The three Field siblings now lead the 10th generation funeral services firm as co-CEOs. ·Jim Holden
‘Never go to sleep on an argument’ was the sage advice Jeremy Field’s grandfather gave him and his two siblings the night before their weddings.
It is a life lesson the trio, whose family motto is ‘Care above all’, have also taken into running 10th generational firm CPJ Field, the oldest independent funeral director in the UK after the family enterprise was enlisted to make its first coffin in 1690.
Field, together with his brother and sister, sit down once or twice a year with a facilitator to review their employment contracts. “We review what we have between us, how we will behave, treat each other and how we work together,” says Field. “We just keep that moving.”
With revenue close to £10m, the Sussex-based business has done just that. Over 335 years, it has conducted more than 1 million funerals – from Queen Victoria to John Wayne-themed send-offs. It currently employs about 120 full-time staff and oversees burial, cremation and funeral planning options.
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Run by siblings Jeremy, Emily and Charles, who are now all co-CEOs, CPJ Field is seen as a leader in personalised services across 35 funeral homes in the south of England, from Bedfordshire to Brighton, and under different brand names.
“The local trading names have high levels of brand recognition,” says Field. “Let’s take Heritage & Sons in Buckinghamshire. It is etched in the windows and says CPJ Field once you come into the funeral home and you transact with CPJ Field.
CPJ Field brand Heritage & Sons dates back to the 19th Century and offers funeral homes across Buckinghamshire. ·Edited with Google AI
“We are as upfront and transparent as we can be about it, without taking off a 150-year-old brand name from the outside of the building and getting everyone to think that we’ve just become a new business.”
The company has been subject to several “hostile” takeover bids from US conglomerates in the last 70 years and a “bump in the road” in the mid-90s when the old business, JD Field & Sons, which was partly listed on the stock exchange, lost family ownership.
Field’s father, Colin, then started a new firm in 1994, before Jeremy approached the owners of the old family business. “I asked them if they would consider letting us reconnect to our history? And they said yes,” recalls Jeremy, who joined the firm aged 29.
“I was touring the funeral homes with my father in my early teens,” he adds. “I was learning the ropes and I realised just how much had gone in via osmosis all those years ago when we were going around in the car. So, it’s not just about funerals, it’s family business.
CPJ Field offers a wide range of funeral services, including traditional and non-traditional options.
“I always had a line that I was going to go and do something first. I tried to join the army, they weren’t keen and I’m not bitter. But I didn’t like the idea that somehow my future was preordained for me.”
Today, the firm continues to innovate — it used a glass-sided hearse to take coffins to funerals back in the 19th century — and is billed as the leading provider of funeral management software to the sector since 2014.
“We were looking at the way we talk to families of deceased people about funeral arrangements and the tools that we had to support the administration of what we were doing,” says Field.
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“We established that we didn’t really feel there was a product out there that really supported that, so we began the process of designing our own funeral management software.”
Pre-COVID, CPJ Field decided to offer the multi-million pound platform as cloud-based technology business for funeral arranging, with over 75 UK and European FD clients. “I think we’ve got a pretty spectacular piece of software that it’s hard to imagine the business without now,” admits Field.
The Field siblings have followed in their father’s footsteps at the helm of CPJ Field.
It was, says Field, during COVID when resilience was tested as a business and its ability to operate from sites with internet connections. “It was like nothing I’d ever encountered before,” he admits.
“We were telling our colleagues to do exactly the opposite of what the prime minister was telling everybody to do.
“We needed to lean on the trust that we have as a family business, that we know the people in the company and we know each other, know their families, and to keep being able to provide funeral services for those that needed them most. I think we did that to a very successful degree.
“I was very conscious that I was asking people, for all intents and purposes, to put themselves in harm’s way and trust that I would keep them safe. I’m not going to aggravate it by drawing a parallel to it, but it’s like nothing I’d ever experienced in commerce before.”
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Field received an OBE in 2022 for services to the funeral profession during the pandemic and leads by the phrase posed by Thomas Lynch, the US poet and funeral director: ‘By getting the dead where they need to go, the living get where they need to be’.
Meanwhile, the company remains members of the Tercentenarians Club for 300-year-old family businesses, of which CPJ Field is the ninth oldest in the UK.
CPJ Field’s history includes managing the funerals for the Duke of Wellington, the last heraldic state funeral to be held in the UK. ·FM Archive
“We were 12th when we first stuck our head above the parapet on that one,” adds Field, who also followed his father as one of the youngest presidents of the National Association of Funeral Directors.
“We might meet up, talk about the challenges of life and family business, but the difference is we only do it once a year. It’s a very jolly club.”
How to run a successful family business
There’s all sorts of stuff about trying to leave the baggage at the door and trying to forget those squabbles you had as kids. Just be honest about how you’re feeling. Be honest about what’s on your mind. Be honest about what you want to see happen as it’s a bit like not going to sleep on an argument.
Everybody needs to know where everybody stands, and sometimes that can be painful, and you’ve got to remember to be kind in the way that you try and have these honest conversations. Pent-up frustrations lead to tension and so family business or otherwise, it’s vitally important to always have an employment contract.
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