Extract from The Changing Face Of Warminster by Wilfred Middlebrook, published in 1971:
One of the oldest businesses in Warminster was the paint and varnish works of John Hall And Company, founded in 1830. ‘Moonraker’ paints were well-known over the whole of southern and central England, this being Wiltshire’s only paint works. Their address was simply “Wiltshire Mills, Weymouth Street.”
John Hall became a partner with a thriving industrialist called Reynolds, starting the paint and varnish business in 1830, and three of Hall’s sons gave a lifetime’s work to the development and expansion of the firm; with grandsons working too – three generations were thus employed in what was truly a family business. Where other old-established paint firms were absorbed in larger concerns, thus losing their identity, the firm of John Hall And Co. prided itself on keeping the business in the family, with grandsons of the founder doing business with the grandsons of the firm’s first customers.
One of the pioneers of the Tariff Reform Movement, John Hall’s work in this direction is commemorated by the clock that adorns what used to be the Conservative Club in Church Street. The eldest son of John Hall, Mr. Alfred Hall, who died in 1952, in his eightieth year, was the managing director of the firm for many years and travelled through many countries visiting customers in towns and villages, making personal contacts that did much to build up the business. Soon after the last war, with his co-directors, “Mr. Alfred” acquired the Standard Paint And Varnish Company in London, thus widening the firm’s scope. He was also instrumental in obtaining a second cinema for Warminster, with the erection of the Regal in 1935. He also took a keen interest in housing matters with the erection of Hall’s Terrace between the Paint Works and the cinema in 1921.