A brief history of Candis

It’s hard to believe, but Candis first began back in May 1962 and celebrated its 50th birthday in May 2012. We have come a long way from our first leaflet to being one of the top ten best-selling women’s monthly magazines in the UK and achieving a massive £54 3/4 million donated to health charities.

Within its first year, Candis – which was then a leaflet reporting on a football pool called the Cancer and Polio Research Fund – raised £100,000 for charity. And from that day onwards, the total money raised has increased at a rapid rate!

By January 1965 – less than three years after the company was first founded – charitable donations had topped £1m, and in 1971 the figure reached an astonishing £6m. By this time, Candis became a fortnightly newsletter costing 15 new pence.

In 1978, Candis’s founder, Joseph Douglas, was awarded Officer of the Order of the British Empire for his services to medical charities. And just two years later, The JK Douglas Cancer Research Laboratories were established at Clatterbridge Hospital on the Wirral in 1980.

When Candis upgraded from a simple newsletter to a full colour magazine costing 60 pence in November 1982, it had raised £18m for charity. By the late 1990s, the magazine was given a new look and increased its pages from 28 to 124 each month. A great new range of Candis Club benefits were also introduce allowing members to make huge savings across a variety of essential products.

Today Candis proudly takes its position as one of the top ten best selling glossy women’s magazine in the UK and the only one that has donated the truly remarkable figure of £54 3/4 million to health charities.

Much of that total has been donated to health charities through the Candis Big Give, which have used the money in various ways – some have used it to fund medical research, others to buy life-saving equipment and pay for vital services and community projects.


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