The business prospered throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries so that the company were able to claim that every single Royal household in Europe owned an Esse, and included Auguste Escoffier, Mrs Beeton, Florence Nightingale and Captain Scott among their famous clients.
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In the 1830s, as a teenager James Smith left Scotland for the United States and established a business selling the new American type of enclosed cooking ranges and stoves in Jackson, Mississippi.