The story of DRG goes back to 1884 when 27 year old Elisha Smith Robinson set up a modest business in wrapping paper and paper bags in Baldwin Street, Robinson was an exceptionally hard worker: he cleaned his own windows, swept the floor and polished the brass. He also knew how to manufacture and to sell, and, perhaps more importantly, when and how to delegate responsibility. By 1946 the business
had made such good progress that larger premises were taken in Redcliffe Street; premises which would remain the company's headquarters for decades to come. When in 1948 Elisha took his brother Alfred into the firm the business became known as ES & A. Robinson, a name which would exist for far longer than the brothers. By the 1960s ES & A Robinson Ltd would be the principal company in the Robinson Group of some 30 separate companies in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Zimbabwe and New Zealand with assets of £30 million and more than 13,500 employees. It would produce over 100 million finished items of packaging each week, not just paper bags and envelopes but all types of folding boxes, cartons and tubes. The group’s prominence was amply demonstrated in 1961 when Redcliffe Street was redeveloped and a prestigious new head office, a 200 feet high office block, was erected on the old site and clad in white marble quarried in Italy - the first tower block to be built in Bristol. It still stands to-day by Bristol Bridge.
