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Business ArchivesNumber 103November 2011

edited byMike Ansonreviews editorRoy Edwards

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BU SI N ESSARCHIVESC O U N C I LCHARITY NO. 313336

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BUSINESSARCHIVESCOUNCIL

CHARITY NO. 313336

Regulating the supermarket in 1960s Britain: exploring thechanging relationship of food manufacturers and retailersthrough the Cadbury ArchiveAdrian R. Bailey 1

Roche: a Swiss pharmaceutical company in the UnitedKingdomAlexander L. Bieri 25

The Morrison ArchivesCaroline Dakers 41

From acorn to oak: industrial and corporate films inBritainPatrick Russell 53

Puff pieces and circulation scams: middlemen and themaking of the newspaper advertising market, 1881-1901Jonathan Silberstein-Loeb 77

Obituary: Sharon Quinn-Robinson 93

Bibliography in business history 2010Compiled by Richard A Hawkins 95

Business records deposited in 2010Compiled by Mike Anson 115

Business Archives

Contents

Number 103November 2011

BUSINESSARCHIVESCOUNCIL

CHARITY NO. 313336

MIKE ELLISManaging and growing a cultural heritage web presenceMartin Bazley 145

JENNIE HILL (ed)The future of archives and recordkeeping: a readerElizabeth Oxborrow-Cowan 147

TERRY JENKINSSir Ernest Lemon – A BiographyJohn Quail 151

MYRDDIN JOHN LEWIS, ROGER LLOYD JONES,JOSEPHINE MALTBY and MARK DAVID MATTHEWS Personal capitalism and corporate governanceJohn Quail 152

MARY LYNN RITZENHALERPreserving archives and manuscriptsMark Allen 154

Reviews

Number 103

November 2011

1

REGULATING THE SUPERMARKET IN 1960s

BRITAIN: EXPLORING THE CHANGING

RELATIONSHIP OF FOOD MANUFACTURERS

AND RETAILERS THROUGH THE CADBURY

ARCHIVE

1

ADRIAN R. BAILEY

University of Exeter Business School

Introduction

This paper comes out of previous research I was involved in, which

explored the rise of self-service and supermarket food retailing in the

United Kingdom (UK), c.1945-75, from a consumer perspective.

2

Consumer studies provide part of the story that explains the rising power of

the supermarket chains, in terms of consumers’ acceptance of a new

experience of shopping, but they alone cannot explain why supermarkets

have now formed an oligopoly, with the big four Asda, Morrisons,

Sainsbury’s and Tesco able to control supply chains from a position of total

dominance. In previous research, emphasis has been given to the

emergence of a so-called ‘golden age’ of British food retailing during the

late 1980s. This was to see the increased power of supermarkets starting to

be given some degree of statutory legitimation. As Marsden and Wrigley

argue ‘main retailers were delegated key responsibilities for the

management …. of the food system’.

3

Consequently, by the early 1990s

major food retailers, as represented by large supermarket organisations, had

to some extent ‘become enlisted as agents and promoters of public policy’.

4

This shift to a degree of self-regulation gave the major supermarket chains

greater opportunities ‘to exercise control over their suppliers’.

5

In 2008, the

Competition Commission found that supermarket retailers were ‘delivering

a good deal for consumers’ but that action was ‘needed to improve

competition in local markets and to address relationships between retailers

and their suppliers’, including a strengthened and revised Code of Practice,

to be enforced by an independent ombudsman.

6

Local competition is now

of concern, as the big four have entered the convenience store market

buying up small independent shops. These current trends are at the

forefront of calls to reintroduce regulation of the retail trade, but I wanted

2

to think about how previous rounds of regulation have shaped the

relationship between retailers and manufacturers. I had previously

conducted doctoral research in the Cadbury Archive and recalled that there

might be sources to help with this task. On paying a visit I was surprised to

find an abundance of material.

How did Cadbury seek to justify its privileged status in the 1960s? To

what extent did regulatory reform in the 1960s impact the relationship

between Cadbury and retailers? To what extent did consumers benefit from

greater regulation of retail? The aim of this paper is to reconstruct Cadbury

distribution activities from a previously neglected collection of materials at

the Cadbury Archive, Bournville, Birmingham. The archive materials are

held in 31 large boxes, which each contain up to 20 separate files of

material.

7

The author has summarised the contents of these boxes and the

catalogue is currently being updated.

8

The contents include a variety of

sales and marketing correspondence related to the Restrictive Trade

Practices Act 1956 and the subsequent Resale Prices Act 1964.

9

The

material relates to internal communications between Cadbury directors and

managers; communications between Cadbury and other confectionery

manufacturers; and correspondence with retailers and retail trade

associations. The Cadbury catalogue indicates that there is very limited

archival information relating to the specific details of Cadbury post-war

distribution, which makes these materials of significance for researchers

seeking to build upon existing management histories that focus upon

Cadbury labour relations, work organisation and productivity.

10

The paper first begins with a brief history of Cadbury, to explain the

historic rise of the firm and its organisation during the post-war period of

the twentieth century. Second, the paper introduces the Restrictive

Practices Court hearing, in which Cadbury presented its evidence in

support of retaining Resale Price Maintenance (RPM). Third, the paper

outlines the historical context in which the court hearing took place, taking

into account the political mood of the day and public opinion. Fourth,

Cadbury’s role in the RPM case is scrutinised in relation to the pros and

cons of winning and losing the case. Fifth, the special discounting strategy

of Cadbury is reviewed in the early post-war period to suggest that volume

retailers, including the supermarket chains, had already found a competitive

advantage over smaller retailers under RPM. Sixth, the paper provides a

glimpse into the Cadbury response immediately following the repeal of

RPM and some of the strategies it pursued. Finally, the paper concludes by

reflecting upon the archival sources and opportunities for further research.

3

A brief history of Cadbury

John Cadbury opened his first tea shop in 1824, branching into

manufacturing tea and drinking chocolate in 1831. His sons, George and

Richard took over the firm in 1861 and applied innovative production and

management techniques, which turned the company into a leading

manufacturer. In 1879, they removed operations to a purpose built factory

on a greenfield site in Bournville, which is still to this date, the

headquarters of the global business, now under Kraft control. In 1899,

following the death of Richard Cadbury, the firm became a private limited

company with George Cadbury as Chairman and his three sons (William,

Edward and George) and nephew (Barrow) as managing directors.

11

In

1918, the firm was amalgamated with J.S. Fry and Sons Ltd, under the

holding company known as The British Cocoa and Chocolate Company

Ltd. This merger enabled the two firms to retain their distinctiveness under

a joint board and allowed family shareholding to be maintained. In

addition it enabled Cadbury to develop manufacturing plants in Canada,

alongside other developments in Tasmania and New Zealand.

12

In the first

half of the twentieth century a distinctive management culture developed

under the guidance of family directors, which has been referred to by Child

and Smith as ‘Cadburyism’.

13

This board of directors self-consciously

appropriated Quaker values and principles to defend an internal labour

market characterised by a gendered division of labour, generous welfare

provision and a series of Works Councils. In the post-war period, the

coherence of Cadburyism was gradually eroded to selectively emphasise

discourses of rationalisation and efficiency to justify increased worker

discipline along Taylorist lines.

The development of the firm during the period c. 1960-1970 is described

by Smith, Child and Rowlinson.

14

Cadbury management and production

strategy remained remarkably stable, with the majority of board members

drawn from the Cadbury family until 1967. The company became more

profit orientated after 1962, when the company became publically quoted.

The 1960s was then marked by diversification into wider food categories:

cakes (1962), milk powder (1963), sugar confectionery with the acquisition

of James Pascall and R.S. Murray (1964),

15

meat processing (1966) and

‘Smash’ instant potato (1968). In February 1967, the company (i.e.

Cadbury Brothers, J.S. Fry & Sons, and Pascall-Murray) was renamed the

‘Cadbury Group’ to reflect the wider product areas it was now dealing in.

With the formation of the Cadbury Group, the company adopted a

divisional structure to foster more efficient management of their home and

4

overseas markets within three divisions: UK Confectionery; UK Foods;

Overseas.

The Confectionery and Foods divisions had their own separate sales

forces, and the Confectionery division was further subdivided into a sales

force for Cadbury confectionery products and another for Fry-Pascall

products. Likewise the Foods division had its own sales force for selling

drinks, biscuits and other grocery lines, with a separate division for

Cadbury Cakes.

16

The majority of these grocery products were not

restricted by RPM, which meant that Cadbury was evolving strategies for

marketing and promotion under this arrangement at precisely the time at

which RPM was repealed for chocolate and confectionery. To take the

story forward, fear of takeover combined with the desire to project their

brand in the United States (US) prompted a merger with Schweppes in

1969. The subsequent focus on branding and television advertising must

not only be seen in relation to the merger, but also in relation to the

abolition of RPM in 1967. The most recent notable event, of course, has

been the controversial Kraft takeover of Cadbury in January 2010, in an

£11.6 billion deal.

17

Cadbury and the Restrictive Practices Court

The 1960s were a period of major transformation in the Cadbury

business, when the balance of power in the confectionery supply chain

shifted decisively downstream to supermarket retailers. The key event in

this decade is the hearing of a legal case, presented by the firms of

Cadbury, Mackintosh, Rowntree and Bassett, in which they fought to retain

the option to fix the sale prices of their chocolate and confectionery goods.

The archive materials presented in this paper relate to vertical price fixing

strategies in the confectionery industry, more commonly referred to as

RPM. Price maintenance can take two forms, horizontal and vertical. In

the early post-war period, horizontal price fixing was regulated under the

1948 Monopolies and Restrictive Practices Act and the 1956 Restrictive

Trade Practices Act, which made it illegal for manufacturers to act in

collusion to jointly enforce the retail prices at which their products could be

sold. Any restrictive agreement between manufacturers was registered with

the Registrar of Restrictive Practices. RPM was a form of vertical price

fixing undertaken by ‘individual’ manufacturers in specific food categories

(e.g. confectionery) under the 1956 Act. Vertical price fixing is one way in

which manufacturers secure property rights over the information services

provided by retailers, ensuring that retailers providing pre-sale information

5

services are not undercut by free riding competitors who provide lower

levels of service. The pros and cons of RPM have been discussed

previously,

18

and it has been noted that free riders can have negative

impacts upon customer satisfaction, perceived brand value, manufacturers’

access to markets, consumers’ access to points of sale and the range and

depth of products stocked by retailers. In sum, RPM enables manufacturers

to fix the retail price so that high-service dealers, confectioners,

tobacconists and newsagents (CTNs) for example, are protected from free

riding discounters.

At the 1967 Restrictive Practices Court hearing, manufacturers operating

RPM had to demonstrate its importance to their business under five criteria

(gateways) in the Restrictive Practices Court (table 1).

Table 1 Criteria against which operation of RPM was assessed

A: the effects on the quality and variety of goods available for sale

B: the number of establishments in which the goods would be resold

C: the long-run effects on the level of retail prices

D: whether the goods were likely to be resold in such a way that

wouldcause danger to health

E: the effect on the provision of necessary services

Source: Pickering, J. F. (1974) ‘The abolition of resale price maintenance in Great Britain’

Oxford Economic Papers 26: 120-46 (see p.121).

The details of the Restrictive Trade Practices court hearing of 1967 have

previously been described by Harold Crane, who acted as the legal advisor

to Mackintosh during the case.

19

It is estimated that the case cost £110,000

in professional fees and significantly more in respect of the time forgone by

senior managers and directors, with the share of the costs distributed in

relation to the relative market share of the firms involved, Cadbury carrying

50 per cent, Rowntree 25 per cent, Mackintosh 15 per cent and Bassett 10

per cent.

20

Perhaps this is why the archive material has been preserved,

due to the cost to the firms involved. Crane’s summary of the case is

detailed and gives due weight to the arguments for and against the Act in

the context of the confectionery market, but the account is selective and

conceals the specific distribution strategies adopted by the ‘Four Firms’

leading up to the court hearing (i.e. Cadbury, Rowntree, Mackintosh and

Bassett). The RPM material at Cadbury provides evidence of

contemporary correspondence between (i) manufacturers, (ii) divisional

6

managers within the firms, and (iii) manufacturers and retailers. These

materials contain information that would have been sensitive at the time

and much of the material is stamped ‘confidential’.

Historical context of the hearing

During the 1960s, the UK government was struggling to control inflation

and had the difficult task of maintaining public support in the face of rising

food prices.

21

The structure of parliamentary democracy favours short-term

wins over long-term goals, which makes it difficult to argue in favour of

higher short or medium-term food prices to achieve long term goals, for

example, the current need for policies that emphasise sustainable low

carbon food production. Inflation was the contemporary problem and the

big ‘freeze’ began on 22 June 1966, with the government imposing a six-

month statutory wage freeze.

22

Average food prices increased by nearly 2

per cent in 1963, by nearly 4.5 per cent in 1964, and by just over 3.5 per

cent in 1966.

23

Critics of the Labour government argued that nationalisation

might be applied to grocery retailing. Geoffrey Kaye, the head of Pricerite

supermarkets argued that:

What this Government wants eventually is four or five major

companies to supply the nation’s food. Then they will put their own

men on the boards and gradually take over,” he claimed. “They will

tell us how much profit we can make, and then take the rest. I think

this is an inevitable step unless there is a change of government,

and I cannot see the Labour Party being deposed for some while.

24

Edward Heath, then President of the Board of Trade, announced on 15

January 1964 that the government was in favour of abolishing RPM.

25

This

also applied to many non-food goods with higher margins that food.

Supermarket managers had identified retailing non-food goods as a way of

boosting their low margins, so it was unlikely that supermarkets would

make any exceptions for individual goods (e.g. confectionery) in seeking to

win the overall argument for abolition. In 1964, the government made no

regulatory provision for monopolies in services, and therefore were in no

position to limit the future activities of supermarkets, or even to imagine

that this was something desirable; the main emphasis at the time was upon

limiting the power of manufacturers.

26

During the 1960s retailers had been getting around RPM by negotiating

better trade margins with manufacturers (i.e. volume related discounts) and

providing trading stamps as a form of price reduction.

27

Trading stamps

were difficult for manufacturers to regulate, because it was inefficient and

7

time consuming for retail cashiers to exclude the expenditure on price

maintained goods from the total receipt on which stamps were awarded.

Ironically, price maintained goods were effectively earning consumers a

discount in stores issuing stamps and supermarkets had effectively changed

consumer consciousness. As one commentator put it:

The grocery trade in the last few years has done an excellent public

relations job on behalf of a Government facing a General Election. It is

now hard to convince a housewife that paying what appears to be a higher

price is really good of her.

28

Contemporaries were concerned about the four key effects of RPM

abolition. First, many felt that this would benefit consumers in the short-

term, but be detrimental in the long-run.

29

Second, according to an Alfred

Bird survey, it was argued that consumers were unable to assess the

comparative prices of more than six products and therefore would be open

to exploitation by retailers using loss leaders to attract custom.

30

Supermarkets sought to counter this argument by framing women as

intelligent and rational consumers, but the attempt by male figures such as

Patrick Galvani

31

and Fine Fare executives, for example, to educate women

were extremely patronising by modern conventions and had the opposite

effect of assuming women were irrational and incapable of adapting to new

self-service formats without assistance. For example James Gulliver, the

chief executive of Fine Fare gave this advice to young housewives:

...ask yourself “Do I need it? Will my family enjoy it?”

Always consider what you want before you shop but be open to

ideas from what you see on display. Walk slowly round the store.

Look at the various brands before deciding which suits your needs

best – either in size, content or price....Also look at the wide range

of British cheeses – from Stilton to the traditional Cheddar. They

are all good value and offer tastes to suit every palate. Avoid rush

hour shopping if you can. Mid-week or early-in-the-day shopping

gives you time to browse and select.

Above all, compare, consider, and judge for yourself.

