In the late 1880s, William Robert DEAKIN (1862-1943) set up his first jam and preserves manufacturing business, Deakin & Hodson, in Wigan, Lancashire, in partnership with his father Samuel Pownall DEAKIN and brother-in-law John Hartley HODSON.
The Deakin partnership with John Hodson was dissolved in 1890 and William R. Deakin went on to set up his own very successful jam and marmalade business, W.R. Deakin, known as Deakin’s, opening fruit and vegetable canning factories and jam manufacturing businesses further afield in Worcestershire in Evesham and Pershore and on Lord Sudeley’s Estate in Toddington, Gloucestershire.
Deakin’s established a number of large fruit plantations across the Vale of Evesham: around Pershore, Stoulton, Hampton just outside Evesham, and Gatley in Cheshire.
Deakin’s Jams, under the ownership of William Deakin and his sons, flourished until the mid 1930s. The business was then taken over by his sons, George Deakin and James Stanley Deakin and continued to trade in the name of G. & J.S. Deakin Limited until 1955.