In November, 1934, Mr Reg Purnell came to work at East Tilbury as assistant in the cashier's office. After three months with the cashier he was transferred to an entirely different job in the leather factory's production office. It was in that job that Mr Purnell first gained any practical knowledge about shoes.
In 1935, together with Mr W Hammond, he was moved to the supply department which had then, just been started. Messrs Hammond and Purnell were the first two to work in this department which has developed into a large organisation supplying shoes to all the Bata shoe stores in this country.
It was not until 1936 that Mr Purnell went to work in the calculation department. In a short while he was given the job of costing for the leather factory and later on he had the opportunity of learning rubber factory costing as well.
Early this year, Mr Purnell was made responsible for the costing for the rubber and leather factories and all subsidiary costing.