32

Third, firms like Cadbury argued that abolition would result in increased

advertising revenues, which would inevitably be passed on to the consumer

in higher prices.

33

Fourth, the externalities of increasing retailer power were

cited as inducing unacceptable social costs.

34

For example, without

adequate regulation and trade union interventions, retail competition leads

to monopoly forms of capitalism, which result in high levels of

unemployment and greater intensity of work for those remaining in

8

employment. In hindsight, and with vivid demonstrations of this logic in

action, these arguments are easier to identify.

35

The RPM court case: the Cadbury dilemma

The main points of Cadbury’s case can be summarised in a number of

negative effects they predicted. First, manufacturers would lose control

over display, merchandising and promotion. Second, price cutting by

supermarkets would lead to a reduction in small confectionery shops and

the variety of lines available to the consumer. Third, the reduction in small

confectionery shops would reduce demand, because confectionery is an

impulse rather than a planned article of consumption. Fourth, retailers

would selectively cut product lines and recoup the profit from other lines

about which the consumer is less price conscious (i.e. loss leading). Fifth,

concentration of power in a few large retailers would mean lead to rising

consumer prices in the long term. With these five key objections, Cadbury

then had to decide which of the five gateways, set out in the terms of

reference for the hearing they were going to focus upon (see table 1).

Gateway ‘D’ (i.e. health and safety) was regarded as irrelevant to the case,

but the remaining gateways were all addressed by Cadbury. The gateway

that resounded with Cadbury’s long-term policy of delivering lower prices

to the consumer (gateway ‘C’), was regarded as problematic, because the

predicted elimination of smaller retailers and the concentration of trade

through supermarkets would likely lead to price reductions. Even if

demand dropped, more predictable consumption would lead to

rationalisation and greater production efficiencies.

As the most powerful confectionery manufacturer in the UK, Cadbury

was placed in a difficult position by the RPM case. Whilst it had to retain

its lead in the market vis-à-vis its competitor manufacturers, it also had to

gather support from them to fight the case to protect manufacturers’

interests. At the same time, Cadbury had to demonstrate leadership on

behalf of its distribution stakeholders, which varied from the small CTNs,

many turning less than £500 of Cadbury products annually, to multiples

operating counter service and/or self-service methods. Finally, Cadbury

was committed to delivering value to the customer. Cadbury’s corporate

reputation, based around the public narrative of fair play enshrined in

Cadburyism, was being tested across three competing interest groups.

Although Cadbury took the decision to fight the case, the Director of

Marketing, R.N. Wadsworth was uncertain about the benefits of winning

the case:

9

It is quite possible that although the total industry output may be

reduced, the Five leading firms could benefit from the ending of

R.P.M. with a larger share of a smaller market. If we believe this,

then we find ourselves fighting a case which is not in our own

interest.

36

Although Cadbury undoubtedly fought hard to win the case, it is clear that

there was doubt about the merits of victory. Minutes reveal that Cadbury

was worried about its public perception in light of its own survey in 1964

of 1,088 members of the public, which demonstrated that 80 per cent

agreed that Cadbury should accept abolition of RPM on the basis that it

will lower prices and create bargains.

37

To fight the case, Cadbury had concrete evidence that the variety of

goods available to the consumer would be reduced by abolition of RPM,

given a predictable reduction in small CTNs. In January 1965, market

research organisation Nielsen carried out a survey on a sample of 640

shops, comprising 362 specialist and semi-specialist confectioners and 133

grocers. The subsample of the survey found that only 2 per cent of grocers

stocked more than 300 packings (i.e. different offerings at different prices,

even if it is the same product being sold), while 55 per cent of specialists

and semi-specialist shops stocked more than 300.

38

In a further survey

conducted by Market Advisory Services Limited, a survey of the leading 56

lines of the five main manufacturers (Cadbury, Fry, Rowntree, Mars and

Mackintosh) was conducted with 922 direct Cadbury accounts.

39

These 56

lines, equated to 171 packings, accounting for 35 per cent of all industry

packings, but 50 per cent of total confectionery sales. The average number

of lines displayed in grocers was 28, and the average in CTNs was 43.

Only 15 per cent of grocers were displaying more than 45 lines, but 54 per

cent of CTNs were displaying more than 45. This was strong evidence that

RPM should be retained under gateway (a), because the consumer was

receiving more variety under the present regulation of distribution.

However, as it will become apparent it was difficult to prove that increased

variety was good for the consumer and beneficial for Cadbury.

In the RPM court case many of the eleven consumer witnesses stated

that variety was not an important factor. For example, Mrs Stirling a

managing director and owner of a typing and duplication business argued

that ‘the variety of sweets available on the market is excessive’.

40

Another

‘impressive’ witness, Mrs Young (BA Economics and Anthropology and

Secretary of the Scunthorpe and District Consumer Group) argued that ‘the

variety offered is far too great’.

41

The composition of the consumer

10

witnesses was biased, with the majority of witnesses occupying roles

within consumer councils and living in professional high income

households. With the consumer witnesses arguing against the value of

variety, this gateway was effectively closed to Cadbury. Shortly after

abolition of RPM, rationalisation was identified by Cadbury as an

inevitable consequence of the growing dominance of supermarkets whose

business model was based on a high volume of turnover on a small number

of product lines;

42

although Child and Smith note that it took Cadbury until

the mid-late 1970s to rationalise its lines and to match the economies of

scale achieved by US competitor Mars.

43

Another predictable outcome of RPM abolition was the reduction in the

number of small independent retailers, which addressed gateway (B). The

Census of Distribution for 1961 estimated that chocolate and sugar

confectionery was sold through 217,000 retail outlets, the most outlets for

any product category.

44

These outlets were critical to confectionery

distribution, with independents responsible for 87 per cent of outlets and 85

per cent of turnover (see Table 2).

Table 2 Annual confectionery turnover by store format (excludes

co-operatives), 1956

Store format Number of % Turnover %

outlets (£m.)

IndependentsLarge independents (£4,000+) 6,300 3 39.0 20

Medium independents (£2,000 - £4,000) 12,900 5 39.1 20

Small independents (£500 - £2,000) 64,300 2 663.3 32

Very small independents (under £500) 130,300 5 325.3 13

213,800 87 166.7 85

Multiples (5+ branches) 32,600 13 29.7 15

Total 246,400 100 196.4 100

Source: A.C. Nielsen & Co census, 790/004871 Box 15 of 31 ‘Research’ ‘The Retail

Distribution Pattern of Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery’ p.5.

Following the restoration of competition following rationing, the bulk of

Cadbury sales (44.1 per cent) went through small CTN stores. However,

the number of CTNs had begun to fall during the period from 1953 to 1963

and continued to fall leading up to the court hearing. For example, the

11

number of independent UK sweet shops fell 8 per cent between 1964 and

1966, the majority doing less than £200 per annum with Cadbury. The

number of independent grocers that Cadbury was dealing also underwent a

dramatic decline, from 31,097 in 1957 to 16,798 in 1966.

45

One of the

reasons for this decline was that small independent shops could not afford

the rents in new post-war shopping precincts. Another trend was the rising

power of self-service multiples and supermarket retailers, but this had

barely begun to impact Cadbury distribution in the period up to 1963, with

the main influence experienced through co-operative stores which were a

lead innovator in self-service retailing in the early post-war period. In

1967, David Brown, Director of Market Research at Cadbury, estimated

that:

…2,625 supermarkets were responsible for 3½% of all

confectionery sales; other self-service grocers, 17,400 in all, for

5½%; between 100,000 and 110,000 counter service grocers for

13%; and 19,250 other food retailers, another 6%. Add to that 1,570

department and variety stores, 10%; 8,080 other non-food outlets,

2%; and 39,500 “non-shop” outlets (cinemas, etc.), 12%. This

leaves sweet-shops- mainly of the confectioner-tobacconist

newsagent type- with the other 48%.

46

There is evidence to suggest that Cadbury was content to see the reduction

in very small independents (i.e. less than £500 annual sales), because in

1963, although 53 per cent of retail outlets were of this type, they were

responsible for only 13 per cent of total confectionery sales.

47

In the

interwar period of the twentieth century, Cadbury had refused to directly

supply small ‘inefficient’ retailers (i.e. less than £500 annual sales), and

had also chosen to give less preferential terms to wholesalers that supplied

these small shops.

48

Wholesalers, therefore, were regarded as creating high

margins and limiting customer value for money.

49

The bias in favour of

larger outlets and accounts is witnessed in the special discounts scheme

addressed in the next section.

Trade margins, special discounts and concessions

Throughout the twentieth century, Cadbury maintained a long-standing

policy of delivering lower consumer prices, based on the assumption that

lower prices would stimulate demand. This logic was outlined by Laurence

Cadbury at the Cadbury New Year party in 1929, when he argued that

mechanisation had resulted in reduced prices for the consumer, which

meant that wages were worth more in real terms, and that projected

12

increases in consumption would create an overall increase in employment.

50

Therefore, Cadbury only conceded greater margins to distributors if the

consumer price fell, or if greater incentives were required to distribute

products more effectively; for example, if distributors costs rose too high to

support retail services.

During 1940-54 food was rationed in the UK and the Ministry of Food

enforced a distributors margin of 18.75 per cent on confectionery.

51

Under

conditions of managed demand there was no incentive to price cut and

competition between retailers was curtailed. During the period of food

controls, retailers sought service improvements and efficiency savings by

adopting self-service methods, which had become established in the US in

the early part of the twentieth century.

52

With the restoration of market

competition in the mid-1950s, there is still debate about how important

RPM was in shaping grocery distribution, because prices were not

uniformly enforced and not all products were subject to RPM. A group of

approximately 80 manufacturers collectively enforced prices through the

General Proprietary Articles Council (GPAC) and a further 40 non-aligned

manufacturers, including Cadbury and Rowntree, enforced RPM.

53

Although RPM was important in fixing consumer prices, there was

constant individual and collective bargaining over trade margins within the

supply chain. For example, the Joint Committee of Confectionery

Distributors and the National Union of Retail Confectioners both lobbied

hard for increased margins with confectionery manufacturers throughout

the late 1950s and 1960s.

The calculation of trade margins was of critical importance under price

maintenance. The percentage margin was the difference between the

consumer price and the lowest trade price expressed as a percentage of the

consumer price. Interwar distribution margins ranged from 31.8 per cent to

33.3 per cent for chocolate lines with an industry average of 40.7 per cent

for sugar confectionery. In the post-war period, these margins declined.

For example, distributors’ margins were set at 22.5 per cent on assortments

and chocolate blocks in 1962, rising to 23.9 per cent following the

imposition of a 15 per cent purchase tax on sugar and chocolate

confectionery in 1962.

54

In total, for the year ending July 1964, distributors

(i.e. wholesalers and retailers) took 26.6 per cent (£72 million) of the £270

million confectionery market (£300 million less purchase tax), leaving

manufacturers with lion’s share of £198 million.

The threat for manufacturers seeking to enforce prices and margins is

that distributors may substitute a rival brand, which may have a more

13

generous margin. This threat explains the long-standing existence of

agreements between manufacturers, which established industry wide

margins for distributors in order to regulate the costs of distribution and

limit competition between manufacturers (i.e. horizontal controls).

Between 1919 and 1935 there was an agreement between Cadbury, Fry and

Rowntree known as the Cheltenham Agreement.

55

In 1935, Nestlé and

Joseph Terry & Sons joined the Agreement, which became known as the

Five Firm Agreement. Under this agreement, for example, a ceiling upon

advertising costs was established:

The cost of individual items of advertising material supplied to

shops was limited by the Agreement, as were also the amounts

which might be paid for advertising space in customer’s literature.

Gifts to customers, in cash or in kind, were prohibited, subject to

certain closely defined exceptions.

56

The effect of these agreements was to control the margins and mark up of

the goods manufactured, which was designed to limit competition to the

quality of the product manufactured, thus favouring small specialist

confectioners and large capital intensive manufacturers.

When the Restrictive Trade Practices Act was introduced in 1956, Nestlé

withdrew from the Five Firm Agreement, basing its decision on

experiences in Europe where similar legislation had been introduced. A

new Four Firm Agreement was signed in 1957, which after several major

amendments existed until 1962, at which point several parties felt it was

indefensible to continue and thus ended formal collaboration. Although

these agreements favoured the manufacturers, the firms involved sought to

establish fair treatment for distributors. For example, Cadbury monitored

distributors’ costs in three main ways: through its controlling interest in

confectionery retailers R.S. McColl and John Forrest; panel data from 40

independent retailers; and information provided by the Cocoa, Chocolate

and Confectionery Alliance, and various retailers’ and wholesalers’

associations.

57

In line with other manufacturers, Cadbury also offered a range of special

discounts over and above the fixed trade margin to reward co-operation

(e.g. in relation to promotions), early payment and volume. These

discounts had historical precedent. For example in 1936, Cadbury was

making advertising allowances to distributors in monopoly positions (e.g.

railway kiosks, cinemas and theatres), making payments between 2.5 per

cent and 12.5 per cent to 902 customers. In the ensuing years Cadbury

reduced the number and level of payments, culminating in the Special

14

Discount Scheme of 1957, which was negotiated with the members of the

Four Firms Agreement.

58

The special discount scheme gave Cadbury retail

and wholesale accounts of over £50,000 a 1 per cent discount, and retailers

turning over £100,000 a 2 per cent discount. In addition, certain retailers

were given special consideration and were entitled to a 3 per cent discount.

The only exception was Woolworths, which with over £1m of turnover was

granted a 4 per cent discount. In 1960, 71 distributors received a 1 per cent

discount, six received 2 per cent, and 35 achieved 3 per cent.

The 1957 Special Discount Scheme was deemed a failure by Cadbury for

a number of reasons. First, for those distributors who qualified for a

discount there were no further rewards for increased effort. Second,

Cadbury was losing customers to competitors whose discounts were more

easily attained. Third, once the 1 per cent discount was granted for co-

operation it was difficult to repeal and there was no incentive for co-

operation to continue. Fourth, the discounts scheme encouraged

amalgamations by distributors to extract greater bargaining power, which

ultimately worked against Cadbury interests. To remedy these failures,

Cadbury introduced the Incentive Bonus Discounts in 1962, which paid 5

per cent on the amount of increased turnover firms achieved compared to

their previous year (e.g. an increase of £10,000 would return a £500 bonus).

Table 3 Cadbury Special Discount Scheme 1964

Customers annual trade, (£) Amount of Discount, (%)

20,000 ¼

30,000 ½

40,000 ¾

50,000 1

60,000 1¼

70,000 1½

80,000 1¾

100,000 2

Source: Cadbury Archive, 790/004874 Box 17 of 31, ‘Cadbury Brothers: Survey of Special

Discounts’ p.2; 790/004859 Box 2 of 31, Minutes Reports and Special Papers: Special

Discounts – ‘Special Discount Scheme: Recommendation from Special Discount Sub-

Committee’ pp. 35-8.

Co-operation was defined as increased trade, which Cadbury calculated

15

would induce retailers to accept Cadbury merchandising and advertising to

a greater extent over and above rival companies. In offering an incentive

bonus, Cadbury gained a first leader advantage over rival manufacturers in

the UK. The Special Discount Scheme was extended in 1964 (see table 3),

to further incentivise increased turnover by setting the entry level at

£20,000 and creating a more finely graduated scale of increase. In addition

to these special discounts a further 1.25 per cent was offered to all those

accounts paying promptly.

To sum up, in the period leading up to the RPM hearing there were

undoubtedly greater incentives and rewards for volume retailers, which

were undoubtedly the result of buyer pressure from large distributors.

Therefore, the multiples and supermarket retailers were already effectively

asserting their influence on manufacturers. Conversely there was little

reward or incentive for wholesalers, which were perceived as an

intermediary barrier to obtaining retail co-operation in promotions and

merchandising. One of the functions of wholesalers was to offer credit to

small retailers, which were perceived by Cadbury to under-order as a result.

