Barratts

• Barratts was a brand of high street shoe shops operating in the UK and Ireland. The Barratts shoes brand traded from 100 UK and Ireland stores. ​
• Barratts was established in Northampton in 1903, and became a highly successful brand known for its lavishly produced boot catalogues during the 1920s. In 1964, it was bought by the company Stylo and, under the Barratts brand name, expanded to over 400 stores at its height, before foreign competition in the 1990s reduced its market share. ​
• Barratts entered administration for the third time in five years on 11 November 2013. 
• Globalisation: Barretts shoes employed a thousand people in hey day​
• The art deco style building was the headquarters, main warehouse and distribution depot for Barratts shoes - a company which went into administration meaning that the building has stood empty since 2012.
• Government intervention lasted for under 40 years, starting in 1945. During this period governments adopted a huge range of manufacturing sector-specific policies – from the micro level of cotton industry re-equipment subsidies to the broader brush “selective employment tax”
• Since 1979 there was a retreat from such sector-specific policies and a growing acceptance that manufacturing should “sink or swim” along with other sectors.