GLASSWELLS LTD

Jerry Glasswell was the third child of fifteen, born to Buckler and Agnes Glasswell near Wisbech in 1896. When he was 18 months old the family moved to Bury St Edmunds where life was happy but often on the breadline. "We knew the depths of poverty and it was this experience that spurred me on later in life" Jerry used to say. When he was 7, Jerry took his first job, showing the initiative that was to stay with him for the rest of his life. Working one hour a day house cleaning, he earned just 6d a week.

Leaving school at 12, he went into service in Lincolnshire, but soon returned to Bury to become an errand boy for International Stores in Abbeygate Street. Jerry became an apprentice there, and, by 1914, was earning 4s (20p) a week. At 17, he rode off to do his duty with the Suffolk Regiment but, after the war, re-joined his old firm where he rose to the position of Manager of the Stowmarket Store. Within a year, he had taken charge of a larger store at Seven Kings in London and, on the strength of his new job, married Ethel Maud Read, daughter of a local employer.

During a successful career with International Stores, he had acquired three properties in Chadwell Heath, two of which he converted to flats to help secure his family’s future, now including a son Leslie, born in 1923 and daughter Peggy born in 1929. However, in 1938 Jerry decided he wanted to run his own business and, having spotted rows of chimneys in suburban London, started his own chimney sweeping business and later a successful window cleaning firm, employing a team of four, including son Leslie.