We must remember that during the 1960s, Cadbury was paying for delivery

of goods to its retail customers, for advertising and also special fittings for

stores. The impact of Cadbury marketing strategy is difficult to assess.

Demand for confectionery remained static. Figures generated by Cadbury

show that demand for chocolate was 3.9 ounces per head per week in 1954

and was at the same level in 1964.

59

Moreover, the demand for sugar

confectionery had actually fallen during this ten year period from 5.0

ounces per head per week to 3.5 ounces. Although consumption had

declined, inflationary pressures and the introduction of purchase tax meant

that during the same period, the total expenditure on confectionery had

increased from £252 million to £308 million.

What happened after the decision was reached?

Shortly after the decision was reached to abolish RPM, Cadbury’s

confectionery division numbered amongst its strengths: a wide range of

products; massive advertising support; an active sales force; many brand

leaders; higher profit margins compared to the majority of grocery lines;

new product development; modern production and quality control; and a

reputation for quality and integrity.

60

According to David Brown,

Cadbury’s Market Research Director, in 1967 just 3.5 per cent of all

confectionery sales were through 2,625 supermarkets.

61

Cadbury realised

that there were over 10,000 count lines in the UK confectionery market,

16

and that the major growth in distribution would come through supermarket

grocery stores, which on average stocked no more than 100 lines. Writing

in May 1968, Crane also stated that sales by large manufacturers to

supermarkets had roughly doubled since abolition of RPM and that

consumption had risen to 8.0 ounces per week.

62

Although the leading manufacturers focused their production upon

leading lines, Cadbury recognised that some form of rationalisation was

inevitable:

...the confectionery trade is faced with no alternative but to adopt

new merchandising tactics to overcome not only severe inter-trade

competition, but fierce competition from the grocery trade, which is

now able to implement its customary promotional practices on

confectionery.

63

The confectioner needs variety, while the grocer requires volume

lines which are attractively packed, heavily advertised and which

sell themselves.

64

Cadbury had already experienced this brave new post-RPM world through

its grocery division. An internal Cadbury memo to all marketing group

members in August 1964 highlighted that a number of multiples and

supermarkets were requesting promotion allowances on grocery lines:

TESCO – 321 branches

£300 which represents 10 per cent of the cost of advertising in the Daily

Mirror and a bonus to subsidise the cut.

ELMO – 30 branches

£25 to cover cost of posters and subsidy to aid cut.

ANTHONY JACKSON – 39 branches

2/6d. per dozen for the duration of the promotion

VICTOR VALUE – 253 branches

No pay – no promotion

KINLOCHS (Wavy Line)

The problem here is slightly different as groups generally do not favour

national promotions. Their requests for maximum effort are for 3/6d. per

shop and 5 per cent promotional allowance.

17

LONDON CO-OP – 397 branches

Are sitting on the fence watching the activities of competitors

meantime.

65

This memo also revealed that in the grocery business, Cadbury was

resisting promotional allowances from two self-service chains that were

operating a number of supermarkets, Adsega and Buywise. Cadbury

manager N.J. Newbold describes these as ‘deal conscious and concession

spoilt operators’.

66

Cadbury strategy with multiples involved dealing with

local stores separately to central headquarters through their representatives,

claiming that ‘we shall achieve the off-shelf promotions in any events

generally on a local basis’.

67

It is worth noting that in 1966, Cadbury only

supplied Sainsbury’s and Maynard through central warehouses.

68

Future

research may reveal more about how knowledge was transferred between

the grocery and confectionery divisions to inform the promotion of

confectionery goods following RPM abolition.

Selling through self-service and supermarket outlets required a new

focus on merchandising and Cadbury sought to trial new display techniques

in Bishops Stores Ltd., the London based self-service and supermarket food

retailer. Future merchandising policies and decision making at Cadbury

would be based on evidence.

Multiple and self-service store operators will be asked to establish

permanent confectionery sections, or permit existing sections to be

redesigned, following prepared merchandising principles. Sales for

a given period will be carefully measured and related to sales over

the same length of time before the section was redesigned.

69

Not only would new techniques need to be trialled, but Cadbury identified

that supermarket retailers would need to be educated about modern

merchandising methods.

70

In the Fry’s-Pascall-Murray force of 116 reps

and 40 merchandisers, Cadbury devoted 16 merchandisers to work

exclusively with supermarket outlets.

In April 1968, Cadbury announced that it was no longer going to

recommend retail prices on grocery products.

71

Then in May 1968, Cadbury

launched a new marketing strategy with Tesco by offering Green Shield

Stamps on packs of Mini-Rolls in a two week promotion. Cadbury

defended its decision in the Grocer magazine:

Allowances are being made and these are in line with modern

marketing methods where certain sums are made available for

promotions with major customers with high turnover – the method

of spending these sums being determined by the customer.

72

This offer of stamps was the first of its kind by a British manufacturer and

invoked criticisms from rival non-stamp retailer Sainsbury, whose

comments gained support from Allied and Fine Fare.

73

Non-stamp retailers

saw the Cadbury deal as offering a below the line reduction to Tesco.

Retailers also feared that Cadbury might start printing stamp offers on all

its packs, which would discriminate against non-stamp trading competitors

on a more permanent basis.

Cadbury’s dealings with wholesalers and voluntary buying groups

In the new environment of price cutting, brand management became even

more important to manufacturers. Not only did they have to make the

retailer want the product, they now had to make the customer demand the

product.

74

As Cadbury argued:

...the confectionery trade is faced with no alternative but to adopt

new merchandising tactics to overcome not only severe inter-trade

competition, but fierce competition from the grocery trade, which is

now able to implement its customary promotional practices on

confectionery.

75

In 1968, the confectionery market was worth £325 million, with £109

million accumulated through 150,000 grocery outlets and £216 million

accumulated through 60–70,000 confectionery outlets. The conclusion, as

Cadbury perceived it, was the massive potential of grocers to distribute

confectionery, with more than double the outlets, but only half the turnover

of confectioners. In focusing upon the grocery trade, Cadbury opted to

seek to control merchandising, primarily by incentivising those retailers

who would co-operate with them in merchandising Cadbury products. In

1968, half of Cadbury’s confectionery distribution was direct through

retailers and the other half through 1,200 wholesalers. Cadbury perceived

the wholesalers as a problem channel.

The importance of brand management and control of merchandising for

the manufacturer was fully appreciated by multiple retailers, but to a lesser

extent by wholesalers and voluntary buying groups who simply equated the

size of account with levels of discount. For example, in March 1967

Cadbury was accused by wholesalers of discrimination when it was found

that they were offering 2s. per case additional discount to multiples

retailing Marvel.

76

Cadbury also chose to trial Smash (processed potato)

with multiples in the north-east of England.

77

Wholesalers could not

understand why they were receiving lower levels of margin to multiples,

18

given the fact that they were bearing the cost of distribution to retailers and

in many cases handling more goods than multiples. We must remember

that the net profit of wholesalers in the 1960s was approximately 1 per

cent.

78

Cadbury argued that the agreements it had in place with multiples

ensured that extra margins were passed onto customers. Spar and voluntary

group head offices suspected that Cadbury did not believe that reductions

given to wholesalers would reflect in lower prices for consumers.

However, by bringing inequalities to public attention, wholesalers were

able to use the negative publicity surrounding Cadbury’s margins policy to

broker more favourable terms. For example, Spar Internationale held an

account worth £20 million in overseas trade.

79

In a visible campaign, it

threatened to boycott Cadbury, thus forcing talks with Cadbury and

securing a commitment from the firm to support wholesalers more

consistently in the New Year.

Conclusion

A word of caution is advised when using the RPM materials at Cadbury.

Unlike other sources I have consulted in the Cadbury archive, multiple

drafts of these typed materials exist, which are edited and corrected by

hand. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to work out which draft was

authoritative for Cadbury management. On the positive side, much of the

material is marked as private and confidential due to its containing sensitive

marketing data, the majority of which is excluded from the contemporary

history that was written about the Resale Prices Act.

80

The experience of

working with these materials is of trying to reconstruct the firm’s relations

with its stakeholders from fragments of evidence, largely unsupported by

the main catalogue. The risk of misinterpreting evidence is increased when

working in this fashion, which is why I have relied upon secondary sources

to support my reading of the archive. The great advantage is that these

fragments are gathered in one place; the disadvantage is that the detailed

story stops after Cadbury lost its case in 1967.

Further research is required to explore a number of key relationships as

they developed following the case. First, the relationship between Cadbury

and other confectioners that stayed out of the court hearings, most notably

Mars. Second, the internal learning processes at Cadbury that transferred

knowledge between grocery and confectionery divisions. Third, the

developing relationship with supermarkets through sources such as the

grocer magazine and other related trade and industry association journals.

19

Finally, it is important to note that archives can inform public policy

debates. As calls for an supermarket ombudsman increase, it now seems

likely that it will be 2013 until anything is enacted. Given the evidence of

the past, the only form of regulation that might stay the power of the

retailers is some form of price maintenance legislation. However, given the

current recession, which reflects the ‘big freeze’ of the 1960s in several

respects, it is unlikely that the consumer will support legislation that will be

framed by supermarkets as likely to increase food prices. Unless there is a

major disruption of supermarket activities, by a new innovation, it appears

unlikely that politicians will seek to put the genie of lower prices back in

the bottle of some form of price regulation. It may also be the case that

leading manufacturers would be reluctant to go back to a regulated system

that might reduce overall demand.

Notes1

I would like to thank the Business Archives Council for the Business History Bursary that

was used to fund this research. I would also like to acknowledge the help of Sarah Foden

(Cadbury Information Manager) and Jackie Jones (Cadbury Information and Library Service)

at Cadbury-Kraft for their support and access to the archive, and thank my colleague

Professor Gareth Shaw (University of Exeter) for his helpful comments on a previous draft of

this paper. All the errors are mine.

Dr. Adrian R. Bailey, University of Exeter Business School, Department of Management,

University of Exeter, Streatham Court, Rennes Drive, EX4 4PU, UK, Email: , tel: +44

(0)1392 722 523.

2

A.R. Bailey, G. Shaw, A. Alexander, D. Nell, ‘Consumer behaviour and the life course:

shopper reactions to self service grocery shops and supermarkets in England c.1947-1975’,

Environment and Planning A, 42-6 (2010), 1496-1512; A. Alexander, D. Nell, A.R. Bailey,

G. Shaw, ‘The co-creation of a retail innovation: shoppers and the early supermarket in

Britain’, Enterprise and Society, 10 (2009), 529-58; D. Nell, A. Alexander, G. Shaw and A.R.

Bailey, ‘Investigating shopper narratives of the supermarket in early postwar England 1945-

1975’, Oral History Journal, Spring (2009) 61-73; J. Hamlett, A. Alexander, A.R. Bailey, G.

Shaw, ‘Regulating UK supermarkets: an oral-history perspective’, History and Policy, (2008)

http://www.historyandpolicy.org/papers/policy-paper-70.html; J. Hamlett, A.R. Bailey, A.

Alexander, G. Shaw, ‘Ethnicity and consumption: South Asian food shopping patterns in

Britain, 1947–75’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 8 (2008), 91-117.

4

Ibid.

5

A. Hughes, ‘Forging new cultures of food retailer-manufacturer relations?’, in Wrigley and

Lowe, Retailing, consumption and capital, p.98

6

For full details see the report of the full enquiry: http://www.competition-

commission.org.uk/inquiries/ref2006/grocery/index.htm [accessed 08/08/2011].

7

These materials have been catalogued by the author and a copy is with the Cadbury archivist

for incorporation into future revisions of the catalogue..

8

A copy of the Resale Price Maintenance listings is available from Sarah Foden (Cadbury

Information Manager) on request.

20

9

The Resale Price Bill received assent in July 1964, the court case was heard in the spring of

1967 and the judgement was delivered on 25 July 1967.

10

J. Child and C. Smith, ‘The context and process of organizational transformation – Cadbury

Limited in its sector’, Journal of Management Studies, 24-6 (1987), 565-93; M. Rowlinson,

‘The early application of scientific management by Cadbury’, Business History, 30 (1988),

377-95; C. Smith, J. Child, and M. Rowlinson, Reshaping work the Cadbury experience(Cambridge, 1990); M. Rowlinson, ‘Strategy, structure and culture: Cadbury,

divisionalisation and merger in the 1960s’, Journal of Management Studies, 32 (1995), 121-

40.

11

I.O. Williams, The firm of Cadbury 1831-1931 (London, 1931).

12

Ibid.

13

Child and Smith, ‘The context’.

14

Smith, Child and Rowlinson, Reshaping work.

15

Cadbury Archive 440 003095 Cadbury Schweppes Ltd. ‘Sales manual: Cadbury Foods

Division’, 1972.

16

‘Cadbury separates sales force’, The Grocer, 1 July 1967, p.28.

17The Takeover Panel, ‘Kraft Foods Inc. (“Kraft”) Offer for Cadbury Plc (“Cadbury”), 26 May

2010 URL: http://www.thetakeoverpanel.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/2010-14.pdf

[downloaded 9 August 2010]; E. Rigby and B. Masters, ‘Kraft censured over Cadbury deal’

May 26 URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b50837d8-68f2-11df-910b-

00144feab49a,dwp_uuid=da5b2be8-9c6b-11de-ab58-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html [downloaded

9 August 2010]; J. Wiggins and L. Saigol, ‘Cadbury and Kraft agree £11.6bn deal’ (2010)

January 18. URL: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/f3970f88-0475-11df-8603-

00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=da5b2be8-9c6b-11de-ab58-00144feabdc0,s01=1.html [downloaded

9 August 2010].

18

P.W.S. Andrews and F.A. Friday, Fair trade: resale price maintenance re-examined (London,

1960); G. Borts, ‘The recent controversy over resale price maintenance’, Journal of the RoyalStatistical Society, 124-2 (1961), 244-9; B.S. Yamey, Economics of resale price maintenance(London, 1954).

19

H. Crane, Sweet encounters: the confectionery resale price maintenance case (London,

1969).

20

Cadbury Archive 790/004871 Box 14 of 31 / 20. C.C.C.A. The Cocoa, Chocolate and

Confectionery Alliance ‘Letter to D. Brown, Esq. Cadbury Brothers Ltd, from J.E. Chapman

secretary of the C.C.C.A.’ 8th December 1964,

21

S. Black, ‘Fifteen Per Cent More For The Shopping Basket’(by Financial Times Woman’s

Editor), The Grocer, 22 August 1964, p.49.

22

‘Price: The Facts As We See Them’ (by the News Editor), The Grocer, 22 April 1967, p.33.

23

‘Minister Warns on Food Prices’, The Grocer, 20 May 1967, p.36.

24

‘Warning from Pricerite’, The Grocer, 29 July 1967, p.74.

25

‘RIP-RPM’, The Grocer, 18 January 1964, p.29.

26

‘The Government Kills RPM’, The Grocer, 18 January 1964, p.30.

27

‘The Trading Stamps Bill’, The Grocer, 25 January 1964, p.21.

28

‘RIP-RPM’, The Grocer, 18 January 1964, p.29.

29

‘Pricing Dilemma’, The Grocer, 8 February 1964, p.35.

30

Ibid.

31

‘Let Retailers Set Own Profit Structure’, The Grocer, 8 February 1964, p.44.

32

‘Getting the Best Value in Food’, Nantwich Chronicle, 20 February 1969, from cuttings book

of J.G. Gulliver, MD Fine Fare 1969, The Somerfield Archive, The University of Exeter.

33

‘Lord Sainsbury on RPM’, The Grocer, 2 May 1964, p.36.

34

P.A. Labrum, ‘Let me tell you why manufacturers’ should stamp upon supermarkets’, Letter

to the Editor, The Grocer, 3 April 1965, p.44.

