In March 1820, William Wright set up a small tobacco factory in Craigshill, Livingston, West Lothian.

The largest constituent of Imperial Tobacco, and major driver of the amalgamation, was W. D. & H. O. Wills and the new company was run for eight years from a suite of offices located in the Wills' branch premises until a new Imperial Tobacco head office was built in Bedminster, Bristol.

[2] As a constituent part of Imperial Tobacco, Player's was tightly controlled from Bedminster but as a manufacturer the branch retained its own identity, producing distinctive cigarette brands such as Navy Cut, No.

9, John Player Special, and Gold Leaf; loose tobacco brands such as No Name; and its distinctive logo of a smoking sailor in a navy-cut cap.

2 Factory, facing onto Radford Boulevard with its distinctive clock (now plinthed in the retail park on the site) and the No.

3 factory (which faced onto Churchfield lane) with its rooftop 'John Player & Sons' sign, were demolished in the late 1980s.

[8] Player's still trades, but with a much-reduced workforce (down to about 700 employees due to increased efficiency) compared to the 20th century, when it was one of the Big Three employers associated with Nottingham, along with Boots the Chemists and the Raleigh Bicycle Company.

Player's workforce peaked in the 1960s: subsequently the company's fortunes declined as awareness of the health effects of tobacco increased, and during the 1980s five of the firm's Nottingham factories closed with the loss of 3,000 jobs.

Its current workforce is eclipsed by larger service sector employers in the city, such as Experian and Queen's Medical Centre[9] and the University of Nottingham.

In Australia, JPS Team BMW competed in the Australian Touring Car Championship between 1981 and 1987, with Jim Richards winning the series in 1985 and 1987.

In 1981, BMW released a limited-edition road version of its 323i touring car in JPS colours to the Australian market and another in 1984.

The team was competitive and featured Canadian drivers Greg Moore, Patrick Carpentier, Alex Tagliani, and in 2003, Paul Tracy.

Tracy would win the championship in 2003, just as a new Tobacco Act ban took full effect for auto racing in October 2003.

The team would use a "GOODBYE, CANADA" theme for Tracy and Carpentier's final races and not have explicit Player's branding.

However, Norton's NVT parent company commercially declined and John Player withdrew sponsorship in 1974.

Player's were one of the first UK tobacco companies to include sets of general interest cards in their packs of cigarettes.

[citation needed] In sports, Player's released several cards series, mostly association football collections.