Achille Serre Ltd

Achille and Eugenie Serre left France for England in 1870. Although by trade a ribbon dyer Achille thought there was no future in this and branched out into cleaning with solvents, the so called 'dry' cleaning that was popular in Paris but virtually unknown in England.

Confusingly Achille and Eugenie called their son Eugene and it was he who took over the business in 1882 and developed and expanded the company through a series of different guises ending up with its base in Walthamstow E17.

At its peak the firm had 400 outlets from which one could hire an umbrella in the company colours by the day should it look like rain. By then the company employed 1500, but the thirties recession hit hard and from 1940 to 1944 the firm was in receivership. The company moved away from dry cleaning into contract laundry while the shops were bought by Sketchley who closed many of them.