21

35

N. Lichtenstein (ed.), Wal-Mart: the face of twentieth century capitalism (London, 2006).

36

Cadbury Archive 790/004868 Box 12 of 31 ‘Resale Price Maintenance: A summary of the

situation reached R.N.W.’ 7th November, 1966.

37

Cadbury Archive 790/004871 Box 15 of 31 ‘Research: Results of a survey among members

of the public into the abolition of resale price maintenance’.

38

Cadbury Archive 790/004873 Box 16 of 31 ‘45. Display’ ‘Resale Price Maintenance

Evidence Document – Variety’; D.J. Brown, Sales Research, Bournville, 27th September 1966.

39

Cadbury Archive 790/004873 Box 16 of 31 ‘45. Display’ ‘Confectionery Display Survey

May 1966’; D.J. Brown, Sales Research, Bournville, 27th September 1966.

40

Cadbury Archive 740/004862 Box 5/31 E3 1965 PR. No. 8 (E&W) ‘Proofs of Evidence of

Consumer Witnesses’ p.12. In the Matter of the Resale Prices Act, 1964 and In the Matter of

a Reference of Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery and Related Classes of Goods’.

41

Cadbury Archive 740/004862 Box 5/31 E3 1965 PR. No. 8 (E&W) ‘Proofs of Evidence of

Consumer Witnesses’ p.3. In the Matter of the Resale Prices Act, 1964 and In the Matter of a

Reference of Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery and Related Classes of Goods’.

42

Cadbury Archive 540 003591 Planned Public Relations, Public Relations for Cadbury’sConfectionery Division, 1968, p.8.

43

Child and Smith, ‘The context’.

44

Cadbury Archive 790/004871 Box 15 of 31 ‘Research’ ‘The Retail Distribution Pattern of

Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery’ p.2.

45

Cadbury Archive 790/004868 Box 12 of 31 ‘The Effects of In-Store Promotions in

Supermarkets and Self-Service Groceries: Cadbury Delivery Points’ D.J.B., C.A. 2nd May

1967 p.2.

46

‘Down Goes the Price of Sweets’, The Grocer, 29 July 1967, p.24.

47

Cadbury Archive 790/004871 Box 15 of 31 ‘Research’ ‘The Retail Distribution Pattern of

Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery’ p.6.

48

Cadbury Archive 790/004873 Box 16 of 31 ‘45. Display’ ‘Confectionery Display Survey

May 1966’; D.J. Brown, Sales Research, Bournville, 27th September 1966.

49

Cadbury Brothers Ltd, Industrial record 1919-1939 (Bournville, 1947) cf. Child and Smith,

‘The context’.

50

L.J. Cadbury, ‘New Year party’, Bournville Works Magazine, 27-12 (1929), 390-1.

51

Cadbury Archive 790/004859 Box 2 of 31 Minutes Reports and Special Papers: Special

Discounts – ‘Four Firm Reply to N.U.R.C.’ Memorandum of 15th December, 1959.

52

G. Shaw, L. Curth and A. Alexander, ‘Selling self-service and the supermarket: the

Americanisation of food retailing in Britain, 1945-1960’, Business History, 46 (2004), 568-

582.

53

J.F. Pickering, ‘The breakdown of RPM in the grocery trade: cause and effect’ in J. Benson

and S. Shaw (eds), The retailing industry: post 1945-retail revolutions, volume 3 (London,

1999) pp .29-45.

54

Cadbury Archive 790/004874 Box 17 of 31, Distribution. ‘Cadbury Brothers Limited, History

of Margins in the Chocolate and Sugar Confectionery Industry’, Sales Research Department,

Bournville, 30 September 1964, p.3.

55

Ibid., pp1-4.

56

Cadbury Archive 790/004874 Box 17 of 31 ‘Agreements Between Leading Chocolate

Manufacturers in UK’ p.1.

57

Cadbury Archive 790/004874 Box 17 of 31, Distribution. ‘Cadbury Brothers Limited:

History of Margins’, p.1.

58

Cadbury Archive 790/004874 Box 17 of 31, Distribution. ‘Cadbury Brothers Limited: Survey

of Special Discounts’ D.J.B. Sales Research Department, Bournville, 30 September 1964,

pp.1-3.

22

59

Cadbury Archive 790/004871 Box 15 of 31, ‘35. Paper on Static Demand’, Sales Research,

Bournville, 22

nd

September, 1965.

60

Cadbury Archive 540 003591, Planned Public Relations, Public Relations, p.9.

61

‘Down Goes the Price of Sweets’, The Grocer, 29 July 1967, p.24.

62

Crane, Sweet encounters, p. 205.

63

Cadbury Archive 540 003591 Planned Public Relations, Public Relations, p.7.

64

Ibid., p.12.

65

Cadbury Archive 790/004874 Box 17 of 31, Distribution. ‘Resale Price Maintenance and the

Grocer: Interim Report’ N.J. Newbold to All Marketing Group Members, 24

th

August 1964,

p.53.

66

Ibid.

67

Ibid.

68

Cadbury Archive 790/004868 Box 12 of 31 ‘The Effects of In-Store Promotions in

Supermarkets and Self-Service Groceries: Cadbury Delivery Points’ D.J.B., C.A. 2nd May

1967 p.1.

69

Cadbury Archive 540 003591 Planned Public Relations, Public Relations, p.15.

70

Ibid., p.8.

71

‘Cadbury Drops Recommended Prices’, The Grocer, 27 April 1968, p.34.

72

‘Cadbury Puts Stamps on its Products’, The Grocer, 4 May 1968, p.36.

73

‘Cadbury Affair’ (Editorial), The Grocer, 11 May 1968, p.31.

74

Pickering, ‘The breakdown’.

75

Cadbury Archive 540 003591, Planned Public Relations, Public relations, p.7.

76

‘Wholesalers angered by Cadbury ‘multiple discrimination’’, The Grocer, 11 March 1967,

p.34.

77

Ibid.

78

Cadbury Archive 790/004874 Box 17 of 31 ‘Resale Prices Committee Minutes of Meeting

Between a Sub-Committee of the Working Party and Four Wholesalers’ 25th November,

1965.

79

‘Cadbury may have a fight on its hands’, The Grocer, 23 December 1967, p.1.

80

Crane, Sweet encounters.

23

ROCHE: A SWISS PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY

IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

ALEXANDER L. BIERI

Curator, Roche Historical Collection and Archive

The story of Roche’s activities in the United Kingdom (UK) is a fine

example of the expansion of a Swiss company into one of the world’s most

important markets for industrial products. It is all the more interesting as

Roche was initially conceived as a global pharmaceutical company, and

neither did it stem out of a local pharmacy or a chemical factory. This

makes the history of Roche unusual in the world of traditional

pharmaceutical corporations.

Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche: a merchant with a penchant for travel

The company was founded by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche, the scion of a

wealthy family. Born in 1868 in Basel, Switzerland, he first was

apprenticed to the bank A. Piguet & Cie in Yverdon which he left as a fully

trained banker in 1889. In order to acquaint himself with the basics of

wholesale and retail trade he began a second apprenticeship at Bohny,

Hollinger & Cie, who had a large pharmacy in Basel. Fritz left Basel in

1891 and travelled to London where he found employment with Ferd.

Krohn & Co, located in Jeffreys Square, St. Mary Axe, a company

specialising in the technical chemicals trade. Even though Fritz spent a very

happy time in London, he left the company after barely one year because of

the premature death of the owner. The final reference he received from his

supervisors could not have been more favourable: ‘It gives us exceeding

pleasure to be able to testify to his high character and thorough attention to

his duties, we have a very high opinion of him and can confidently

recommend him.’ Thanks to a close friend of his father, he quickly found

another job with Lipman & Geffcken, a well-established trading company

in Hamburg, where he stayed until 1893. During these months, Hamburg

experienced one of the largest outbreaks of cholera recorded in history. A

total of 8,605 casualties were recorded during the epidemic. The

helplessness of the situation made a lasting impression on Fritz Hoffmann-

La Roche. Experiencing such a dreadful epidemic of plague probably

helped forge his conviction that there was a huge demand for reliable and

25

standardised pharmaceuticals waiting to be met.

In early spring 1893 Fritz asked his parents to be allowed to return to

Basel. By this time the city was established as centre for chemical

production, but Basel’s initial economic success can be traced back to the

bridge over the Rhine which was first erected in 1225 and its favourable

location on the north-south trade route. The Council of Basel in 1439 made

the city a centre of paper manufacture. Letterpress printing was introduced

in Basel shortly after the foundation of the University by Pope Pius II

around 1460, making the city gradually a printing and publishing centre.

The oldest publishing house still extant today is Schwabe which was

founded in 1488. In parallel, a textile industry developed surrounding the

fashion for silk ribbons, which increasingly became a fashion staple from

the seventeenth century onwards. The manufacture of these ribbons

required dyes, soaps and lye, which were produced by a supply industry

using simple extraction and reaction processes. After the Briton William

Perkin discovered his textile dye Mauveine in 1856, the first commercially

viable synthetic product, interest in chemicals capable of producing these

novel, brilliant hues grew in Basel as well. As early as 1859, textile

industrialist Alexander Clavel began producing synthetic dyes, an event

that marked the start of the expansion of Basel’s chemical industry.

Fritz’s early forays into industrial manufacture

On his return to Basel, Hoffmann-La Roche rejoined his former employer

Bohny, Hollinger & Cie after his father participated in the company with a

stake of 200,000 Swiss Francs. However, he quickly became bored with the

methods used by his principals at the firm. They were very sedate

businessmen who had been successful in the past and their management

style could only be described as hopelessly antiquated. Fritz Hoffmann-La

Roche on the other hand had learned how to conduct modern business in

London and Hamburg. Therefore, he started to spend more and more time

in the company’s small factory which was situated slightly out of town. In

1894, Bohny and Hollinger suggested that he should buy this establishment

from them and build a new business in collaboration with the company’s

chemist Max Carl Traub. Fritz was only too happy to oblige and so, in

April 1894, the new company Hoffmann, Traub & Co was registered in

Basel.

The vision pursued by Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche was very clear: his aim

was to produce pharmaceuticals with a standardised content of active

ingredients and a reliable effect and to market them globally under common

26

brand names. This makes Roche one of the earliest examples of an

industrial company that was not linked to a certain novel technology.

Indeed, the early factory did not have the capacity to conduct chemical

synthesis, much in contrast to the current trend at the time. In order to

manufacture something saleable, Hoffmann and Traub started off with

extraction chemistry much as had been done for centuries before, using the

latest in scientific findings only for the analysis and the correct

concentration of the active agents.

However, putting this vision into practice was a far more complex

challenge than anticipated. The first product, powder to treat wounds based

on iodine and called ‘Airol’, flopped in the market, because it changed

colour when applied to wounds. Nevertheless, Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche

had high hopes for his business and started employing staff. He also

attempted to create a distribution network in other countries ready for the

time when a successful product would eventually emerge from the

laboratory. Traub, his business partner, viewed these developments with

growing concern. Eventually, in 1896, he announced his retreat from the

business and Fritz Hoffmann’s father reimbursed Traub’s stake.

Consequently, another company, F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co., was

registered in Basel in October 1896, this date marking the official

establishment of the present company. Immediately, Fritz opened his first

two subsidiaries, an Italian office in Milan, and a small factory in

Grenzach, Germany, though there still was no regular revenue from a

dependable source. This, however, changed in 1898 with the launch of the

cough syrup ‘Sirolin’. Thanks to its pleasant orange flavour, it became an

instant best-seller and was followed by a successful heart medicine,

‘Digalen’, in 1904, which was based on an extraction from the red foxglove

(digitalis purpurea). In 1903, Roche established a French subsidiary in

Paris, and 1905 saw the opening of Roche’s business in the United States in

New York. In 1908 Roche set up its office in London.

Roche in the UK: A result of Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche’s hunger for

expansion

Until 1908, Roche had sold its merchandise in the UK through an agency

which was led by Mr Hugo Lorenz. It soon became apparent that direct

investment was necessary in order to expand the firm’s activities, so in

December 1908 ‘The Hoffmann-La Roche Chemical Works Limited’

(within the company known as Roche London, and later Roche Welwyn)

was founded with a capital amounting to £5,000. Roche rented offices in 7

27

and 8 Idol Lane, near the odorous fish-market of Billingsgate. Five people

initially worked for Roche in London and the working hours were 8.30am

till 6.15pm, including a one hour lunch break and a fifteen minute break

during the afternoon for tea. Smoking was not permitted, although this

didn’t hinder Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche in smoking heavy cigars all day

long when he was present in London. A most valuable addition to the staff

of the young office, Miss Lydia Tovey started working at Roche on 5

January 1909. She quickly became indispensable within the company and

remained an astonishing source for information until her retirement in

1964. During the 55 years of her employment by Roche she had only taken

two days as sick leave!

View of Roche’s General Office at Idol Lane, London, with Miss Lydia Tovey

sitting on the left (Roche Historical Collection and Archive).

To promote its best-selling Sirolin cough syrup, Roche decided to set up

a separate firm solely devoted to the sale of this product, which today

would be regarded as an over-the-counter drug. This company was called

‘The Sirolin Co. Ltd’ which became operational in 1910. Roche started a

wide advertising campaign in newspapers and on billboards but soon

realised that it couldn’t compete with the large British manufacturers of

similar products. Therefore, The Sirolin Co. was abandoned in 1912.

28

In 1913, Roche exhibited its products at the 13

th

International Congress

of Medicine in London. The company won the sole gold medal for fine

chemicals because of the ‘beauty and purity’ of the substances it

manufactured. Furthermore, Roche London won a lucrative contract in

1914 to supply strychnine to Australia which was to be used to try and

control the growing population of rabbits.

The First World War altered the situation dramatically. The number of

staff was halved as most male employees were recruited for the army. Since

many Roche products were produced by its German factory in Grenzach,

Roche London experienced difficulties in procuring enough merchandise to

sell. Furthermore, all products were being sold with German labels.

Suspicions emerged that Roche might be collaborating with the German

enemy; the Home Office therefore scrutinised Roche and interviewed the

employees on several occasions. Eventually, Roche was cleared of all

allegations. Shortly afterwards however, detectives from Scotland Yard

searched Roche’s offices because a former employee had told the Police

that the cellars of the Idol Lane building were constructed from concrete

because, as he claimed, they were destined to be used for the manufacture

of heavy guns.

In 1915, Roche was blacklisted yet again by the British government.

Rumours had it that Roche were producing poisonous gas at Grenzach for

use by the German army. Eventually, the Foreign Office cleared Roche of

all allegations and even apologised for the inconvenience caused. These

events cast a light on the problems a multinational company faced at the

time. Indeed, as late as the 1980s, Roche constantly found itself exposed to

nationalistic propaganda. In the First World War, the Germans had Roche

blacklisted because the ‘La Roche’ part in the company name sounded

French. At the same time, the French had Roche blacklisted because

‘Hoffmann’ sounded German. This explains the extreme caution Roche’s

representatives adopted during the Second World War. Every possible

measure to disguise Roche’s Swiss origin was taken in order to protect the

businesses of the subsidiaries in the various countries, including splitting

the group into two different holding companies.

Roche’s best-selling analgesic sedative ‘Omnopon’ was ordered in large

quantities by the British Army and the Navy. It also was used by the British

Expeditionary Force which was an essential marketing factor in building up

Roche’s excellent reputation with the leading surgeons of the time.

Obtaining raw materials remained a major worry throughout the war

period. In order to tackle some of the problems, Roche London built up its

29

own procurement department. This not only supplied the local market, but

also Roche’s headquarters in Basel and Roche Paris. In 1916 Roche even

went a step further and rented a Scottish island, Inchlonaig in Loch

Lomond, to harvest red foxglove. However, the venture to grow the raw

materials on British soil did not prove very fruitful and in 1917 the lease

was not renewed.

