British Made Christmas Gift Guide 2013 – Great Places to buy UK Made Christmas Presents

10 reasons for giving British made gifts this Christmas:

1. Helping preserve the future of British manufacturing and craftsmanship.
2. You know where what you are buying is coming from.
3. You are preserving and creating jobs for British workers.
4. You are bestowing a gift that does not have a massive carbon footprint.
5. It gives you the chance to buy something of quality that will last.
6. You are encouraging others to buy British.
7. You are helping people to realise that we do still make many wonderful things in the UK.
8. You are being patriotic.
9. British factories have ethical hygienic production, fair wages & decent working conditions.
10. You are helping ensure future security of supply.

Manufacturing in the UK allows companies to control supply, guarantee quality, offer flexibility and to be ethical and environmentally sound. Please support UK industry by buying British.

Umbrellas made in Great Britain – Umbrellas Made in England – British Made Umbrellas, Walking Sticks and Shooting Sticks and Awnings

British Made Umbrellas, Walking Sticks and Shooting Sticks.  Umbrellas made in the UK.

An umbrella (or brolly) is used to keep off the rain or the sun. A parasol more often than not is a term used for an umbrella designed to shade people from the sun and unlike a rain umbrella may not be waterproof. Umbrellas are widely used in the UK, Japan and elsewhere. You can get full sized umbrellas, folding umbrellas, travel umbrellas and the larger golf umbrellas, plus work umbrellas and garden umbrellas.

It is generally recognised that London has been the home of the best umbrellas and walking sticks and to some extent that tradition is carried on today, although the majority of umbrellas sold in the UK are made in China nowadays.

It is sadly the case that to the best of my knowledge there are no umbrellas made entirely in the UK any longer.  There are companies like those below claiming to sell “Made in the UK” umbrellas, but actually all the umbrella frames (the key component of any umbrella) are manufactured in China.  One might take the view simply attaching a canopy or handle (neither of which are of UK origin in some cases) in the UK does not make it genuinely “Made in the UK”.

You might consider getting a vintage British umbrella from somewhere like eBay, a charity shop, an antiques shop or a car boot sale but these are often in need of rather lot of work before they might be presentable. There is a buoyant and sometimes expensive market in secondhand English umbrellas on eBay.

The following are the UK manufacturers and retailers of British made umbrellas that I know of: