Carpenter Box’s centenary celebrations!
This year Carpenter Box is proud to be celebrating 100 years in business! To mark this momentous milestone our aim is to give back to the community that we have been proud to work in for a century by raising £50,000 for our own Carpenter Box Charitable Foundation.
Launch event
To kick off our year of celebrations we were delighted to host a launch event at our Head Office in Worthing on Wednesday 29th March. We were pleased to welcome some special guests including Sir Peter Bottomley, MP for West Worthing; Cllr Henna Chowdhury, Mayor of Worthing; James Whitmore, the High Sheriff of West Sussex and Martin Randall, Director for the Economy at Adur & Worthing Councils. Also in attendance were some of our Gold sponsors who have generously donated to our Charitable Foundation, as well as some of the main charities that will benefit from these donations (Red Balloon Worthing, Crawley Open House, Turning Tides and West Sussex Mind).
Guests were able to enjoy some Ridgeview sparkling wine and canapes whilst they met and mingled with local businesses and charities. They also heard a few words from John Billings (Senior Partner), Robin Evans (Partner) and Alan Edwards (Managing Partner) as well as Cllr Henna Chowdhury, James Whitmore and East Worthing and Shoreham MP Tim Loughton who couldn’t join in person but recorded a short video for the event.
Thank you to everyone who came along to the event to support us on this special occasion!
A (brief!) history of Carpenter Box
In 1923 Robert Carpenter agreed to go into partnership with Harold Box and together they opened up a Worthing office at 8 Liverpool Gardens. By 1927 Carpenter Box was listed by the ICAEW with offices in Brighton, Horsham and Worthing. Unfortunately this year Robert passed away at the age of 55.
Twelve years later in 1939, Gordon Child was appointed as Partner and the Lancing office opened. It was also the start of World War II, with some members of Carpenter Box staff called up for the duration.
In the 1950s Kenneth Mashford was appointed as Partner. He then went on to become a Senior Partner and President of the ICAEW. Sadly in 1956, Harold Box died suddenly at the age of 61.
By the 1960s the Partnership comprised Reginald Methold, Kenneth Mashford, Fred Webber and Roger Williams. In 1970 John Gilbey and Bill Roberts joined the Partnership, with Reginald Methold stepping down. In 1976 Paul Archer joined the firm and went on to become Senior Partner. Martin Godsmark became a Partner in 1982 having joined as a trainee. Paul and Martin together led an exciting period of growth to the end of the millennium. We have a great team with many long-serving members of staff. Our record holder is Debbie Burbidge who joined in 1976!
The Worthing office moved to 15 Grafton Road in 1985 after 62 years at Liverpool Gardens. Five years later in 1990, our training programmes were extended from Chartered Accountants with ICAEW to Certified Accountants ACCA and Chartered Tax Advisers CIOT.
Shortly into the new millennium Carpenter Box launches its first website on the domain www.c-box.co.uk. In 2005 John Billings became Managing Partner, later handing over to Alan Edwards, leading the next two decades of exciting growth along with a great partnership team. We appointed our first non-accountant partner Chris Coopey in 2006, who created a marketing team and transformed our brand. The firm started trading as an LLP and adopted a new logo.
In 2008 Carpenter Box Financial Advisers (CBFA) was founded (originally known as Carpenter Box Wealth Management). A year later in 2009, the Carpenter Box Charitable Foundation was launched to help local grassroots charities and community projects.
Sam Uwins, who later became the youngest-ever Partner at the firm, began working with influencers, vloggers and new media talent in 2011 and eventually launched StarBox. This year the Worthing office is moved to Amelia House on Crescent Road, which remains our current Head Office.
Over the next ten years, Carpenter Box expands across the South East, by opening offices in Crawley (2014), Brighton (2019), Chichester (2020) and London (2023). During this time we joined the international association PrimeGlobal and undertook a firm rebrand to align all three businesses (Carpenter Box, CBFA and StarBox) under a common identity.
Carpenter Box is proud to celebrate our centenary with a great business, a great team of over 200 and great clients.
We are looking forward to the next 100 years!
