THE 100th birthday of Gertrude Mitchell, one of the people behind the Warwick House emporium, was featured in the Gazette 25 years ago.

Mrs Mitchell founded a high-class millinery business, among whose clients was Princess Alice, the Duchess of Athlone.

Gertrude Barribal was born in Oswestry, and her first job was as a millinery buyer for Ayris of Cheltenham.

In 1912, she married surveyor and estate agent Harold Hastings Mitchell, and two years later started her own shop in Worcester's High Street. In the early 1920s, Mrs Mitchell started a wholesale millinery business in Barbourne, called Madame Barribal. The family had moved to Malvern in 1921, and in the 1930s she opened Gertrude Mitchell Ltd on Belle Vue Terrace.

By the late 30s, she had a nationwide clientele, a showroom in Great Marlborough Street, London, and a staff of 250. But then came the war. Almost all her staff were whisked off for defence work and the Barbourne business was shut down.

In 1941, Gertrude Mitchell Ltd joined forces with Cox and Painter to become Mitchell, Cox and Williams, and, later, Warwick House of Malvern.

The Worcester shop closed in 1952 - it stood about where Woolworths is - but Mrs Mitchell continued as a director until 1959; her daughter and son-in-law, Margaret and Geoffrey Lampard, ran Warwick House until it was bought by Gieves and Hawkes of London in the late 1970s.

Mrs Mitchell also became part-owner of the Mount Pleasant Hotel in 1959, living there and managing it for a while.