with the rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs (since 1944, the rue Danielle-Casanova) in the 1st arrondissement. This shop brought more royal patrons, among them the King and Queen of Spain. By 1914 there were approved retail outlets for Brigg umbrellas in Barcelona, Berlin, Biarritz, Brussels, Buenos Aires, Florence, Madrid, Naples, Nice, Palermo, Rome and Vienna. In 1919, the firm bought the goodwill and stock of the French parasol makers Bétaille on the rue Royale, Paris. In his memoirs the cubist painter Amédée Ozenfant told of his proud but short-lived ownership of a Brigg umbrella, for which he had paid the astonishing price of 35 francs as a young man, only to lose it the next day in the métro. In 1931, Bertie and Guy Brigg turned the business into a limited company, and five years later, to mark the firm's supposed foundation in 1836, brought out the ultra-slim "Centenary" umbrella. One Brigg umbrella was to achieve world fame. This was Neville Chamberlain's gentleman's black-silk umbrella with Mallaca cane handle spliced onto a Tonkin cane shaft with a gilt collar that he took with him to Munich for talks with Adolf Hitler in September 1938 and to Rome in January 1939 for his visit to Benito Mussolini. Newspapers came to see this umbrella as a symbol of hope. By July 1939, Life magazine was talking about the "umbrella of appeasement". Hitler, resentful of those who attended the Munich conference, poured scorn on what he called "umbrella politicians". It was a sad irony that war should break out only months after Chamberlain had tried to avert it and that soon afterwards, in 1940, the firm of Thomas Brigg & Sons should lose its Paris showroom to the German occupation of France. In February 1943, the firm joined forces with Swaine & Adeney to become Swaine, Adeney, Brigg & Sons Ltd, the merger overseen by Bertie Brigg. Brigg's gave up its shop on St James's Street but kept its manufactory for sticks and umbrellas at Newbury Street in the City of London. Output From relatively early on, Brigg chose to go down the route of individualized umbrella production, buying in the frame components from Fox Umbrella Frames Ltd, but using its own shafts, handles, ferrules, sliders and rib tips, not to mention covers. The firm was quick to complement its umbrella range with high-quality walking sticks. For day wear walking sticks were lightweight and in wood,