New horizons and renewed growth

The period from 1917 until 1920 was a particularly troublesome one in

Roche’s history. The Russian revolution had disastrous effects on the

business as Roche was heavily committed in the Russian market. The

sudden loss of more than a quarter of the group’s total turnover resulted in

the bankruptcy of the parent company in Basel. Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche,

at the time already very ill, saw his lifework breaking into pieces. There

was no private money left; all he owned was invested in the company. He

eventually had to ask his brother-in-law for help. Rudolf Albert Koechlin-

Hoffmann was President of the Basler Handelsbank and was one of

Europe’s leading figures in banking and especially in financing railway

projects. He agreed to help Fritz, but only under the condition that Roche

became a limited company and that the bank would be compensated with

stock. Shortly before he passed away, Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche thus lost

the majority stake in the company he had built up and died a broken man

on 18 April 1920.

Fritz’s successor at the helm of Roche was Dr Emil Christoph Barell, a

natural scientist who had been already been employed by the company in

1896. In contrast to his superior, Barell came from a most modest family

background and by mere tenacity had worked his way up. In 1899, he

became head of the fledgling Grenzach facility and developed it into the

largest single company within Roche, even surpassing the Basel

headquarters. He first took over as general director in 1920 but managed to

secure himself a large stake in Roche. His influence on the further

development of the company was such, that for his contemporaries he

became synonymous with Roche. Even today, Roche bears many of the

hallmarks of Barell’s management style and it can be safely said that he is

counted among the inventors of the modern pharmaceutical industry. Not

only did he direct the company away from the public marketing which was

a specialty of Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche, but he also invested massively in

scientific research and thoroughly streamlined the firm’s operations. After

Roche had regained its foot in the market, Barell also set out to change the

30

appearance of the company in a very fundamental fashion, which would

become of major importance also for the history of Roche in the UK.

As much as 1920 proved to be a very challenging year for the group, it

was much more mundane from the view of the local business in the UK.

The Dangerous Drugs Act came into effect that year and Roche was visited

by an inspector of the Home Office. The inspector was not satisfied at all

with how Roche stored its opium based analgesic sedatives. A series of

additional safety measures had to be implemented, especially the control of

access to opioids needed to be improved. This was done by constructing a

separate locked area in the storeroom.

In 1923, Andrew Home-Morton, an engineer, was appointed General

Manager of Roche in the UK. That same year the Rotary Club held its

global congress in London and as Home-Morton happened to serve as

President of the London Rotary Club at the time, he had the honour to be

officially received by King George V in Buckingham Palace. It is not

known however whether he used the opportunity to recommend some of

Roche’s medicines to His Majesty. But Roche’s fame could be otherwise

furthered, for example by supplying the Shackleton-Rowett expedition to

the Antarctic in 1921 with ready-to-use syringes containing Roche

products. The ‘Tubunic’ ready-to-use syringe became a best-seller with the

many expeditions launched from the United Kingdom at the time. In 1928,

the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine even asked for

samples of the product which were displayed in its new museum.

The rapid growth of the business made it necessary to find a new home

for Roche’s British subsidiary. In 1927, Home-Morton acquired a factory at

51, Bowes Road, London N13. These buildings had originally been

constructed for a company called Carnegie Bros. which mainly produced

strychnine. Because of the aggressive nature of this substance, the walls

were almost completely eroded. The buildings had to be renovated and

were also enlarged with additions and service structures. After successfully

leading Roche London for nearly a decade, Home-Morton retired from his

position in 1932 and Henry France became the newly appointed head of

Roche’s business in the UK.

Under France there was a closer cooperation with Roche’s headquarters

in Basel and started sending workers from the London facility to

Switzerland in order to have them trained on the latest pharmaceutical

manufacturing equipment. A direct result of these travels was the

acquisition of the first modern tableting machine in 1933, which caused a

sensation among the British employees. It produced 30 tablets per minute

31

whereas the old hand-operated ones only managed to press eight in about

two minutes’ time (today’s machines can manufacture up to 15,000 tablets

per minute).

Roche London celebrated its 25

th

birthday on 16 December 1933 in style:

Henry France rented the whole of Frascati’s restaurant in Oxford Street. A

nine course dinner was followed by a small celebration in which Dr Barell

presented Miss Tovey and Mr Forrest with commemorative watches, as

they both celebrated working for the company for the 25 years of its

existence in London. On this memorable occasion, a team consisting of

Miss Tovey and other senior staff members created a new cocktail with the

name ‘Elixir Tonikum Compositum’. This cocktail (of which unfortunately

no recipe has survived) was highly popular that evening. According to Miss

Tovey, nobody could remember how they had actually reached Charing

Cross station afterwards the next day!

In 1935, Dr Mary Walker of Greenwich discovered a dramatic

improvement in the state of her patients suffering from Myasthenia Gravis

when administering Prostigmin Roche to them, a product introduced in

1931. This discovery made the headlines and became an important

breakthrough for Roche as a specialist for niche medicines against rare

diseases.

There were increasing worries about the political developments in

Europe, which lead to a series of measures taken by the company to ensure

the long term survival of Roche. In 1938 the group split itself in two halves.

One half contained all the subsidiaries in mainland Europe which were

incorporated into F. Hoffmann-La Roche & Co. Limited, based first in

Basel and then later in Lausanne, which is further away from the German

border. The other half, consisting of the Roche operations in the UK, the

United States, Latin America, Australia and Asia, were incorporated into

the Société Anonyme des Produits Alimentaires et Chimiques (SAPAC)

with its headquarters in Montevideo, Uruguay. Both groups were linked to

each other via the share structure. Whenever anybody acquired a Roche

share, they would automatically receive a SAPAC share with it and vice-

versa. The idea behind this structure was that Roche could have easily

separated the two groups if Switzerland had been overrun by the Nazi

regime.

Another measure touched on the sensitive area of Roche’s intellectual

property. If SAPAC was to be able to operate on its own, then a shift to the

west of the research activities was required. Therefore, Roche vastly

expanded its site in Nutley, New Jersey and created a major research centre.

32

Many Jewish scientists were recruited in Europe as late as 1941 and

brought to the United States. The facilities of Roche in the UK thus became

a strategic asset for the company. It bore the role of a place marker for

Roche’s activities in Europe and also of a toehold for SAPAC in Europe.

This explains the amount of care and dedication that went into the design of

the new Roche site in London.

A truly modern home for a modern company

Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche had left sites behind with very traditional

buildings. They very much reflected his bourgeois taste and their design

could at best be described as reactionary. This is striking and seems

somewhat strange considering that he was a pioneer in marketing and

branding. When Barell took over at the helm of Roche, the company first

had to be restructured and brought back on a successful track. The situation

became much better by the end of the 1920s and with the advent of the

synthetic vitamins in the early 1930s (Roche’s entry into the field of

synthetic chemistry) it became possible to ponder novel building schemes.

Barell had realised very early on that Roche’s unique profile, a company

fully based on intangible assets, made it a much more modern company

than any other industrial outlet. The term ‘healthcare industry’ was not

coined yet (this in fact only happened in the 1970s) but already then it was

very clear that the chemical industry had experienced its first growth peak

before the turn of the century whereas the business focused on medicines

was still very young. He had an insatiable desire to graphically demonstrate

this fact and he also wanted to express his conviction that the combination

of science, medicine and industry was a daring undertaking far ahead of its

time.

In 1933 Barell asked the architect Professor Otto R. Salvisberg to design

his private home in Basel. Salvisberg is a very interesting figure in the

architectural history of the twentieth century. He originated from the Bern

region and studied architecture in Biel (Switzerland) before taking

residence in Berlin around 1900. There, he quickly became a very sought-

after architect for the rich and the famous. His style at first was influenced

by German expressionism, but it was not long however before he started

adopting a stark and clean-cut style which heavily depended on

technological advances. Salvisberg is considered one of the masters of the

‘New Objectivity’ style of architecture which put the use and function of

the building at the centre of attention. Another name associated with this

movement was Salvisberg’s close friend and ally Erich Mendelsohn, the

33

architect of the De la Warr Pavilion in Bexhill on Sea. In Berlin, Salvisberg

became famous for creating private homes equipped with the latest electric

gadgets, large modern housing complexes and office buildings. However,

he was deeply shocked by the first appearances of Hitler’s ‘brownshirts’

and decided as early as 1929 to leave the German capital forever: a brave

step considering that he very much was a part of the vibrant social life of

the Weimar Republic, and one that was met with disappointment and

disbelief by his friends in Berlin who, like Mendelsohn, would endure the

mounting political pressure for several more years until they themselves

saw the time had come to leave. Salvisberg returned to Switzerland and was

appointed professor of architecture at the Federal Institute of Technology in

Zurich (ETH).

Upon Salvisberg’s return from Berlin, Barell immediately got in touch

with him. This is a clear indication that Barell knew very precisely about

Salvisberg’s stature in Germany. The famous architect did not meet with

much approval in Switzerland, which was a very solemn and provincial

place compared to the likes of Berlin or London. This was especially true

of Zurich at the time. Salvisberg, used to a very urban and sometimes

exuberant lifestyle, was therefore regarded with a lot of suspicion. To be

acquainted with a widely-travelled and educated executive of a global

company must have been a very welcome change from the daily routine

that Salvisberg experienced at ETH in an adverse environment, and is an

explanation as to why he agreed to work for Roche in the first place.

After the completion of Barell’s house, Salvisberg was awarded the

commission for the construction of several buildings on the Basel site and

also to draw up plans for Roche’s offices in Milan and Welwyn Garden

City. This indicates that Barell intended a large-scale architectural

makeover of the group and makes clear that for him architecture was an

important means of communication. Salvisberg understood perfectly what

Barell was asking for. In order to create the clean, streamlined and

functional environments envisaged by his client, he heavily drew on the

experiences he had made earlier in the design and the construction of

several hospitals and university research institutes. In fact, there were few,

if any, modern architects at the time able to draw upon much experience in

the design tasks related to the two themes that were of prime importance to

Roche: scientific research and medicine. The resulting buildings, including

Barell’s private home and the administration building in Basel, but also

factory structures, are splendid examples of a functionality that does not

betray its cause, even 70 years after.

34

In the UK, the premises at Bowes Road had become more cramped, and

the old-fashioned buildings no longer fitted the company’s image. At the

beginning of 1937, the board of Roche in Basel signed a contract for a 999

year lease on a 20,000 square metre site in Welwyn Garden City,

Hertfordshire. The building containing the power plant, located on the

fringes of the future factory site, was finished in the same year. The

remainder of the complex was opened during 1938. The factory was

intended to be a showcase for the pharmaceutical industry and to

demonstrate the scientific prowess of a business founded solely on

intangible assets. Therefore, the ephemeral white that also indicates high

standards of hygiene was prevalent. The whole structure was conceived

without the use of expensive materials or classical architectural elements

usually employed to depict power. The interiors solely use space and light

to create atmosphere. Light was used spectacularly: the staircase was

encased in a half-circle of glass building blocks. In the Architect’s Journalof 19 January 1939 Professor Reilley declared Roche’s Welwyn Garden

City site as the building of the year and the pinnacle of functional, modern

architecture. It soon became a popular destination for architects from

Britain and abroad. With the move into the new buildings, Roche also re-

branded its UK operations, changing the name from the rather antiquated

Hoffmann-La Roche Chemical Works Limited to the more contemporary

Roche Products Limited.

The newly erected buildings at Roche’s Welwyn Garden City site, designed by

Otto Rudolf Salvisberg, 1938 (Roche Historical Collection and Archive).

35

Roche Welwyn during the Second World War

With the outbreak of war in September 1939, Roche Welwyn was

determined to survive the war period as untainted as possible. Immediately

sandbags were filled and staff recruited for the fire brigade and for

organising the blackout. The latter was no easy task considering the huge

window surfaces of the new buildings. The air aid sirens on the roofs at

Roche Welwyn went off for the first time on 5 September 1939 at 6.50am.

They sounded their alarm the last time on 29 March 1945 at 8.57am. In

total, they went into operation 938 times during the war. In contrast to the

First World War, when Roche’s buildings in Idol Lane were devastated by

bombs from airships, Roche had more luck this time (or the disguising

measures were more successful). No bombs hit the Welwyn Garden City

site during the war and the facilities survived without damage. A large

number of Roche employees joined the Home Guard. They belonged to the

4

th

Hertfordshire battalion. The male fighting battalion counted about 100

men, and many members from the female staff also joined in, providing

medical aid and cooking food for the soldiers. Roche housed the

headquarters of the 4

th

Hertfordshire battalion and a Lewis machine gun

was installed on the roof of one of the buildings. As the products of Roche

were deemed essential for providing medicine and nutrition during the war,

many of the scientists and workers were classed as reserved occupations

and were not conscripted into the armed forces. Night shifts, even for the

scientists, became the norm during the war period.

One of the major problems Roche faced was keeping up with the ever

increasing demand for the goods it manufactured. As the nutritional value

of food dropped, the question of vitamins in food became of great

importance. For example, Britons were ardent in their loathing for

wholegrain bread, much to the dismay of the Ministry of Agriculture. The

officials tried hard to persuade consumers to switch from white to

wholegrain bread, to no avail. Eventually, after reaching an agreement with

the Association for British Millers, Roche opened, in 1940, the world’s

largest vitamin B1 factory in Welwyn Garden City. From then on, the

synthetically produced vitamin was added to the flour in bakeries in order

to ensure the supply of this essential vitamin to the public.

Roche Welwyn’s research department was registered with the

Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. All research activities

had to be confirmed by the Ministry of Production. A close collaboration

developed between Roche, the Ministry of Food, the Medical Research

Council, the National Institute of Medical Research, the Royal Air Force,

36

the War Office, and many universities. Apart from questions regarding

nutrition, research activities were pursued in many other fields.

Packing Red Cross supplies at Roche Welwyn, 1943 (Roche Historical Collectionand Archive).

The whole nation closed ranks during this time of crisis and Roche did

everything to prove it was a good citizen, too. The war effort laid the

foundation for many collaborations in the years to come and it is no

surprise therefore that the growth of the company accelerated yet again

when the war was over. After a short while, it became very difficult finding

enough trained staff. Roche even bought up houses and flats which then

were offered to employees, in order to lure people from other parts of

Britain to Welwyn. Even though the coming decades were not free from

sorrow, the pharmaceutical industry generally experienced an upturn which

culminated in the first growth peak of this still young industry in the 1960s.

Conclusion

The traditional pharmaceutical corporations still extant usually developed

out of chemical laboratories or of pharmacies/drugstores. For decades, this

fact impaired a proper analysis of the historical beginnings of the healthcare

industry. First, it was believed to be an integral part of the chemical

industry, despite the well-known fact that the industrial manufacture of

37

chemicals is at least half a century older than the one of healthcare

products. When it became apparent that the healthcare industry steadily

embraces novel technologies to advance its cause (thus moving it away

from the chemical industry), there have still been few efforts to distinguish

the two fields from each other. Historians have tended to focus on the

history of synthetic chemistry technologies, which seemingly also

encompassed industrial pharmacy. A little bit later, in the 1960s, a broader

view was sometimes thrown into the discussion by the inclusion of the very

ancient history of classical pharmacy. The overall result of these

endeavours remained unsatisfying and certainly not usable for the

explanation of the astonishing diversity of today’s healthcare industry. By

investigating the development of Roche in general and specifically the

establishment of Roche in the United Kingdom, it becomes clear that

innovative products that fulfil unmet medical and dietary needs have

always been essential for the long-term success of the healthcare industry.

However, at least for the early days around 1900, the importance of

marketing measures cannot be underestimated. The pharmacies in France

reputedly invented the modern branded product during the eighteenth

century and it is safe to say that the idea of marketing and advertising was

to a large extent perfected by producers of pharmaceutical products.

