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Morris Cooper might sound like a classic British car to you, but he was in fact a very real person.
He was the man who created the Great British jeans company Lee Cooper in 1908. Back then it was called the rather sober 'M.Cooper Overalls Ltd', a family-run firm that prided itself on specialising in durable and versatile workwear, mainly of the hugely popular 'bib and braces' variety.
Morris (or Mo to his friends) built up such a well earned and highly respected reputation for kitting out Britain's' manual workers and tradesmen that within two years Cooper was employing over 600 workers and running two factories.
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Not surprising then, that when Lord Kitchener announced "Your Country Needs You" in 1914 the enterprising Mo switched from overalls to battle fatigues. He threw the full weight of his factories into the war effort and began manufacturing military uniforms for the British armed forces, in one of the first examples of Cooper's ability to adjust and adapt with the times.
Unfortunately, Mo never lived to see his company reach anything like its full potential as he was killed in a car crash in 1940, a premature death that resulted in his son taking over the helm at the end of the Second World War.
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