Adams Bookstore turns 150

Adams Bookstore this year celebrated a milestone not many bookstores ever get the opportunity to do: 150 years of trading by the same family. Adams and Company was established in 1865 in Durban and offered stationery, magazines and books to the colonial community. Many years later there are 11 stores spread over Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg and Cape Town. The core focus of each store is different, but you can expect to find a wide range of general books as well as tertiary education books in each. We caught up with Peter Adams, Managing Director of Adams Bookstore and honorary secretary of the SA Booksellers Association who gives us an insight to his 48 year long career of book trading.

What is the all-time best seller at Adams Bookstore?
I think we should exclude evergreens like the Oxford dictionaries. In the 1970’s our opening order for Wilbur Smith’s Eagle in the Sky was 1000 copies. My boss, Mr Rabjohn ordered 500 copies before leaving on a trip to London and before we had read the book, and because it was such a great story we increased the order a couple of times as our enthusiasm grew. Mr Rabjohn used to lead me to the piles of unsold copies each week, squeezing the nerve in my elbow and asking me if I was going to sell them all. It took 6 months but we did. We used in those days to get proofs of many books and “discovered “ authors, ordering perhaps 100 of a good new author and establishing his name. In the 50’s few of the publishers had offices in South Africa, but slowly they employed agents then opened their own offices.

What were the key developments/ changes at the store over the last 150 years that added to its success?
The business started as a stationery shop with some books and magazines. Magazines in those days were what the “soapies” are now: Dickens’ serialization of Pickwick Papers in 1836 was a huge success and started the trend of serialisation, and it was used by many novelists. Melville, Alexander Dumas, Wilkie Collins and of course Arthur Conan Doyle all first published their stories in the magazines. So the day when the mail ship arrived in Durban was exciting for the residents who got letters from home, new books and their magazines, but it meant working overtime for the people in Adams as they had to sort the magazines for collection next morning. Wholesale stationery was important in the early days, but retail became more important. Adams published some of the loveliest early postcards of Durban and Pietermaritzburg in the late 1800’s. It was only after Mr Rabjohn joined the company in the early 1950’s that books were brought to the forefront and we became the leading bookshop in Natal. We have had to adapt our business to cope with changing environments and the growth of the shopping malls has dispersed the general book market. Our city premises have therefore become more suited to school and academic bookselling. We have had to change with our market, while at the same time moving to our market, opening shops at universities, selling at schools and conferences. We are proud to be able to offer to the many city centre shoppers in Durban and Pietermaritzburg two fairly good general bookshops. A community needs bookshops for education, entertainment and exposure to important ideas, and we think the city centre communities in KZN would be poorer without us.

What keeps you going?
Adams has never been totally profit focused. We have tried to give a good and needed service and see bookselling as a vocation as well as a business. I am only one of a few people who have spent their lives working in the business and I believe we have unusual cohesion as a team. We are all committed to continuing the business and doing the best we can. The black staff now own a quarter of Adams Booksellers and are growing in their abilities. I know the team has the ability to continue without me, when the time comes. We have been fortunate in having supportive shareholders. I enjoy leading a talented team and have confidence in them. We have two family members apart from myself who are directors of our holding company. David has managed a bookshop and has strong property skills, Jane McDuff knows the book world well both from the bookselling and publishing sides. So, although I do not see an Adams working fulltime as a bookseller, I do not see the Adams presence disappearing in the future.

The History of Adams Bookstore
To coincide with their 150th anniversary, Adams decided to reprint an edited version of Barbara Maude-Stone’s Dear Old Durban, and in the preface is the official history of the store – an excerpt of which is reproduced here.

After building a wholesale and manufacturing stationery business over half a lifetime in the United Kingdom, Francis Adams found his livelihood threatened by a competitor who had developed a new industrial process to make strawboard. He therefore encouraged his two eldest sons – Francis and Stanhope – to explore other avenues, and they sailed for Durban together on the Prince Alfred in 1863.

These were optimistic times in the colony and the growing number of settlers were hungry for news from home. The two brothers therefore arranged to use the small shop under the newly-built Natal Mercury offices as a stationery and bookshop, continuing a service which had previously been offered by the newspaper. There they also operated The Durban Subscription Library, enabling subscribers to read the latest books. Francis Adams senior (the great great grandfather of current MD Peter), funded the bookstore, but Francis and Stanhope ran the store from the start in 1865.