Therefore, it is not surprising that the healthcare industry first heavily relied

on marketing. Only after a while the more serious companies started to

gather scientific evidence gained in pharmacological tests, first to support

their marketing, then to develop new products. Eventually, the whole

industry shifted towards a more mature and sustainable research-based

characteristics. The development of Roche’s operations in the UK took

place during exactly this period. The Welwyn Garden City facility is an

early mortar-and-brick manifestation for the emancipation of the healthcare

industry from its industrial ancestors, bringing the old times of unregulated

marketing for pharmaceutical products with unproven effects to a definite

end. It also was the dawn of a new age in which disease for the first time

did not hold the meaning of a death spell anymore.

Selected references

1

Correspondence on the Sirolin Co., The Roche Historical Collection and Archive (LG.GB –

101869 folders 1 to 9).

2

A.L. Bieri, Traditionally ahead of our time, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, 2008.

3

A.L. Bieri, Depicting health: the origins of pharmaceutical design (Basel, 2009)

38

4

A. Bieri and R. Spreng, Robert Spreng and his photographs of O.R. Salvisberg’s executiveoffice building for F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd in Basel (Basel, 2001).

5

G.A. Wanner, Fritz Hoffmann-La Roche 1868-1920 (Basel, 1968).

6

‘Roche in Grossbritannien’, Roche-Zeitung 1971/4, S.17-36, BU.0.2 – 200341.

For more information about the Roche archives please visit

www.roche.com/about_roche/milestones.htm

or contact:

The Roche Historical Collection and Archive

F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

CH-4070 Basel

Tel. +41 61 687 02 65

alexander.bieri@roche.com

39

THE MORRISON ARCHIVES

1

CAROLINE DAKERS

Central Saint Martins College of Arts and Design, University of the Arts

London

The first stage of cataloguing the archives of the nineteenth century

merchant James Morrison has been completed by John D’Arcy (formerly of

the Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre) for Alastair, 3

rd

Baron

Margadale. When the database is finished it will be possible to access a

very important private collection of relevance to historians of nineteenth

and twentieth century business and economics, collecting, parliament,

agriculture and land management. The archives have been organised by

D’Arcy in 300 large boxes each containing up to 10 kilograms of papers.

The catalogue has 3,000 entries, some of which cover hundreds of letters or

papers. When completed the database will have thousands of subjects.

When the archives are accessible (probably mid-2012) visits will probably

be organised via John D’Arcy and the Fonthill Estate and there will be a

small charge.

2

Part of the Morrison archive in the original nineteenth century tin boxes (CarolineDakers)

41

I have been using the archives for a study of the Morrisons, A genius formoney, business, art and the Morrisons, published by Yale University Press

in November 2011. Here, for those who are unfamiliar with the remarkable

family, I introduce James Morrison and his achievements, describe how

such an extensive collection was formed, and highlight some of the most

important parts. Without the support of the late James Morrison, Baron

Margadale and his son Alastair (3

rd

Baron Margadale), neither this research

nor the catalogue compiled by D’Arcy, would have been possible.

Introduction

Some of the finest qualities of human nature are intimately related

to the right use of money, such as generosity, honesty, justice, and

self-sacrifice; as well as the practical virtues of economy and

providence.

3

James Morrison (1789-1857) is one of the least known but most

extraordinary of nineteenth century merchant millionaires. The son of a

village innkeeper, he was sent to London as apprentice to a haberdasher.

There, he proved to be a genius at making money, dubbed the Napoleon of

shopkeepers, creating a business with a turnover in 1830 of nearly £2

million, the equivalent of £200 million today. He invested almost £1

million (c.£100 million) in North American railways, he was involved in

global trade from Canton to Valparaiso, and acquired land, houses and

works of art to rival the grandest of aristocrats. He turned down the

opportunity to buy a title (he considered it a poor investment) so remained

a commoner; the richest commoner in the whole of the nineteenth century.

Like a character in Samuel Smiles’s Victorian best-seller Self-Help,Morrison rose to the top ‘by his own unaided efforts and through self-

improvement, self-help, abstinence, thrift, hard work, acquisitive drive,

innovative flair, and grasp of market opportunities’.

4On the way he created

hundreds of jobs and ‘flooded the world’ with his goods.

5He relished the

intellectual pleasure in what he called ‘the science of business’.

6At his

death, his wife and all of his surviving children were left fortunes, four of

his sons also inherited their own country estates. While none of Morrison’s

children were able to match the formidable range of his achievements, three

of his sons did add substantially to the family wealth. The eldest, Charles

(1817-1909), though a shy reclusive bachelor, was a brilliant financier,

investing heavily in South America. By his death in 1909 he had turned his

inheritance of £1 million into £14 million to become the richest commoner

of his own generation. Alfred (1821-97), the second son, was a

42

connoisseur. Dubbed the ‘Victorian Maecenas’, he commissioned the

architect-designer Owen Jones and a team of talented craftsmen to turn his

town and country houses into palaces of art where he displayed the greatest

private collections of Imperial Chinese porcelain and autograph letters of

the day. Walter (1836-1921) also made a small fortune in Argentina, giving

much of it away to hospitals, schools, churches, universities and museums,

including £50,000 to the Bodleian Library in 1920.

The archive, its content, how it started, how it survived.

The archive is extensive, in part through the approach adopted by James

Morrison. Though he refused to ‘invest’ in a baronetcy, he was sufficiently

proud of his achievements to begin ordering his papers in preparation for

writing his memoirs: black tin trunks stuffed with correspondence, deeds,

ledgers, invoices and bills, share certificates, inventories and diaries. He

paid a clerk to copy all the correspondence relating to his take-over of his

father-in-law’s haberdashery business in Fore Street, Cripplegate, London,

and kept his own list of art purchases, including details of how much was

paid at which sale. He also kept detailed lists, every six months, of his

assets, so that he (and we) could track the steady accumulation of his

fortune. Letters from architects, his land agents, parliamentary colleagues,

partners in Fore Street, merchants and bankers in London and the United

States, were preserved alphabetically, year by year. There are also

documents relating to his purchase of estates which eventually totalled

100,000 acres: including Fonthill Park in Wiltshire; Basildon Park in

Berkshire; Hole Park in Kent; Malham in Yorkshire; the island of Islay; and

London properties, including his own homes in Balham and Harley Street.

However there is not much personal data. There are virtually no letters

between him and his wife Mary Ann or their children. Mary Ann’s presence

was essential to Morrison’s success. Already well-read when they married,

she was his travelling companion, she provided constant encouragement

and support, security and stability, she was his ‘helpmeet’ in all aspects of

his life. But it was probably she, together with Charles, who inherited his

father’s papers, who destroyed personal material. Only odd exceptions have

survived, accidentally or deliberately misplaced; Morrison’s declaration of

love for Mary Ann is such an example, tucked into a Fore Street account

book. It may have been Charles who organised the removal of his father’s

papers from their London town house (57 Harley Street) and country house

(Basildon Park) to the family’s estate office in the City of London.

When Charles himself decided what of his own to preserve he left details

43

of his extensive investments but, frustratingly, little evidence as to how or

when he built up his portfolio. Personal material was, once again,

rigorously pruned so that his private life remains an enigma. Scrapbooks in

which he recorded his favourite reading do reveal how much he enjoyed

studying the lives of his contemporary millionaires.

Alfred, as the second son, inherited the Fonthill Park estate. Following

his death in 1897, it appears more than likely his widow Mabel then

proceeded to destroy both personal letters and much material relating to the

collections and interior decorations of Fonthill House and 16 Carlton House

Terrace, London SW1. For historians of collecting, architecture and interior

design, the loss of details concerning Owen Jones’ extraordinary

commissions is to be regretted. However, historians of land management

and estates fare better as Mabel ignored more mundane estate papers,

including material dating from William Beckford’s ownership of the whole

estate. They remained safe and dry in the Old Creamery at Berwick St

Leonard for the best part of a hundred years.

James and Mary Ann Morrison had only nine grand-children, six girls

and three boys. The two who bore the Morrison name, Hugh and Archie,

not only benefited from the collecting addiction of their father Alfred but

also acquired most of their grandfather’s remaining properties via their

bachelor uncles Charles and Walter. Hugh, as the eldest, got Fonthill, then

Uncle Charles left him Islay. Archie inherited Basildon Park from Uncle

Charles and Malham from Uncle Walter.

Neither Hugh nor Archie were remotely interested in making money,

either through trade or finance; quite the opposite. Both chose to spend

their fortunes with a recklessness that would have horrified their

grandfather. Hugh built a new house on the Fonthill estate, Little Ridge,

designed by Detmar Blow. He also engaged Blow to build a house in

Belgravia and to add an enormous wing to Islay House. There was a fire at

the old Fonthill House (which was demolished in 1921) which may explain

the loss of almost all records tracing Blow’s commissions. A visitor’s book

does survive, and, rather oddly, letters between Hugh and his wife Mary

describing the embarrassing, sometimes painful medical treatment they

received over a decade for their apparent infertility. There is no sense Hugh

inherited his grandfather’s interest in the preservation of family papers, but

at least he chose to leave well alone.

Archie’s career began well enough. He survived the Sudan campaign and

the Boer War with distinction, and in 1900 was elected the Conservative

Unionist MP for Wilton, Wiltshire, and married an aristocrat; it looked as

44

though he would make Basildon Park his family home. He lost his Wilton

seat in 1906, and became MP for Nottingham East in 1910. However, his

political campaign in Nottingham was marred by accusations of bribery (he

resigned in 1912), he was divorced by his wife and named as the co-

respondent in the divorce of his mistress. He thought of settling in Kenya,

purchasing agricultural land and providing £60,000 towards the creation of

the Muthaiga Club, outside Nairobi. However he returned to active service

at the outbreak of war in 1914, and Basildon Park was turned into a

military hospital. He was married again in 1920, inherited, then almost

immediately sold Malham, sold the Basildon estate and all of its contents

apart from the paintings, and was again divorced. He finally established

himself in London with his third wife, thirty years his junior. When he died

in 1934 his estate was valued at a mere £5,459.

His archive apparently disappeared. No accounts appear to survive

charting his reckless spending, no personal material relating to his

complicated love-life apart from a few despairing letters kept in the

Morrison archives. There are fragments from descendants, newspaper

cuttings and a few letters. There are also some estate papers relating to

Basildon in the Berkshire County Record Office, while the Royal Institute

of British Architects has the designs by Edwin Lutyens for work at

Basildon (only a few cottages were built). But James Morrison’s collection

of painting, which Archie had inherited, passed safely to descendants at

Sudeley Castle in Gloucestershire.

It was Hugh and Mary’s only son, John Granville (the fertility

‘treatment’ worked), who had to deal with the next threat to the family

properties, and of course the archives. Born in 1906 he continued to live a

lavish lifestyle at Fonthill and on Islay until well after the Second World

War. He served as an MP for Salisbury and chairman of the Conservative

1922 Committee, confirming the family’s political shift towards the right,

and was rewarded with a hereditary peerage by Sir Alec Douglas-Home in

1964. However, the economic climate was no longer supportive of the life

of a landed gentleman: agricultural rents were falling, but labour costs and

taxes were rising. Blow’s house in Belgravia had been sold before the

Second World War (it is now the Caledonian Club). The nadir was reached

at the end of the 1960s with ‘rampant inflation, falling production,

collapsing land prices, rising unemployment; tax on investment income at

98 per cent; a sliding stock market; Capital Gains Tax, Capital Transfer

Tax, Value Added Tax, and to crown everything the threat of a Wealth

Tax.’

7The decision was taken to sell much of the contents of Little Ridge

45

(the largest sale was in 1971) and, to the horror of architectural historians

and conservationists, in 1972, to demolish Blow’s ‘masterpiece of the Arts

and Crafts tradition’, building a much more convenient neo-Georgian box

within the footprint. John Granville also sold Islay House and part of the

Scottish estate and closed down the family’s estate office in London.

However, he did not get rid of the archives. All the tin boxes that had

accumulated in London were brought down to Fonthill, to remain dry and

secure in the Old Kitchen, the surviving service wing of Little Ridge,

conveniently positioned to receive his own parliamentary and business

papers before and at his death in 1996.

Early interest in the Morrisons

At the same time that Little Ridge was being demolished, a descendant

Richard Gatty persuaded John Granville to lend him some of the tin boxes

and to write a biography of James Morrison. Portrait of a merchant princewas published in 1976, but only 200 copies were privately printed so it never

reached a wide readership. However, Gatty carefully listed the contents of his

boxes, opening up rolls of letters, deciding for his purposes what was

important or of no interest. He discarded nothing, returning the boxes to

Fonthill where his notes proved invaluable to both myself and D’Arcy.

Otherwise access was limited. However a few historians took up Gatty’s

biography and focused on the business activities of James Morrison and his

son Charles, relying in most cases on material in the public domain. The

business papers of Morrison, Cryder & Co., were at the Guildhall, London

(now in the London Metropolitan Archive). The archives of University

College London have the papers of the River Plate Trust and Agency

Company Ltd. There is some material at the Bank of England, and also in

the Barclays Bank PLC Archive (Gurney & Co). The activities of James

and Charles as merchant bankers and their involvement with the Bank of

the United States (BUS) in the 1830s and 1840s has been examined by

Stanley Chapman.

8Charles A. Jones focused on the second generation, and

the effect in Argentina of the investments of Charles and Walter, supported

by the family solicitors, Ashurst Morris and Crisp.

9Martin Daunton has

highlighted the significance of their textile warehouse:

The greatest fortune in the textile trades was not made by Richard

Arkwright in the production of yarn; it was accumulated by James

Morrison … whose textile warehouse in the City of London

supplied the inland trade with its handkerchiefs, ribbons, braids,

and fabrics.’

10

46

W.D. Rubinstein, who has undertaken detailed research into wealth, was the

first to place the Morrisons firmly within the ‘rich list’, proposing James as

the richest commoner of the nineteenth century and one of the 250 richest

Britons ever.

11

Highlights of the Morrison archives

TextilesDavid Kynaston described James Morrison as simply ‘the kingpin’ of

textiles.

12He joined the house of Joseph Todd & Co. at 105 Fore Street,

Cripplegate, London, in 1809. Turnover was £18,000 but within three years

Morrison had increased it to over £40,000, in part through increasing the

quantity and range of stock but also by adopting small profits and quick

returns. He was made a partner and in 1814 married Todd’s daughter Mary

Ann. The business was renamed Todd, Morrison & Co., and by 1816 the

turnover was close to £500,000. Morrison became sole owner in 1824 and

by 1830 turnover reached almost £2 million. From this base he was able to

embark on the purchase of estates, to invest in North American railways,

and to become a moneylender to the aristocracy.

In 1941 the warehouses in Fore Street, Cripplegate, and Milton Street

(formerly Grub Street), EC2 took a direct hit the first night of the Blitz,

however the Morrison and Todd papers had been removed to the family’s

estate office in 1863 (and hence to Fonthill) when Morrison, Dillon & Co.

was transformed into a limited company, the Fore Street Warehouse

Company. The collection is remarkable. It consists of a series of warehouse

books, listing wholesale purchases and sales by sections of the warehouse,

debtors and staff salaries covering the period 1809-63. They include

warehouse ledgers, a record of customers 1826-7, an example of a

warehouse day book 1813-5, and partnership accounts and agreements. In

some of the books individual biographies of staff are included: William

Whiteley, the founder of Whiteley’s Department Store, was briefly an

employee. There are also details of Morrison’s loans from Samuel Gurney.

The turnover can be analysed in detail, month by month, year by year. In

1824, for example, the warehouse sold more than £390,000 of cut ribbons

and trimmings. Morrison also had copied into a document the lengthy

correspondence covering his takeover of the business from his father-in-law

and his dispute with his brother-in-law John Edward Todd.

