About Us

Oswald Bailey have been supplying camping and outdoor equipment for over 100 years. Still a family run company, we put our passion and experience into ensuring we offer the perfect kit to suit your adventure.

Trusted by generations of outdoor enthusiasts, we offer a huge range of tents, rucksacks, sleeping bags, footwear, clothing and accessories…everything you need to make the outdoors great. Have a browse through these pages…but remember there's lots more to be found in store or online as well.

We make sure that we sell the best kit, which is why we use it ourselves! Many of our staff get involved with outdoor trips, product testing and sharing expertise. This means that we have personal experience in the kit we're selling. We love to hear about your adventures, so let us know where you're off to and we'll help you find exactly what you need.

Dedicated to sharing our passion for the outdoors, Oswald Bailey has strong links with many DofE, Scouts and Guides groups. With years of experience, we understand the need for the right kit at competitive prices.

Committed to making sure you get the very best value for money, we constantly check our prices against all major high street retailers. If you can find your outdoor gear for less elsewhere on the high street, let us know and we'll be happy to match their like for like price.

So, all you need to do is think about where your feet will take you next! But remember, we couldn't possibly fit the whole of our range into these pages, so pop into one of our shops to have a browse and a chat to our friendly staff.

A Brief Company History

In these days of multi-national companies and faceless conglomerates, Oswald Bailey Ltd. is among the small number of thriving 'household name' businesses to have remained a family concern for three generations.

Now with an annual turnover in excess of £8 million, and more than 120 employees working in 20 shops throughout southern England and the midlands. The company was born in 1906 when Oswald Bailey - the son of a local boot and shoe-maker - opened a small shop in Newtown Row, Birmingham, selling miscellaneous second-hand goods.

An energetic entrepreneur, Oswald soon took his business forward, opening more shops nearby, moving away from junk and into clothing, and earning the right to call himself a 'Government Contractor' by establishing trading contacts with a local army depot. His service connections stood him in good stead when, after the war, a booming trade in army surplus goods led to healthy profits being invested in further premises and, in 1927, to the incorporation of the business with limited liability.

The company's financial strength enabled it not only to weather the world-wide recession of the late '20s and early '30s, but to expand into new areas. In addition to establishing a dominant position in Birmingham's Bullring, Oswald Bailey Ltd opened its first shop in Bournemouth during 1930, with others following in Poole and Southampton. By this time, Oswald's two sons - Frank and John - had become directors of the company and, upon his retirement in 1948, Oswald decided to split the business between them.

Frank, with the success of his diversification into a greater range of new goods, sports and casual wear, industrial clothing, tents and camping equipment, opened new shops in Southampton and Portsmouth, while his brother continued to build on the company's solid base in the midlands.By the time of Oswald's death in 1962, his name had become synonymous with the great outdoors, appearing over the doorways of no fewer than 14 shops.

In 1980, the two parts of the business were brought back together and Frank's son Stephen took over as group director, initiating the use of computerised stock control the following year. Despite being a long-established family firm, Oswald Bailey is continuing to innovate and adapt to the ever changing market place as well as making full use of e-technology to streamline the selling, ordering and distribution of the ever-wider range of goods demanded by today's outdoor enthusiasts.

enjoy life's journey!