The Oldest European Family Business Company

Both are family businesses. The oldest European family business, according to Mr O’Hara and Peter Mandel in Family Business magazine (see table), is Chateau de Goulaine, a vineyard in France’s Loire valley that dates from 1000—and also boasts a museum and butterfly farm. Britain’s oldest family business, founded in Huddersfield in 1541, is John Brooke ;Sons, a textile-maker that helped clothe Britain’s bravest during the battle of Trafalgar and the second world war, but has now abandoned manufacturing and turned its mills into a business park.

Not surprisingly, the oldest family firms in the United States are a bit younger. Zildjian Cymbal, of Norwell, Massachusetts, purveyor of cymbals and drumsticks to many of the world’s greatest percussionists, was founded in 1623. But that was in Constantinople; the family did not emigrate to America until 1909. A more authentic choice is the Tuttle Farm, which grows strawberries and vegetables in New Hampshire, and runs a small shop. It is currently run by the 11th generation of the family.

Ancient, but maybe not commercially Yet it is not easy to say with certainty whether such examples are really old, continuous businesses or, rather, latterday firms that were once trade associations, state organisations or, say, religious communities that turned commercial at some stage in their lives. Is, for example, Chateau de Goulaine really a 1, 000-year-old business or a fine old castle that has only fairly recently taken to selling wine and displaying butterflies?

The Shore Porters’ Society, now a transport firm, whose lorries can be seen all over Europe, was founded in 1498, but for much of its history it was a semi-public body controlled by the town of Aberdeen, only gaining full independence in 1850. How long has it been a genuine business? Sand washing machine : http://www. hxjq-crushers. com/8. htm Cone crusher : http://www. china-crusher. com/cone-crusher5. html