In August 1960, the shares of Rose, Morris & Co. Ltd were acquired by Grampian Holdings Limited, a Scottish based holding company with interests in a wide range of commercial and industrial activities (not previously including musical merchandise). Leslie Rose decided to retire at that time: leaving the company after more than forty years devotion to its well-being and the welfare of its staff, he has since engaged in charitable work although, unfortunately, his health has been sometimes not of the best. Stanley Rose remained with the company, at first as Chairman and subsequently in the capacity of consultant.
With this, the first break from direction of the business by its founders, it was natural that fears should be expressed. Both within and outside Rose Morris, that the policies and methods of the company might change.
Here was a mammoth holding company, with no experience of the musical instrument trade (which has, as even its friends will agree, some peculiarities!), in control of an old-established family business which had built its reputation on a friendly, personal relationship with its suppliers and its customers: would RM now become yet another machine-like organisation, impersonal, rigid, unfriendly?
Happily, the parent company in its wisdom did not interfere with the conduct of the business. While its resources and experience proved valuable to Rose Morris on many occasions since the acquisition, the association has proved to be a happy one in other respects, too: the directors and staff have been permitted to get on with the jobs they know so well, and the outcome has been a new Rose, Morris & Co. Ltd so closely akin to the original that the traditions and methods of the firm have been retained, almost intact.
On March 28th 1963, Stanley Rose took the Chair at a Board Meeting for the last time. While remaining a director, he handed over the Chair to William Woolf. The new Chairman took the opportunity to express to Mr Rose the company's thanks and admiration for his past chairmanship, paying tribute to his assiduous attention to his duties even at times when he was not in the best of health. On December 31st 1963, Mrs Freeman, Company Secretary for 43 years, retired from the service of the company.
Photo: December 1963 at the retirement party for Mrs Freeman and Joe Platt. From left to right: Roy Morris, Clara Freeman, Stanley Rose, William Woolf, Leslie Rose, Joseph Platt, Maurice Woolf.