1920's

The Company is established in 1925 and is mainly concerned with wiring for factories and domestic customers. Electricity is a brand new technology. Practically no houses at this time have electricity - most use coal for heating and gas for lighting. Factories & foundries lead the way in the demand for the installation of electricity.

1930's

The wiring side of the business continues to grow and in 1934 Mr. Chapman opens a shop. This is mainly to sell peripherals to the wiring activities, such as bulbs, fuses and plugs. It also sells radios and sells and provided a charging facility for the accumulators that most people use to run their radios. Items such as electric irons, hair dryers, kettles and toasters are beginning to emerge and are offered for sale, but as so few homes have an electricity supply, they are not common.

WWII 1939 - 1945

The business is mainly concerned with the war effort ensuring that electrical supplies are maintained in factories. Electricians are not required to go to war.

1940's and 1950's

After the war there is a boom in product availability and demand. The shop now sells TVs, gramophones, radios, portable record players, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, spin dryers, fridges, electric cookers, food mixers and so on, as well as continuing to supply light bulbs, fuses etc.. As a spin off of domestic electrical wiring the Company also began to sell light fittings.

All of these products are completely new to the public and so demonstrations of how to use these products take place regularly at the shop and in people's homes. Company employs a team of demonstrators.

Again, the electrical contracting side of the Company continues and a Service department to fix all of the emerging technologies begins to develop.

In 1944 the company is incorporated and so becomes a Limited Company providing financial protection to the owners.

1960's

The second generation of Chapman family joins the company.

Commercial contracts with local factories were becoming very substantial and beyond the means of the business to finance. Another local electrician, Mr. Jones, was struggling with the same issues and so the two companies joined together to start a sister Company "Chapman Jones" which was capable of handling very large commercial electrical contracts.

As well as sales of appliances, the Company also saw opportunities to sell "add-ons" such as vinyl records and, another emerging technology, pyrex cookware

1970's and 1980's

There was another explosion in new technologies during this period with the emergence of video players, tumble dryers, washer dryers, dish washers, personal computers and games consoles. Chapman's sold all of these and stocked peripheral products such as vinyl records and games – and even set up a small video rental library in-store.

In 1970 Chapman's became part of a new buying group "Birmingham Combined Independents". This enabled a group of independent stores to join together and buy in bulk - thus enabling better prices. This buying group was one of the 1st and biggest in the country. Today we see buying groups such as "Euronics" still operating to enable independents to be competitive on price.

In the early 1980s Chapman's bought out a competitor and opened a second shop in Blackheath.

The mid-80s saw the emergence of satellite television. The skills of Chapman's staff meant this was an easy and profitable area to move into. This area of the business has expanded rapidly ever since, particularly with digital switchover and has seen the Company take on some very large contracts up to £1 million in value.

1990's and 2000's

The Company maintained departments covering retail sales, service and aerial and satellite. Contract sales, particularly to new build houses, became a substantial part of trading and in 1995 a warehouse was built to house this activity.

We expected that the arrival of a large Tesco store in Cradley Heath might have an impact on sales of smaller items such as kettles, irons, toasters etc... Whilst the Cradley Heath branch of Chapman's tended to sell mainly items much larger products than this, the Blackheath branch tended to sell low value items. As a result it was decided to close the Blackheath store in 2007.

Large factory electrical installations had declined as manufacturing had declined since the 1980s. This meant that Chapman Jones’ activities whilst buoyant were now not big enough to operate effectively as a separate business and so in 2008 was merged into Chapman's Electrical and became a department within the main business.

The Future

We expect to continue to see the development and introduction of new technologies in our sector - with this year seeing the launch of 3DTV.

Whilst we believe the next 12 months will be busy, we predict a decline in the aerial and satellite side of the business once digital switchover is completed.

We anticipate growth in the demand for "Smart Homes", whereby all heating, lighting, security and entertainment is controlled from a central unit.

Also, we see growth in the energy efficiency markets including micro generation (Solar panels, wind turbines etc...)

The current Company Directors are now in their 60s and so succession planning is now underway to decided who will lead the Company into the future.