The young traders, both in their midtwenties, depended on those in London to choose stationery and books to send, and their almost weekly correspondence highlights the difficulties of depending on those far away, who did not know the interests and needs of the colonists. Fortunately, their father had a sound business in London and was able to manage even with the slow payments that came from the distant branch of his business.

The Boer War in 1899 interrupted the progress of the business, but success with stationery sales after the War, and during the First World War encouraged the directors to look for ways to expand. With the support of their London based family colleagues – Percy and Archie, who were running the London part of the business, Adams and Rees, they built a three storey warehouse on the corner of Victoria, (now known as Bertha Mkhize) and Grey Streets and purchased a card and wrapping paper business and a typewriter agency. The business struggled through the post war depression of the twenties, battling poor sales attributed to drought, the rinderpest and generally difficult conditions. Long trips to the Free State brought little reward and careful attention was paid to every penny spent.

They closed the stationery wholesale department after selling the building and in 1930 built 341 West Street, (now known as Dr Pixley Kaseme Street), which houses the company’s head office today.

The Second World War again interrupted trade, but more dramatically than the First World War had done. Ships were seldom available to transport books and stationery to the colonies as the journey was hazardous and they were needed for troop movements. The Adams and Rees warehouse containing goods to come to Durban was bombed and destroyed, as were many of the warehouses containing publishers’ stocks. The men in the business, including Dixey Adams, who had joined the business in 1938, were for the most part away. Women took their places and showed their talents in the retail trade, changing the composition of the staff forever. It took time to rebuild the business after the war, and Adams was fortunate to inherit a world-class bookselling team from their main competitors.

When Mr Rabjohn joined the Company in the early 50’s he quickly persuaded the directors that the future lay in books. Handbags were discarded and the range of cards reduced. The light wells which had previously allowed light to fall from the third floor roof lanterns, were filled in, allowing better use of the floor space. The book department was moved from the first floor to the ground, and a total refit brightened and modernised the shop. Recently introduced fluorescent lights were installed.

Mr Rabjohn and his senior booksellers – Joan Clark and Edna Steel – read avidly and were able to give good advice to their many customers. Adams became a place which most of Durban’s readers enjoyed visiting for the pleasant chit chat and the finest range of books. As the mail came in, books were set aside for special customers, phone calls were made telling them that something was kept for them. And at Christmas time the customers brought a stream of gifts, from perfume to jewellery to express their appreciation. After a few years Adams bought the other good bookshop in town – TW Griggs – and opened its second branch, Adams and Griggs. Here too business boomed as even more children went to school.

Paperbacks soon found their place on Adams’ shelves. While the wealthier readers frowned upon them as inferior, many other readers took advantage of the wide range of cheaper books to read more widely. The available range of classics and older books expanded and exciting ranges of non-fiction also appeared, such as the little blue Pelicans. Whereas only the recent hardbacks had been stocked, Adams could now keep all the earlier novels of the bestselling authors.

But if you still couldn’t afford a book or simply wanted that just-too-expensive hardback, the Adams sales were something to wait for. The whole shop was turned around and overstock from the local warehouses was sold at knock-down prices. As the advertising signs said, there were “Bargains for Everyone.”

In the eighties, the new retail Malls appeared. Exclusive Books opened branches in many of them and the city centres declined as a destination for the well-heeled shopper. After Dixey Adams’ death in 1982, Peter Adams took over the reins with Colin Mace and Mike Duggan, using their long experience to take advantage of the growing university and schoolbook markets.

Adams opened a shop in Musgrave Centre, but Adams was no longer the only place to go for good books. No single bookshop held that place and nowhere did a remarkable general bookselling team like they had curated, reappear. Adams opened branches at the University of Natal, took over businesses from other retailers, and grew to the current eleven academically or educationally biased shops in Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Cape Town and Johannesburg. Stationery and general books remain important and Adams is the only firm offering a comprehensive range of these to the city centre shoppers in Durban and Pietermaritzburg today. “We have come a long way since the days Adams was established, and look back on our first 150 years with pride and with gratitude to our customers, and to the many people who have worked in the business and helped it through the good and the difficult times. Adams really is a Durban family business and the shareholders, both in South Africa and London, have worked in it ever since its establishment,” says MD Peter Adams.