gallery is similar to that seen by Turner from his lodging house.
To reduce the cost, Thanet District Council chose a new site inland from the harbour wall. The scheme was supported by the artist Tracey Emin, who was brought up in Margate. The building itself was designed by David Chipperfield Architects after the abandonment of the design by Snøhetta + Spence.
Building work started in 2008, but the project’s initiator, John Crofts, died in 2009. The Turner Contemporary Gallery officially opened on the 16th. April 2011.
Historic Sites in Margate
There is a 16th.-century, two-storey timber-framed Tudor house built on a flint plinth in King Street.
Margate’s Jubilee Clock Tower was built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, although not completed until 1889. It had a Time Ball mechanism, mounted on a mast atop the tower, which was raised a few minutes before 1 pm each day and dropped at precisely 1 pm, thereby allowing residents, visitors and ships to know the exact time.
The Time Ball fell out of use many years ago, but the Margate Civic Society raised funds to have the Time Ball repaired and brought back into use. This was successful, and a civic ceremony celebrated the restoration on the 24th. May 2014, Queen Victoria’s birthday, and the 125th. anniversary of the Clock Tower’s official opening. The Time Ball now drops at 1 pm each day, and is one of only a handful of working time balls in the world.
Draper’s Mill is a smock mill built in 1845 by John Holman. It was working by wind until 1916 and by engine until the late 1930’s. It was saved from demolition, and is now restored and open to the public.
Cultural References to Margate
Margate features at the start and as a recurrent theme in Margate writer Iain Aitch’s travelogue, A Fete Worse Than Death. The author was born in the town.
T. S. Eliot, who in 1921 recuperated after a mental breakdown in the suburb of Cliftonville, commented in his poem The Waste Land Part III – The Fire Sermon:
"On Margate sands.
I can connect
Nothing with nothing".
Margate features as a destination in Graham Swift’s novel Last Orders and its film adaptation. The character Jack Dodds had asked to have his remains scattered at Margate, and the book tells the tale of the drive to Margate and the memories evoked on the way.
The Victorian author William Thackeray used out-of-season Margate as the setting for his early unfinished novel ‘A Shabby Genteel Story’.
"Margate" is the title of a UK single released by Chas & Dave in 1982.
"Margate Fhtagn" is a song by UK steampunk band The Men That Will Not Be Blamed For Nothing. The story related in the song combines the Victorian tradition of the seaside holiday with the works of H. P. Lovecraft, specifically the Cthulhu Mythos, to tell the tale of a Victorian family going on a seaside holiday to Margate, which gets interrupted by Cthulhu rising from the sea.
It is thought that Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote his Lark Ascending whilst walking along the cliffs in Margate.
Margate in Film and Television
J. M. W. Turner’s long-term relationship with Mrs. Sophia Booth of Margate was featured in the film Mr. Turner (2014).
The railway station and Dreamland feature prominently in the Only Fools & Horses episode "The Jolly Boys’ Outing" (1989).
In series 4 (2017) of the British television crime drama Peaky Blinders, the character Alfie Solomons chooses to reside at Margate, where he’s shot on the beach by Tommy Shelby.
The town appeared on BBC TV’s The Apprentice in May 2009.
The 2012 BBC television drama series True Love was set and filmed in Margate. The show had its first public screening at the Turner Contemporary.
The 2014 ITV sitcom Edge of Heaven was set in a 1980’s-themed bed and breakfast establishment in Margate.
The Founding of Walmart
So what else happened on the day that Winnie posted the card?
Well, the 29th. March 1918 marked the birth in Kingfisher, Oklahoma of Sam Walton.
Samuel Moore Walton was an American businessman and entrepreneur best known for founding the retailers Walmart and Sam’s Club. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. grew to be the world’s largest corporation by revenue as well as the biggest private employer in the world. For a period of time, Walton was the richest man in America.
Sam Walton – The Early Years
Samuel Moore Walton was born to Thomas Gibson Walton and Nancy Lee. He lived in Kingfisher with his parents on their farm until 1923. However, farming did not provide enough money to raise a family, and Thomas Walton went into farm mortgaging.
He worked for his brother’s Walton Mortgage Company, which was an agent for Metropolitan Life Insurance, where he foreclosed on farms during the Great Depression.
He and his family (now with another son, James, born in 1921) moved from one small town to another for several years, mostly in Missouri. While attending eighth grade in Shelbina, Missouri, Sam became the youngest Eagle Scout in the state’s history. In adult life, Walton became a recipient of the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award from the Boy Scouts of America.
