From its establishment after the 1914 - 1918 war, The Earl Haig Fund acquired its poppies from England. In 1926, Countess Haig, wife of the Field Marshal, suggested that a factory, employing those men disabled by war, should be started to make poppies for Scotland.
The suggestion was taken up by Earl Haig’s “Appeal Organisation” and premises, in the form of an old wood-chopping factory in the grounds of Whitefoord House, were acquired.
From a humble start, in March 1926, of “two workers, a pair of scissors and a piece of paper”, numbers soon rose to twenty eight by which time, the bulk of the poppies required for Scotland had been made. And there was a waiting list of 117 men who wished to be employed by the factory.
A committee of management under the chairmanship of Colonel William Robertson V.C. came into being and the project began to expand.
During the run up to the end of the decade, the demand for poppies and wreaths was met while, in 1928, the introduction of “stuffed toys and jigsaw puzzles” heralded an expansion of activity into a wide range of hand-crafted goods.
Wreaths were made with locally grown laurel leaves, wax poppy seeds and moss which was gathered by Girl Guides.

During the thirties, the Factory enjoyed great prosperity and renown, reaching, in 1934, a maximum of 117 people employed with a waiting list of 338. It was not, at that time, a charity as we know it today but “a self help movement run on strict business lines. No doles are given, the employees being paid by results”.
Not everyone worked in the factory as there were, at various times, up to three shops in Edinburgh for the sale of handicrafts and a travelling shop which drove all round Scotland averaging £100 per week in sales.
Artefacts, in addition to soft toys, included leather goods, artificial flowers, rocking horses, dolls’ houses, tin soldiers, lampshades, black rose bowls, electric lamp standards and, later, woven goods.
Special orders for Jubilee and Coronation decorations were fulfilled and, within reason, almost anything else could be made to order.

In 1931, new premises for sales were opened at Marryat House in Calton Road thanks to a bequest from Mrs Marryat, sister of Sir James Caird Bt of Dundee. During the rest of the decade, the Factory was visited by the Prince of Wales (1932) and the Duke and Duchess of York (1933) while the travelling shop called at Balmoral every year. In 1937, the new Queen Elizabeth called in at the shop in George Street.
By now, the Factory had a Council, a Committee of Management and a Ladies Committee chaired by Lady Haig herself. Both she and Colonel Robertson devoted a great deal of their time to Factory matters even going so far as to play the role of Sandwich Men, advertising sales of work along the length of Princes Street.
The momentum was maintained into the Second World War but with a diminution of attractive artefacts. Instead, production focused on war goods such as gas mask holders, blackout blinds, lampshades, identity card holders, wallets and Red Cross
collecting boxes. By the end of the war, over 100 men were still employed including a growing number of Second World War casualties.

Following immediate, post-war visits by Field Marshal Montgomery, General Eisenhower and Wilfred Paling, the Minister of Pensions, the Factory reverted to its pre-war spread of production. In 1946, at the age of 82, Colonel Robertson V.C. resigned as chairman of the Council having served for 20 years.
Then, in 1950, the introduction of purchase tax on raw materials heralded the slow decline of non-core manufacturing. However, the factory retained the capacity to produce one-off items and some new lines including puppets and jewellery were introduced.
In 1955, the Committee abolished “poppy snobbery”, introducing a standard lapel poppy almost identical to the one we use today. At this stage, LHPF was still largely self supporting with any deficit being met by a grant from the Earl Haig Fund.

In 1965, the Factory was moved to its present location, an old printing works. It was officially opened by the Duke of Edinburgh in 1966.
The Earl Haig Fund Scotland moved into the adjacent New Haig House in 1978 which was officially opened by Her Majesty The Queen on the 3rd of July that year.

From here on, the rising cost of the operation, which was principally due to government imposition, rendered self sufficiency ever more difficult while the increase in welfare benefits drastically reduced the number of people willing to work in the Factory. By 1975, the number of people employed had fallen to 51 with a waiting list of 3 while, by 1980, the number
had fallen to 35 with no reserves. New machinery enabled the annual poppy order to be fulfilled but the skills needed for all the other activities were no longer obtainable. By 1981, the Factory was facing a most uncertain future. At this stage, Lady Haig’s Poppy Factory was being run by a Management Committee, appointed by the Council of the Earl Haig Fund, through its Manager, Major Simon Campbell and under its Chairman, Col T.D. Purdie T.D. It was the former who played a vital role in determining a secure future.

During the seventies, although the imbalance between costs and sales increased, throwing a progressively heavier burden on the Earl Haig Fund’s benevolence, any thought of applying for grant aid from a government source had been strongly resisted, principally because of the perceived threat of allowing an outside agency some say in the Factory’s affairs. Moreover, it was recognised that the Unions would be liable to object to their
manufacturing members facing competition from a subsidised workforce.

However, by 1982, the Factory’s deficit had reached an unacceptable level and it was decided that outside help should be sought. Major Campbell personally lobbied the appropriate person at Westminster and, in 1984 (not without a great deal of negotiation), The Manpower Services Commission agreed to accept the Poppy Factory as an official “Sheltered Workshop”, entitled to grant aid and suitable for the placement of disabled ex-servicemen on its books.

For the next ten years, the Factory ran smoothly along under its new manager, Major Campbell Graham M.B.E., a retired Scots Guardsman. In 1986, a printing shop was set up which, today, is equipped with the latest technology and makes a significant contribution to income. Margaret Thatcher paid a visit in September of that year while, in 1987, Lieutenant Colonel R.W. Smith, late of the Gordon Highlanders, took over as Chairman and a bespoke poppy making machine was installed as a “longstop” against the day an emergency might endanger production.

In 1992, Countess Haig, daughter-in-law of the Factory’s founder, retired from the Management Committee, on which she had served some years, and kindly agreed to become Patron. She has continued to monitor the Factory’s activities closely and ensures a continuity of knowledge and experience which goes back to the beginning.
Then, in 1994, in answer to perceived threats to the inviolability of individual members of the Management Committee following new legislation governing the operation of enterprises, it was decided to give up the Factory’s independence and to integrate it into the Earl Haig Fund. This move had not been fully thought out by either party and, despite the passing of the necessary resolutions, things continued much as they had before.
The matter finally came to a head in 1998 and a near disaster was only just averted.

In 1998, The Earl Haig Fund instructed Management Consultants to review all of its operations and to make recommendations for the future. It did not occur to anyone that the Factory, although legally an integral part of the Fund was, in fact, continuing to operate as it had before 1994. As a result, the consultant paid only slight attention to the Factory and failed to spot the operational differences which existed.

The Earl Haig Fund started to put the consultant’s recommendations into practice and this included the moving of the Factory Accountant “upstairs” and away from the production floor. By this time, Major Johan Larsen, late of the KOSB, was Manager and he alerted the recently appointed Chairman, Lt Colonel Ian Shepherd (Highland Fusiliers) to the problems arising from this move and of several other matters which threatened the proper management of the Factory.
Colonel Shepherd saw that his full time work with the Army Benevolent Fund would give him little time to attend to these problems and, accordingly, stood down passing the Chairmanship to Captain Tim Usher who, many years before, had been in The Black Watch. The first thing established was that, in essence, if the Factory was, indeed, confirmed as a mere division of the Fund, it would lose the vital support of Manpower Services - now known as Employment Services - who required it to be an independent unit with over 50% of the workforce registered as disabled. Such a loss would completely destroy the Factory’s ability to operate and, thus, end the manufacture of poppies in Scotland.