PropertiesJames Morrison acquired a very large number of properties, from artisans’

47

dwellings and shops to country mansions, he also commissioned

warehouses in Fore Street and Milton Street from his favourite architect

John Papworth. As his wealth increased he moved his family from the City

of London across the Thames to Balham, then to grander houses in more

prestigious locations, all the time adding to his portfolio. He was constantly

being offered properties to buy, so the archive has a considerable number of

brochures, descriptions of estates for sale. But the papers relating to the

period when he owned Fonthill Park, Basildon Park, and 57 Harley Street

are the most complete and interesting.

They include letters from James Morrison’s agent at Fonthill, James

Combes (with a few from Combes’ son), covering the period 1832-51.

These overlap with letters from Papworth, Morrison’s architect and adviser

on interiors and collecting (1820-46), and the architect David Brandon

(1846-54), who both worked on Fonthill and Basildon. Morrison’s diaries

survive for 1833, 1834, 1835, 1836, 1837, 1838, 1839, 1840, 1841 and

1843, a memo book for 1848-55 and a diary kept by his secretary for 1855.

They are supplemented by correspondence from the agents Rawlence and

Squarey from 1854 to Morrison’s death in 1857, from Morrison’s life-long

solicitor and friend W.H. Ashurst and, W. Graham, his solicitor in

Abingdon, Oxfordshire. There are also packets of estate materials, rent

audits and letters relating to farms on the Basildon estate, the Cholsey

estate and Rolvenden in Kent.

Merchant Banking: the ‘American venture’ Banks served the Americans as a lever ... to cover the country with

roads, canals, factories ... with everything that goes to make up a

civilization.

13

Morrison’s ‘American venture’ began straightforwardly enough as he

bought North American stock, in Pennsylvania, New Orleans, and New

Jersey. However in 1836 he established a small merchant bank with an

American banker John Cryder, called Morrison, Cryder & Co., trading in

particular in tea from Canton and cotton from the southern states. They

were also dealing in American state securities and found themselves caught

up in the disastrous loss of confidence in the market which brought down a

number of established Anglo-American houses in 1838. Morrison was

forced to apply to the Bank of England for a loan of £325,000. He

recovered but ended the relationship with Cryder. With a new company,

Morrison, Sons & Co., he turned to another even riskier venture, the agency

of the BUS in Philadelphia and signed an agreement in 1841 to provide

48

credit of £700,000. When the bank collapsed shortly after, Morrison’s

portfolio was valued at £1 million; Charles and Alfred spent the next

couple of years in North America during the lengthy liquidation of the BUS

trying to recover a small fortune in investments.

The ‘American venture’ is well documented in the archives with

extensive correspondence back and forth across the Atlantic from bankers

including George Peabody, Richard Alsop, Samuel Jaudon and W.S.

Wetmore. Morrison’s diaries evidence his increasing alarm during the

1836-7 crisis – ‘news from US horrible’. The letters from his sons in North

America total some quarter of a million words and are consistently of

interest. They describe in detail their financial observations and actions, but

also document the state of the nation before the Civil War. At Niagara Falls,

Alfred stayed at the same hotel as Charles Dickens, who was taking the

tour which would result in both his American Notes and Martin Chuzzlewit.‘If he does [write a book]’ Alfred commented ‘it will be worth nothing as

he can have seen nothing of the country or people.’

Parliament, free trade and railwaysJames Morrison was respected in Parliament as a ‘practising’ political

economist and free-trader. His knowledge of textiles, railways and

investment in North America was second-to-none. The archive reflects his

interest in facts, and his constant thirst for information, so there are

documents, for example, relating to trade with New South Wales and

Leghorn, the manufacture of gloves, the state of the silk industry, Irish

famine, drainage and the opium trade. The correspondence from business

partners, parliamentary colleagues and political economists is extensive,

including letters from Joseph Hume, Edwin Chadwick, Sir John Easthope,

Sir John Bowring and Nassau Senior. Morrison’s personal involvement

with Select Committees is represented, there are copies of his speeches on

the regulation of railways, and material from his Parliamentary campaigns,

both successful and unsuccessful, before and after Reform (Dover 1825,

Marlow 1826 and 1830, St Ives 1830, Ipswich 1832-7, the Inverness

Burghs 1840-4).

CollectingJames Morrison’s artistic taste was aristocratic and cosmopolitan: along

with collectors such as King George IV and the Rothschilds, he shared a

passion for luxury and decoration. He bought Old Masters but also

paintings by his contemporaries including Constable and Turner. He kept a

49

careful account of his purchases, an inventory of objects 1832-52, using his

own diary entries. There are also letters from his dealers, in particular the

colourful William Buchanan, who negotiated his purchase of the Harringay

picture collection from the late Edward Gray in 1838. After his death,

Morrison’s paintings, furniture and books at Basildon and Harley Street

were valued by Christies and Farrers and the inventories are in the archive.

The documentation of Alfred’s collection is much more patchy, suffering

from some reckless ‘weeding’, presumably by his widow. He did keep an

aide memoire with the names and addresses of artists, architects, designers

and dealers, also an inventory survives listing his most important pieces.

Travel and business combinedThe most interesting documents in this section are James Morrison’s travel

diary around England and Scotland for 1823; his letters to Fore Street from

the continent during his Grand Tour 1826-7; the letters to James and Mary

Ann Morrison, also the family’s merchant bank Morrison, Sons & Co, from

Alfred and Charles in North America 1842-5.

Criss-crossing England and Scotland, Morrison was always on the look-

out for new customers, and for evidence of the affluence of communities.

He discovered in Margate, for example, ‘a very large class of money

spending people’. In Liverpool he was impressed by the docks ‘very grand

full of ships’ and the ‘Corporation very Rich & use their riches in docks,

magnificent buildings & in markets – improving streets – private charities

equally grand.’ He called on manufacturers and inspected their factories,

mixing these business trips with visits to grand country houses, cathedrals

and castles. In Europe he applied the same approach, combining

sightseeing (he called it visiting lions) with business. His letters provided

commercial information to be acted upon (in particular the trade in skins

for gloves, also urging Fore Street to cash in on the death of the Duke of

York) but he also included commentary on the state of Europe, its culture

and politics.

The archive also contains one travel diary of Mary Ann Morrison, 1828;

the travel diaries of James Morrison’s daughter Ellen in Europe 1859, 1860,

1861, 1868, 1871; the travel diaries of his son Allan in Europe 1869, 1870,

1873, 1874, 1875, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879; and letters from his son George

Morrison on his tour to Japan 1878.

Conclusion

John D’Arcy summed up the collection as ‘a typical country house estate

50

archive with three very untypical elements, the business, the banking, and

the other acquisitions of James Morrison’. In responding to enquiries, he

has already been struck by its varied usage, commenting to me, ‘every new

enquiry, except the genealogical ones, strikes me as original, interesting and

of an unexpected variety’. The Morrisons’ wealth was legendary in their

lifetimes; their land, their country houses and their collections of art were

the subject of notice, sometimes envy. Some, though not all, behaved like

Disraeli’s canny tailor Sir Peter Vigo, who had the ‘wisdom to retain his

millions, which few manage to do, as it is admitted that it is easier to make

a fortune than to keep one’.

14They have also, apart from a few glitches and

some periods of not unhelpful neglect, managed to create, to keep and now

to fund the cataloguing of their extraordinary archives.

Notes1

For help with understanding business records and finding obscure references I wish to thank

Professor Martin Daunton, Simon Fraser, Dr Charles Jones,

David Pearson, and Professor Bill Rubinstein.

2

For more information about the archive please contact mail@fonthill.co.uk

3

Samuel Smiles, Self-Help (London, 1860), p.229.

4

Ibid.

5

Ibid.

6

Unless separately noted, quotations by the Morrisons’ diaries and letters come from the

Morrison Archive.

7

J. Mordaunt Crook, review of G. Worsley, England’s lost houses (London, 2002), in TheTimes Literary Supplement, 21 June 2002, p.20.

8

S.D. Chapman, The rise of merchant banking (London, 1984); Merchant enterprise inBritain: from the industrial revolution to World War One (Cambridge, 1992).

9

C.A. Jones, International business in the nineteenth century: the rise and fall of acosmopolitan bourgeoisie (Brighton, 1987), and Great capitalists (London, 1980). Morris

Crisp has been documented in Judy Slinn, J. Slinn, Ashurst, Morris Crisp. A radical firm(Cambridge, 1997).

10

M. Daunton, Progress and poverty. An economic and social history of Britain 1700-1850(Oxford, 1995), p.318.

11

W.D. Rubenstein, Men of property: the very wealthy in Britain since the industrial revolution(London, 1981); P. Beresford and W.D. Rubenstein, The richest of the Rich. The wealthiest250 people in Britain since 1066 (Petersfield, 2007).

12

D. Kynaston, The City of London volume I: a world of its own 1815-1890 (London, 1994),

p.58.

13

H. Bodenham, A history of banking in antebellum America (Cambridge, 2000), p.84.

14

B. Disraeli, Endymion (New York, 1880).

51

FROM ACORN TO OAK: INDUSTRIAL AND

CORPORATE FILMS IN BRITAIN

1

PATRICK RUSSELL

British Film Institute

Introduction

‘Industrial film’ is rich with surprise, and its share of paradox. To the

uninitiated, the very words (rather like ‘business archives’) suggest dust

and boredom; yet sceptics can fast become zealous converts when shown

actual examples. Normally ephemeral in origin, a good, and even a bad,

industrial film can exert truly timeless appeal. Often doggedly practical, it

can yet intrigue the most abstract of intellects. An adequate understanding

of its meaning can prove as stubbornly difficult to grasp as its outward form

is apparently simple to perceive. And the history of all these films put

together presents us at once with epic sweep and the dazzling detail of

myriad micro-studies. Last but not least, a pattern familiar to archivists: the

scale of the surviving artefacts is in inverse proportion to the level of close

attention they have attracted. The industrial film was, and remains, an

exceptionally prevalent form, yet only recently have systematic attempts to

understand it begun.

This article marries a high-level summary of the history of industrial film

in Britain, citing topics meriting further research, with a similarly broad

analysis of the archival issues that this history has bequeathed. Informing

both strands is an acute sense of what has been most missing from

approaches taken to date: a synthesis of perspectives mirroring the very

synthesis on which the filmmaking itself is predicated. An industrial film is

the product of a relationship between a client (a corporation through its

representative) and a supplier (the designated filmmaker, who may or may

not be a professional, and may or may not be part of the same organisation).

So the wider story of industrial films is the product of the history of business

and industry at large coalescing with the evolution of the film medium itself:

its technology, its culture and, not least, its own industrial set-up.

Despite the obviousness of these facts, retrospective scrutiny of the

industrial film has usually been either from the business-centric perspective

or, more often, from the filmic one, rarely synthesising the two. Business

historians, if considering films at all, tend to assess individual cases only,

53

risking misunderstanding the scope and constraints of film at the time of

their production. Film historians, conversely, have underplayed the

importance of commissioning organisations and have too often appreciated

industrial films not on their own terms, but for their position within

received histories of film more generally. This has caused gaps and

distortions. The good news is that there remains plenty of time for

historians of different fields to share analytic tools and pool insights.

Correspondingly, when grappling with pressing practical implications, the

corporate archivist and the moving image archivist stand to benefit from

collaboration: increasingly so, as both struggle with falling funding.

Terminology and scope

Study of industrial film further struggles with problems of definition and

ambiguous terms of reference. Does ‘industrial’ in this context refer

primarily to a film’s subject matter or circumstances of production and

distribution? We lean heavily to the latter position, meaning, for instance,

that a television documentary shot inside a steelworks does not qualify as

an industrial film proper, while a documentary or a drama whose on-screen

subject is but loosely connected to, but which was entirely funded by, a

corporation does make the grade. As does a film expressly designed for use

by industrialists even if not commissioned by them.

The problem for this view is that ‘the industrial’ was a term familiar to

the early film trade, for whom it did clearly imply industrial subjects, even

if not industrially commissioned or used. Further, these ‘industrials’ exerted

great influence over the form and content of later films that do conform to

the more precise definition. Another difficulty is the common connotation

of ‘industry’ with some, rather than with all, economic sectors. For our

purposes, any industry, heavy or light, blue collar or white, may be

associated with industrial film. Most industries have been. But across much

of the mid-twentieth century, ‘sponsored film’ was the term that

encompassed this full range of commissioning. Industrial film meant for

many a mere subset, concerned with heavier industries. Further

complicating matters, sponsored film, so far as the movie business was

concerned, was at this stage a virtual synonym for documentary:

sponsorship then being the default funding model for documentary films, as

opposed to documentary television funded by its broadcasters. Another

challenge is to relate and demarcate the industrial film and the commercial.

At a relatively early stage, screen advertising developed into a distinct

cultural form and virtually an industry in its own right. Finally, innumerable

54

films, that are not adverts, continue to be ‘sponsored’ by British industry,

yet all three terms, ‘sponsored’, ‘industrial’ and ‘documentary’ have ceased

to be applied to them since the late 1970s. The disappearance of that once

prevalent term, industrial film, except when referring to past production,

partly reflects the decline of those very sectors connoted by ‘industrial’:

Britain’s manufacturing base. It also reflects a change of medium.

‘Corporate video’ is the familiar common term for today’s industrial film,

though one unloved by its producers, aware of its pejorative associations.

Practitioners prefer, simply, ‘visual communications’. But in one last

semantic twist, these are understood to include other media besides

recorded moving image. On such shifting ground, the best we can aim for

is to balance rigour, pragmatism and as much elegance as we can muster: a

trade-off likely to resonate with industrial filmmakers down the ages.

Beginnings, 1896-1929

The four decades of screen history constituting the era of silent cinema

illustrate the incompleteness of our picture of industrial films’ history. They

are highly visible in most histories of ‘early film’ (the term used to describe

pre-1914 film) but are incompletely understood, then largely absent from

most accounts of the later, 1914-29, period of silent cinema, despite having

probably been produced on larger scale then than before.

2

The cinematograph is itself a latter-day product of the energies released

by industrial revolution. Though several inventive people were

experimenting with photographic reproduction of moving images through

the late nineteenth century, France’s Lumière brothers are credited with

inventing ‘cinema’ by first projecting such images to an audience in 1895;

they, and several indigenous competitors, brought cinema to Britain the

following year. Famously, their first projected film had shown workers

leaving their Lyons photographic factory, instigating the infant medium’s

association with industry at its very birth. Innumerable British ‘factory

gate’ films were being made a few years later, the most celebrated today

being those of Mitchell and Kenyon which exemplify what, we can

conjecture, was a characteristic relationship between early film and

industry. What caused these local commercial entertainments to be made

was the commissioning of their producers by exhibitors, not by the

companies whose front-gates and employees appear onscreen. Yet the

firms’ cooperation must usually have been necessary. In speculating about

their motives for giving it, we may find in these ‘proto-industrial’ films

some root causes for industrial film proper to emerge.

55

The same observation is applicable, with varying degrees of confidence,

to larger swathes of factual film as it had already by then grown, rapidly

and worldwide, out of the Lumières’ pioneering filmmaking. Following

their examples, most early non-fiction films are structured either around an

event, a place, a journey or a process. Industry was central to the last of

these, to which we will turn shortly, but the first three were all inflected by

filmmakers’ attraction to the industrial scene. Their productions were as

likely to document ‘events’ of industrial as of royal, local or cultural

interest, while ‘place’ films (the roots of travelogue) quickly came to

include spectacular features of the industrial landscape, at home and

(particularly in colonies) abroad, as much as natural ones. The most famous

of early cinematic ‘journeys’, meanwhile, were ‘phantom rides’ filmed

from fronts of trains or atop trams. These presumably necessitated

logistical arrangements with the operating companies or their staff.

Nevertheless the details of the interplay between industrialists and

producers remain largely unknown. In the case of events, places and

journeys alike, mutual opportunism was probably the rule, direct

commissioning the exception (the earlier the date, the more so). Some

business archives may contain pieces of paper telling us more.

