Hackney’s garment industry, often called the ‘rag trade’, was one of the biggest employers in the borough from the early 1900s until the 1980s, when production moved from Britain to countries with lower costs. In this blog we share the story of Dalston based family business, Pandit Brothers Ltd.
East London Fashion
When Mr Devi Pershad Pandit visited London in the 1920s there was a thriving garment making industry in East London. By 1939 he was a master tailor living on Richmond Road in Hackney, a highly skilled craftsman who could take on complex projects and make well crafted garments. In the early 1950s he established Pandit Brothers with his brothers at 155 Balls Pond Road, Dalston.
When Mr Pandit arrived from India, workshops had gradually spread from Stepney and Whitechapel up into Hackney and onwards to Stamford Hill. The mainly female workforce in these workshops specialised in assembling and finishing garments from bundles of pre-cut cloth. Women’s clothing was a key component of this local industry. Over time factories with a large number of sewing machines were established so the garments could be manufactured in the factory. However many factories also continued providing bundles so their employees could work from home. Most of these garments were for wholesalers or specific fashion labels.
The growing number of tailors was a combination of the established local communities undertaking this work, and Jewish tailors from Stepney and Whitechapel moving to Hackney and Stamford Hill. Many of them had fled persecution in Eastern Europe during the late 1800s and established themselves as tailors in London. They also taught these skills to their children, creating generations of tailors in families. The 1951 census recorded over 11,000 people working as tailors in the Metropolitan Boroughs of Hackney and Stoke Newington, the equivalent of nearly 14% of all tailors in the Greater London area.
The Pandit Family
Pandit Brothers was a family business run by Mr Pandit and his brothers. It also involved Mr Pandit’s children and their spouses. His daughter, Murti, and her husband, Kidar Singh Jamdagni (previously known as Kidar Singh Sharma), were very active in the business. The partition of India in 1947 influenced Kidar’s decision to move to the UK and be with his wife’s family in Clapton. At the time he was living in Delhi and experienced many challenges, including a curfew. The curfew was in place as a way to manage the communal rioting taking place during the partition of India to create independent states of Pakistan (east and west) and India. Between 1953 and 1956 Kidar trained at Cordwainers Technical College, Mare Street, in pattern cutting and handbag production, and joined the family business.
Murti was part of the pool of sewing machinists who made up the garments, but she worked from home like many other women, doing piecework, which fitted in around family and housework duties. She often spent the money she earned on the family’s weekly shop at Ridley Road market.
For many years members of the extended Pandit and Jamdagni families lived in Dalston and Clapton, including on Pedro Street, Mount Pleasant Lane, and Balls Pond Road. In the late 1960s the Jamdagni family moved east to Woodford but still travelled daily to the family factory in Balls Pond Road until it closed in the 1980s.
Pandit Brothers
Pandit Brothers specialised in manufacturing women’s wear. It produced a range of items including dresses, dressing gowns and housecoats from its Dalston factory. The factory and workshop had a high ceiling and beams across it from wall to wall. Huge skylights flooded the factory floor with natural daylight to help the workers sewing and stitching all day. Many women worked for the factory as tailors and seamstresses or in supporting administrative roles. Others worked from home supplying piecework. Under this system workers were paid a fixed rate for a garment produced, or for specific task completed as part of the garment’s production. The company supplied their manufactured products to various fashion labels across London, including now vintage brand, Devonshire Lady.
In the 1950s there was lower demand for the company’s services, but the owners tried to keep all of its staff employed rather than make them redundant. It then flourished for many years and its nightdresses and quilted housecoats and dressing gowns were very popular, especially in the British winter. However gradual changes to domestic heating systems and the growing popularity of central heating and radiators meant there was a steady decline in the types of garments it manufactured and the factory closed in the 1980s.
by Pandit Brothers, 1970s. Hackney Museum, 2024.122.
Content for this blog was created in collaboration with members of the Jamdagni family.