Business Career
In the 1890s, Samuel Ryder started to sell packets of seeds through the post, priced at one penny each. Other seed merchants also made postal sales, but their packets were much more expensive. He started selling from his home in St Albans, which had good mainline railway connections. He kept his stock in the garden shed of his terraced house on Folly Lane, and was assisted by his wife and daughter. The packets would be posted each Friday so that his customers, working men, would receive them for their time off on Saturday afternoons. The business grew rapidly and Ryder became wealthy. Eventually, the business moved to a large packaging workshop on Holywell Hill, employing around 100 staff. The art deco seed hall is now a Café Rouge restaurant. He established a separate herb business, Heath and Heather, with his brother James in 1922 (which eventually became part of Holland & Barrett). In 1924, the company moved to a former hat factory, which had a floor area of some 24,000 square feet (2,200 m2).
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