Eventually the family moved to Columbia, Missouri. Growing up during the Great Depression, he did chores to help make financial ends meet for his family, as was common at the time.
He milked the family cow, bottled the surplus, and drove it to customers. Afterwards, he would deliver Columbia Daily Tribune newspapers on a paper route. In addition, he sold magazine subscriptions. Upon graduating from David H. Hickman High School in Columbia, he was voted "Most Versatile Boy".
After high school, Sam Walton decided to attend college, hoping to find a better way to help support his family. He attended the University of Missouri as an ROTC cadet. During this time, he worked various odd jobs, including waiting tables in exchange for meals.
Also during his time in college, Walton joined the Zeta Phi chapter of Beta Theta Pi fraternity. He was also tapped by QEBH, the well-known secret society on campus honoring the top senior men, and the national military honor society Scabbard and Blade.
Additionally, Walton served as president of the Burall Bible Class, a large class of students from the University of Missouri and Stephens College. Upon graduating in 1940 with a bachelor’s degree in economics, he was voted "Permanent President" of the class.
Furthermore, he learned from a very early age that it was important for them as children to help provide for the home, to be givers rather than takers. Walton realised while serving in the army that he wanted to go into retailing, and to go into business for himself.
Walton joined J. C. Penney as a management trainee in Des Moines, Iowa, three days after graduating from college. This position paid him $75 a month. Walton spent approximately 18 months with J. C. Penney before resigning in 1942 in anticipation of being inducted into the military for service in World War II.
In the meantime, he worked at a DuPont munitions plant near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Soon afterwards, Walton joined the military in the U.S. Army Intelligence Corps, supervising security at aircraft plants and prisoner of war camps. He eventually reached the rank of captain.
The First Stores
In 1945, after leaving the military, Walton took over management of his first variety store at the age of 26. With the help of a $20,000 loan from his father-in-law, plus $5,000 he had saved from his time in the Army, Walton purchased a Ben Franklin variety store in Newport, Arkansas.
Sam Walton pioneered many concepts that became crucial to his success. According to Walton, if he offered prices as good or better than stores in cities that were four hours away by car, people would shop at home. Walton made sure the shelves were consistently stocked with a wide range of goods. His second store, the tiny "Eagle" department store, was down the street from his first Ben Franklin, and next door to its main competitor in Newport.
With the sales volume growing from $80,000 to $225,000 in three years, Walton drew the attention of the landlord, P. K. Holmes, whose family had a history in retail. Admiring Sam’s great success, and desiring to reclaim the store (and franchise rights) for his son, he refused to renew the lease.
The lack of a renewal option, together with the prohibitively high rent of 5% of sales, were early business lessons to Walton. Despite forcing Walton out, Holmes bought the store’s inventory and fixtures for $50,000, which Walton called "a fair price".
With a year left on the lease, but the store effectively sold, he, his wife Helen and his father-in-law managed to negotiate the purchase of a new location on the downtown square of Bentonville, Arkansas. Walton negotiated the purchase of a small discount store, and the title to the building, on the condition that he get a 99-year lease to expand into the shop next door.
The owner of the shop next door refused six times, and Walton had given up on Bentonville when his father-in-law, without Sam’s knowledge, paid the shop owner a final visit and $20,000 to secure the lease. He had just enough left from the sale of the first store to close the deal, and reimburse Helen’s father. They opened for business with a one-day remodeling sale on the 9th. May 1950.
Before he bought the Bentonville store, it was doing $72,000 in sales. Sam increased sales to $105,000 in the first year, then $140,000 and then $175,000.
With the new Bentonville "Five and Dime" opening for business, and 220 miles away, a year left on the lease in Newport, the money-strapped young Walton had to learn to delegate responsibility.
After succeeding with two stores at such a distance (and with the postwar baby boom in full effect), Sam became enthusiastic about scouting more locations and opening more Ben Franklin franchises. Also, having spent countless hours behind the wheel, and with his close brother James "Bud" Walton having been a pilot in the war, he decided to buy a small second-hand airplane. Both he and his son John would later become accomplished pilots and log thousands of hours scouting locations and expanding the family business.
In 1954, he opened a store with his brother Bud in a shopping center in Ruskin Heights, a suburb of Kansas City, Missouri. With the help of his brother and father-in-law, Sam went on to open many new variety stores. He encouraged his managers to invest and take an equity stake in the business, often as much as $1000 in their store, or the next outlet to open.
