About William Charles
William Frederick Charles was born in Wymeswold in 1859 and came from an old farming family. Thus, when he joined the School in Easter 1872 he arrived on his beloved pony and was to do so for the next four years. On leaving LGS he trained to become a chemist and perfumier under John Paget on Church Gate. Initially he set up in business himself as the Charnwood Pharmacy in the Market Place where he manufactured baking powder, bronchial jujubes and ‘liquid lustrine’, for cleaning military buckles, before turning his attention to the manufacture of scent.
He called this ‘Zenobia’ after the third century A.D. Queen of Palmyra, an area now located in modern Syria, and set up a shop in 1888 in Baxter Gate. As his perfumes gained in popularity that shop became too small and in 1912 he took over a disused factory between Southfield Road and Woodgate, where the ‘Bee Hive’ car park is today, and returned to the Market Place to sell his perfumes.
The perfumes manufactured by the company were known as true flower perfumes, mimicking the scent of flowers such as lily of the valley, sweet pea blossom, violets, orange blossom and lilac dew. The bottles containing the perfume were as appealing as the scents themselves, being hand painted glass bottles, referred to in the company’s advertising literature as ‘Zen-Art’
He had a scientific mind and a limitless amount of patience which served him in good stead in his research and during World War I, he shifted his focus to producing affordable toiletries, of which his talcum powder was the most popular.
After the war, he realised what you sold these bottles in was equally important, and in 1933 he patented improvements to hinged-lid boxes and also patented improved display and delivery cabinets for his perfumes.
He wrote with authority on many subjects which were published in scientific journals. He devoted much of his leisure to social work and was a councillor for 10 years being Mayor of Loughborough for two terms from 1919-1921. He was outstanding as a photographer, and for eleven years was President of the Loughborough Photographic Society. He was a Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, and amongst his many other activities was a member of the Leicester Pharmaceutical Society, a Governor of Loughborough Hospital and a Governor of his old school.
He died in Loughborough Hospital, directly opposite his first Zenobia Shop, on 3rd March 1939. The company he left behind continued to trade successful being run by his daughter until 1952 when it was sold to Genatosan, a subsidiary of Fisons. Sadly, the perfume business declined and by the 1960’s the factory had been demolished and was replaced with a car showroom.