Our Space: Derry’s Most Lucrative Business - so far!

In 1863 he moved to Belfast’s and started buying his own tobacco leaf in America. By 1896 his York St, Belfast, factory was the largest cigarette factory in the world. He was called “the Tobacco King”.

In 1902 he produced the first machine-made cigarettes. He had factories in London, Dublin and Wales. On 3 May 1927, Tom died aged 87 and is buried in Belfast City Cemetery.

WW2’s Belfast Blitz moved Gallahers to Ballymena. By 1955 the Gallaher Group owned Benson & Hedges, Silk Cut, Sterling, Mayfair, Kensitas, Senior Service, Sobranie, Hamlet, etc. It was a FTSE 500 company on London Stock Exchange.

By 1974 Gallahers was owned by American Brands. But in 1999 Queen Elizabeth revoked the Royal Warrant. Her father, a heavy smoker, had lung cancer. In 2007 JTI Japan Tobacco International bought it for £7.5bn - then Japan’s largest ever foreign business acquisition.

Not bad for a business started by a 17-year old at Sackville Street - but The World Health Organisation now says tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year. And Keir Starmer’s government plans a law to progressively ban cigarette sales.

*’Our Space’ is a new weekly column looking at and highlighting historical, cultural and curious events, and little known points of interest connected to the north west region. The column runs every Friday in the Derry Journal.