Yarmouth Oilskins traces back to 1898, when Johnson and Sons became a limited company and, days later, joined other local businessmen to form Yarmouth Stores Ltd, a retailer of outfitting, waterproof clothing, and drapery. Before the Second World War the company employed more than 1,200 people, mostly machinists making oilskins, overalls, and workwear in its Great Yarmouth factories, supplying herring-fishing crews and, from the 1960s, the North Sea gas industry. Still family-owned and independent, it now employs around 20 machinists producing the same range in the same town.