Jordans family history
First, a gentle warning, there’s an awful lot of William Jordans mentioned in this brief history, so you’ll need to concentrate!
Let’s start with the first one, who we’ll call William the first. He and his family were farmers in North Bedfordshire in the late 18th Century. In those days, farm horses had to earn their keep, so when the Jordan’s horses weren’t hauling farm machinery they were used for haulage contracting for the local millers. That’s how William the second became interested in the milling business and in the early 1800s he purchased the mill at Eaton Socon.
William the second had two sons, Alfred and, yes, you’ve guessed it, William (the third). Alfred was fascinated by the machinery of milling and wanted to start on his own. He rented Holme Mills in Biggleswade, the mill that is still owned by the family to this day.
The mill was rented from a Mr Powers who was a bit of a mill entrepreneur. He owned many mills on the Rivers Ouse and Ivel, important trading links with the Norfolk coast and inland England. As Alfred got on with milling, William the third spent much of his time selling flour from his depot in Royal Mint Street in London (Only a couple of hundred yards from Tower Bridge).
William the third had three sons, the eldest of which was, yes, surprise, surprise, William Herbert (the fourth.) This young William did not get on with his autocratic father and when he came of age he opened his own mill further down the Ivel from the family business, in the market town of Sandy. William the fourth’s mill was opened in 1905 and sold animal feed and, to bolster the income, coal from the Nottinghamshire coalfields.
William the third eventually took over the running of Holme Mills in Biggleswade and controlled it with an iron hand! His strong principles and strict discipline is probably what kept the mill going through the depression years of the early 20th Century.
But, it was his uncompromising attitude that eventually caused a major family rift. Young William (the fifth - confusingly known as John by the family) was working at the mill at the time. His grandfather discovered specks in the flour that should have been spotted by the workers on the shift. He went into a towering rage and sacked the whole lot of them. John was so outraged by the unfair treatment meted out by his grandfather they had a terrific row which resulted in him being sacked too! He decided to make his own way in the world and joined the RAF where he went on to fly spitfires and other aircraft during World War II. He continued to fly throughout his life, amassing over 3 years worth of flying hours) and was well known in the Biggleswade area for his aerobatic stunts, some of which resulted in him getting into significant trouble with the local authorities!
John’s grandfather (William the third, just in case you’ve lost track) lived to the age of 93 and was known as the Grand Old Man of Biggleswade. After his grandfather’s death, John bought the mill from his grandmother and, as well as milling flour, also set up an animal feed venture to use by-products from the mill.
By the late sixties, his two sons, William (the sixth - known to us as Bill Jordan) and his younger brother David were old enough to join the family business but initially Bill had other ideas. It was the sixties, after all. For four years he travelled the world as the drummer in a rock and blues band, initially in France but in 1969 he made his way over to the United States.
While touring in America he became fascinated by the growth of the health food movement and particularly by the work being done by the nutrition department of Stanford University in California. Bill’s milling instincts came to the fore when he discovered a crunchy breakfast cereal being sold in health food shops. It was called Granola and was made by toasting honey and oats together with other natural ingredients. Bill was convinced that the idea would go down well in the UK – after all, who could resist a great tasting wholegrain cereal that offered all the nutritional goodness that other producers were taking out?
Back at Holme Mills, he and his brother David and an engineer friend designed a rudimentary processing plant to make the new cereal. They bought a second-hand oven from an old bakery and converted it to toast the cereal. At last “The Original Crunchy G” was born! The two brothers tirelessly toured county shows selling it to a fast-growing group of converts until it was eventually taken up by health food shops and enlightened supermarkets.
Firm believers in the link between good food and a healthy environment Bill and David have been advocates of healthy eating and exercise throughout their working lives. As well as completing over 30 marathons, Bill also has a very passionate belief in the importance of nature conservation, launching the Conservation Grade farming system in 1985 and purchasing the Pensthorpe Nature Reserve in 2002. The core of Jordans business values today emanate from Bill and David’s long held view that there is an interconnection between the food we eat, the environment we live in and the quality of life we all enjoy.
It’s taken a long time, but now many more people are coming round to this way of seeing the world, which is in turn fuelling the growth of our company. Jordans is now the largest employer in Biggleswade and our cereals are sold all over the world – our biggest export market is actually France; a country renowned for its appreciation of good quality food.