A famous Shrewsbury business landmark has been given a festive makeover to celebrate Christmas and the owner’s 150th birthday.
Morris Lubricants, which reached its milestone birthday on December 7, is putting on a special display of Christmas lights on the company’s clock tower and works frontage in Castle Foregate.
The specially commissioned display, which includes a Christmas tree formation with a star on top, also features a large, illuminated 150 logo made by the company’s engineering department.
The display is just part of Morris Lubricants’ 150th birthday celebrations. The company has also launched an anniversary bonus scheme for its 150 staff, which will see the name of a lucky staff member drawn out each month for the next year to receive £150.
Each member of staff will also receive a specially commissioned, limited-edition Morris Lubricants 150th anniversary operational manual, produced by Haynes, charting the history of the company, its people and products.
Festive fundraising activities include a Christmas Jumper Day on December 20, with staff donating £2 to wear their favourite festive jumper.
There will also be a bake-off with staff baking cakes for a competition judged by directors David and Diana Goddard. The cakes will then be sold to raise money for this year’s adopted charity, Guide Dogs For The Blind.
Morris Lubricants, together with sister companies, Morris Leisure and GB Lubricants, are on course to raise £10,000 to pay for the training of a guide dog puppy named Morris.
Grocer and candlemaker James Kent Morris could never have envisaged his business becoming a global oil exporter when he first set up shop in Shrewsbury in 1869.
The Morris family’s link with the business has been maintained ever since and today the reins rest in the hands of executive chairman Andrew Goddard, a fifth-generation descendant of the entrepreneurial founder.
Morris Lubricants has been based at Castle Foregate since 1927, when the company took over the former Corbett’s Perseverance Iron Works.
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