C&A - or Coats and 'Ats as it was sometimes known - was the popular fashion giant that had something for everyone.
The colourful budget brand was founded in 1841 by German-Dutch brothers Clemens and August Brenninkmeijer - who used the initials of their first names to name the enterprise - before it became a major presence throughout the UK.
Clemens and August’s ancestors had long been successful traders in northern Holland, leaving the family farm in 1671 to sell their wares as travelling linen merchants. And it was in Mettingen in the 1830s that Clemens and August were apprenticed as little more than boys to learn their trade.