This motivated the managers to sharpen their managerial skills and take ownership over their role in the enterprise. By 1962, along with his brother Bud, he owned 16 stores in Arkansas, Missouri, and Kansas (fifteen Ben Franklin’s and one independent, in Fayetteville).
Sam Walton is regarded as one of the greatest project entrepreneurs in the retail chain industry. He had a great passion for learning. He frequently made unannounced visits to Walmarts around the country to learn what local innovations were working that then could be shared with other Walmarts.
On one of those visits he was puzzled by a greeter saying “Hello” at the entrance of the store and asked the fellow what he was doing. The greeter explained that his main job was to discourage shoplifters from taking unpaid merchandise out of the store through the entrance. Walton was delighted, and shared the innovation with “associates” throughout his chain.
The first true Walmart opened on the 2nd. July 1962, in Rogers, Arkansas. Called the Wal-Mart Discount City store, it was located at 719 West Walnut Street. Sam made a determined effort to market American-made products. Included in the effort was a willingness to find American manufacturers who could supply merchandise for the entire Walmart chain at a price low enough to meet the foreign competition.
As the Meijer store chain grew, it caught the attention of Walton. He came to acknowledge that his one-stop-shopping center format was based on Meijer’s original innovative concept. Contrary to the prevailing practice of American discount store chains, Walton located stores in smaller towns, not larger cities. To be near consumers, the only option at the time was to open outlets in small towns.
Walton’s model offered two advantages. First, existing competition was limited and secondly, if a store was large enough to control business in a town and its surrounding areas, other merchants would be discouraged from entering the market.
To make his model work, he emphasised logistics, particularly locating stores within a day’s drive of Walmart’s regional warehouses, and distributed through its own trucking service. Buying in volume and efficient delivery permitted sale of discounted name brand merchandise. Thus, sustained growth- from 1977’s 190 stores to 1985’s 800 – was achieved.
Given its scale and economic influence, Walmart significantly impacts any region in which it establishes a store. These impacts, both positive and negative, have been dubbed the "Walmart Effect".
Sam Walton’s Personal Life
Walton married Helen Robson on Valentine’s Day, February 14, 1943. They had four children: Samuel Robson (Rob) born in 1944, John Thomas (1946–2005), James Carr (Jim) born in 1948, and Alice Louise born in 1949.
Walton supported various charitable causes. He and Helen were active in the 1st. Presbyterian Church in Bentonville; Sam served as an Elder and a Sunday School teacher, teaching high school age students. The family made substantial contributions to the congregation.
The Death of Sam Walton
Sam Walton died at the age of 74 in Little Rock, Arkansas, on Sunday the 5th. April 1992, three months shy of Walmart’s thirtieth anniversary.
He had suffered from multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer. The news of his death was relayed by satellite to all 1,960 Walmart stores. At the time, his company employed 380,000 people. Annual sales of nearly $50 billion flowed from 1,735 Walmarts, 212 Sam’s Clubs, and 13 Supercenters.
Sam was laid to rest in the Bentonville Cemetery. He left his ownership of Walmart to his wife and their children: Rob Walton succeeded his father as the Chairman of Walmart, and John Walton was a director until his death in a 2005 plane crash.
The others are not directly involved in the company (except through their voting power as shareholders), however his son Jim Walton is chairman of Arvest Bank. The Walton family held five spots in the top ten richest people in the United States until 2005.
The Legacy of Sam Walton
In 1998, Walton was included in Time’s list of 100 most influential people of the 20th. Century. Walton was honoured for his work in retail in March 1992, just one month before his death, when he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from then-President George H. W. Bush.
Forbes ranked Sam Walton as the richest person in the United States from 1982–88, ceding the top spot to John Kluge in 1989 when the editors began to credit Walton’s fortune jointly to him and his four children. (Bill Gates first headed the list in 1992, the year Walton died.)
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. also runs Sam’s Club warehouse stores. Walmart operates in the United States and in more than fifteen international markets, including: Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, India, South Africa, Botswana, Ghana, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Kenya, Lesotho, Swaziland, Honduras, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua and the United Kingdom.
At the University of Arkansas, the Business College (Sam M. Walton College of Business) is named in his honour. Walton was inducted into the Junior Achievement U.S. Business Hall of Fame in 1992.