Certainly, early film in Britain was predominantly either producer or

exhibitor-led, and seminal production companies like Paul’s Animatograph

Works, the Warwick Trading Company, Cricks & Sharp, the Hepworth

Manufacturing Company, the Charles Urban Trading Company and

Urban’s later firm Kineto, were responsible for making most of the films

described above. Moreover, much of their earliest non-fiction work, the

phantom rides being a good example, was more about exciting their

viewers visually than engaging them with its subject: part of what the film

historian Tom Gunning termed, in an influential phrase, ‘the cinema of

attractions’. Although films were often presented by ‘lecturers’, the

introduction of intertitles in about 1904 played a significant part in realising

the potential of film as an informative medium, immediately making it

more attractive to industrialists. The earliest surviving film in the BFI

National Archive catalogued as having been commissioned by industry was

produced that very year. Significantly, it did not have an industrial

‘subject’; it was a travelogue, Scenes on the Cornish Riviera, sponsored by

the Great Western Railway. The railway industry was moving on from

facilitating filmmakers phantom-riding their trains, to paying them to

render appealing cinematic visions of the places those trains were headed.

What became a deeply-loved genre of industrial film reached its zenith in

56

British Transport Films’ (BTF) post-war work for the nationalised network.

Railway operators, indeed, are among the most crucial players in the

industrial films story. As we turn to the ‘process’ film, we find numerous

titles taking us from Building a British Railway (1905) via Making aRailway Engine (1909), to Making a Modern Railway Carriage (1912) up

to Building of a Locomotive at Crewe (1920), and beyond.

Of all the emergent genres, the ‘process’ film is the one in which the

presence of industry in modern life is most inescapable. These were the

films whose cameramen took their equipment past factory gates, to shoot in

their interiors, summoning the magic of their medium to compress

manufacturing, refining or assembly processes, usually hidden from public

view, into mere minutes. In film distribution catalogues of the time, these

were referred to as ‘industrial subjects’, ‘industrial scenes’, or, for short, as

‘industrials’. As with the other genres, the balance between information and

visual sensation is uneven and hard to be sure of in hindsight, and likewise

the contractual relationship between filmmaker and factory owner. In

Charles Urban’s 1909 catalogue, for example, over a dozen films are

flagged as ‘courtesy of’ institutions, but whether ‘courtesy’ amounted to

the same thing in every case, and how often money changed hands, remains

stubbornly opaque. Undoubtedly, though, these ‘virtual’ factory tours

promised the same intangible commercial benefits as real onsite tours, on a

vaster scale. They testify to high standards of quality control, in an

industrial era in which once-close connections between producer and

consumer had been severed. A final scene showing the product being

distributed, sold or consumed became a common convention.

Though film historians have paid process films some useful attention,

understandably their concern has been more with their evolutionary role in

the early development both of the film industry and the documentary form,

than their representation of the industries themselves. One such film, A Visitto Peak Frean and Co’s Biscuit Works (1906, produced by Cricks and Sharp

‘by permission of’ Peak Frean) has become a textbook classic, being one of

the lengthiest and most elaborate of early industrials. In particular, it is

often pointedly contrasted with A Day in the Life of a Coalminer (1910, by

Kineto, ‘courtesy of’ not the colliery but the London and North Western

Railway), the later film adding greater human interest to the

overwhelmingly mechanical emphasis of the earlier.

3

Yet this very case

demonstrates the symbiosis of corporate and film history. Peak Frean’s

archivist affirms its evidential significance, for example, the number of

people employed in any job at any one time and the variety of delivery

57

vehicles used, when read in tandem with paper documents. But she further

confirms that paper evidence suggests that it was commissioned and paid

for, not merely assisted, by Peak Frean, for its 50

th

anniversary.

4

These facts

should necessarily inflect the film historian’s interpretation of the film, and

actually reinforce its importance to film history, which in turn gives the

corporate historian valuable clues to the company’s self-image.

Film writers have done less analytical work on what might appear a

subdivision of process film, but is actually arguably an elaboration of the

‘event’ film. Such a film, rather than depicting standardised repeatable

industrial processes (often by filming out of sequence and using deliberate

staging), observes at selected junctures a single one-off industrial venture.

A brilliant, spectacular example is Kineto’s SS Olympic (1910), capturing

stages of the construction of the Titanic’s sister ship at Harland and Wolff

in Belfast.

5

Such ‘project’ films enjoyed their own long, productive life in

sponsored film-making. It may be argued that while the process film is

uniquely cinematic, uniquely dependent on film’s power to telescope time,

the project film directly builds on nineteenth century industrial

photography and lithography by adding chronology and movement. The

relationship between industrial film and earlier industrial media is another

barely-studied subject.

The First World War necessarily distorted the natural development of the

industrial film though by no means arrested it. Consider, for instance,

1917’s A Day in the Life of a Munitions Worker6

, apparently an example of

official propaganda borrowing the conventions of industrial film (as

essayed in Day in the Life of a Coal Miner). Or the same year’s TheProduction of a Map (more in line from the Peak Frean film), filmed at the

works of the George Phillips company, who may have sponsored it. In

cinema histories, the First World War also conventionally divides the era of

‘early film’ from silent cinema’s maturity, lasting until its demise in 1929-

30. One of the effects has been to push the industrial film of the period

further into the background than its earlier manifestations. Yet it was

probably a pivotal period: the scale and complexity of corporate

filmmaking undoubtedly increased, its character crystallised and,

importantly, a sponsorship as well as a production infrastructure began to

emerge.

Much more research is needed before we have even an adequate sketch

of these seminal developments but a few facts are immediately clear.

Factory and process films remained prevalent, from occasional major

industrial documentaries like Lever Brothers’ Port Sunlight (1919) and

58

Imperial Airway; The Work of the British Airways (1924, another state-

sponsored ‘industrial’) to innumerable minor ones, bearing titles such as

The Manufacture of Top Hats (1923), All About Witney Blankets (1924) and

The Production of The Times (1927). Industrial projects continued to be

photographed, as in Construction of Imperial House (1928). Many films

were produced by companies like Pathé and Gaumont, the giants that had

superseded the cottage industry pioneers, and working more often than

them under direct sponsorship. But there also seem to have been smaller,

little-documented production companies specialising in corporate

commissions, as well as growing signs of industrial companies sporadically

producing their own films. Across all three cases, industries due to become

later mainstays of sponsored filmmaking were making their screen presence

felt. ICI and Lever are good examples, and so, in the state sector, are post

and telecommunications: The Romance of Postal Telegraphy (1922), and

Union of Post Office Workers (1927), a rare and ambitious union-sponsored

film

7

and, in the private, the oil industry, The Story of Oil (1921), ThePersian Oil Industry, (1925).

We have already seen an instructive example of a film from the earlier

period coming into sharper view when looked at simultaneously as an

artefact of film and of company history. The same applies to these later

productions, less well-known to start with. Standing back to survey the

whole of the silent period, deeper questions arise about the representation

of the national economy on screen. The period of significant structural

change with its shift from the old staple sectors towards newer mass-

production consumer industries is writ large in the industrial film, albeit the

white-collar world is less visible. Early and silent film evidence the

continuing cultural hold, as well as the cinematic magnetism, of the male-

dominated brawn-and-steam industries that made Britain the first

industrialised nation, but they mark, too, the growth, and strong motives for

using film, of lighter industries manufacturing consumer goods. As the

course of industrial spending on film is charted through later decades, such

battles between sectors for economic supremacy are further and more

vividly visible.

The 1930s

The 1930s was the first decade of sound cinema. Actually, silent films

didn’t entirely disappear, though silent cinema did. In the industrial and

educational fields, some of the more modest films continued to be released

without sound for use on 16mm silent projectors. Most histories, though,

59

60

Stills from A Visit to Peak Frean and Co’s Biscuit Work (above) and Drifters(below), (BFI Stills Library)

have fixated on the most strikingly ambitious of the era’s sponsored films

rather than on tracing patterns among what may have been more typical

product. There exists more commentary on commissioned films of this era

than on those of any other, but commentary that has skewed the history of

industrial films as such, being more concerned with the place of a small

number of them within another history, that of documentary.

In almost all studies of factual film, the period 1929-45 is dominated by

the ascent of the British ‘documentary movement’ associated with John

Grierson and a coterie of colleagues. The vast majority of their films were

sponsored by state or industry. Being prolific writers, the theory as well as

practice of making films under sponsorship imbued their working lives, and

continues to inspire debate today. Grierson launched his ‘movement’ from

within the Empire Marketing Board (EMB), a state organisation with an

industrial role, when he made Drifters (1929), not actually the first film

about industrial fishing, but one applying to the conventions established by

earlier examples a consciously modern aesthetic, influenced particularly by

Soviet cinema. In 1933, the EMB’s film unit was transferred to the General

Post Office (GPO). The GPO Film Unit is famed to this day for classics

like Night Mail (1936), very definitely, among other things, an industrial

film. The movement also spawned the world-renowned Shell Film Unit in

1934, and its members took further sponsorship from such as Imperial

Airways and Vickers Armstrong, the Travel and Industrial Development

Association and the British Commercial Gas Association. The latter

notably furthered the concept of ‘enlightened sponsorship’ by funding the

most significant social documentaries of the day, only obliquely related to

their members’ core business, films like the ground-breaking HousingProblems (1935) and Children at School (1937).

8

The benefits and drawbacks of sponsorship to documentary purporting to

creative ambition and political engagement have since been argued every

which way: usually seeing things from the viewpoint of artist rather than

patron.

9

There has been relatively less effort given to understanding

‘movement’ documentary from the perspective of its paymasters in public

and private industry.

10

A still more serious problem is that the attention

grabbed by the documentary movement has obscured how much industrial,

and documentary, filmmaking was going on outside the movement

throughout the 1930s. An urgent research task is to quantify its scale and

begin to comprehend whether and how it differed from what was coming

out of the movement, in practice rather than in movement theory. The

documentary movement has often been noted (and critiqued) for romantic

61

as well as ideological and aesthetic attraction to masculine manual

industries, though not to the complete exclusion of others. However, to

uncover more fully the scope of different industries’ representation on the

interwar screen, we may be best off starting not with the films but by listing

Britain’s important industries and companies and working out, from there,

what role film, alongside other media, played for them. This is a task that

corporate historians and archivists are better placed to lead than their film

counterparts.

In the meantime, from the production perspective it is evident that the

mainstream cinema industry, building on its 1920s experience,

supplemented commercial production of newsreel, travelogue, natural

history, and educational films with industrial commissions: non-fiction

filmmakers at Pathé, Movietone and Gaumont-British all made their share

of sponsored films. But smaller independent companies, specialising in

corporate commissions, also developed. For example, Publicity Films

straddled the boundaries of straight advertisement and longer-form

industrial film, as in its many films for Cadbury Brothers. There also seems

to have been expansion of specialist production outside London, evidenced

for instance by Birmingham Commercial Films, several of whose process

films sponsored by Midlands-based firms remain extant. Meanwhile the

capacity for industry to make its own films was clearly growing. To give

one example, the London Midland and Scottish Railway set up a film unit

in 1934, an example copied by some of the other railway companies. ICI’s

film unit, formed in 1929, vies with the EMB as the first serious in-house

producer, and, since it would last for decades, with Shell for longest

continuous run of internal corporate production.

The story of industrial filmmaking during the Second World War mirrors

that of national industry itself. Substantially diverted from what it would

have been doing otherwise, and brought under partial government control

for a situation of total war, this unique situation nevertheless provided it

with new opportunities, whose long-term significance played out post-war.

The GPO Film Unit moved directly into government, becoming the Crown

Film Unit (CFU) at the Ministry of Information. The Ministry’s propaganda

needs outstripped the CFU’s capacity, however, so the number of

independent producers actually increased. This vibrant expansion laid much

of the foundation for the post-war boom in private sector industrial

filmmaking. During the war, of course, most private corporations stopped

sponsoring films altogether, while those that continued, like Shell, did so by

turning production over to the war effort, making yet more government

62

propaganda and information films. ICI is again an interesting exception,

continuing to make films on science subjects such as colour theory, more

obviously relevant to the sponsor’s interests than the war effort.

11

Film preservation

The interwar and war years have another sort of significance: the birth and

growth of the film preservation movement, without which much of the

documentary and industrial filmmaking produced hitherto would not exist

now. Though the Imperial War Museum had founded the world’s first film

archive in 1918, inevitably its focus was on official (more recently also on

amateur) production. But now, in 1935, the British Film Institute (BFI)

founded its National Film Library (today the BFI National Archive),

distinctive among most continental and North American film archives that

emerged in the same period for taking ‘the film of record’, including the

industrial film, as seriously as the art of feature film.

It is often claimed that 20 per cent of all films, and 50 per cent of all

silent films, are irretrievably lost. The pioneer film archivists recognised

that the cinema industry barely appreciated the value of its own past

products, still less did most industrial filmmakers and sponsors. They were

also aware of film’s fragility: a plastic whose deterioration begins the

moment it is produced. Particularly worrying was cellulose nitrate, the base

for all 35mm film stock, not only unstable but highly inflammable. Though

a few of the least ambitious of 1930s industrial films were produced on

16mm, based on seemingly less unstable ‘safety’ acetate, many more were

produced on the higher quality 35mm gauge.

Film archivists like the BFI’s Ernest Lindgren not only began collecting

such films but evolved practices to protect their contents. A vital distinction

was made between viewing copies and preservation masters to be handled

as little as possible. The ideal masters were original cut negatives, followed

by intermediate ‘pre-print’ elements and finally by prints. The greater the

number of generations away from the original negative the more visual

information had been lost. The stunning clarity of the Mitchell and Kenyon

films partly depends on their having survived as original negatives

(undiscovered until the 1990s). Few other films of their time were as lucky,

and many later ones likewise. To give one prominent example, by the time

prints of Night Mail were properly archived, its negatives were already lost.

The very drawbacks of nitrate proved advantageous to public-sector film

archives, with no acquisition budgets but desirous of building up good

preservation collections. Industrial films well illustrate this. A good number

63

of those dating from the 1930s and before were deposited with the BFI by

corporate archivists, specialists with paper and other non-moving media.

It’s unlikely that many nitrate films still remain in corporate archives (if

you have some, contact a film archivist today!). What they may contain is

untapped evidence for films that never made it to any archives and duly

ceased to exist.

The heyday: 1945-70

The golden era of industrial film was the post-war period to about 1970.

Until recently, film historians largely overlooked this fact, precisely

because they judged the documentary movement to have then been in

decline. In fact the period represented its fusion with other branches of

sponsored filmmaking, together with their increasing spread and

fragmentation across all industries. Britain was now the leading exponent

of industrial movie-making worldwide, its films made on unprecedented

scale by more producers for more sponsors in more sectors than ever.

12

In addition to limited opportunities in cinemas and on television, a huge,

vibrant ‘non-theatrical’ circuit now existed, for 16mm projection to a mind-

boggling range of general and specialised audiences. It was served by

hundreds of film libraries, many of them distributing prints at no cost to

renters.

13

Their films now received substantial, if specialist, media

coverage, on City pages, where most broadsheets ran a regular industrial

films column, and in dedicated journals like Film Sponsor, IndustrialScreen and the long-running Film User. Organisations representing the

industrial films scene developed, notably the Scientific Films Association

and the British Industrial Films Association, eventually merged as the

British Industrial and Scientific Films Association (BISFA), which ran

huge annual competitive festivals of industrial films.

Festival categories indicate the diversification of the films’ functions,

crystallised into all the main categories that still exist today: training, health

and safety, industrial relations, sales of products and services, recruitment,

public relations, company news and corporately sponsored public

information. The growth of films for purely internal distribution and

viewing by employees, rather than the public, was a particularly important

feature of the period: comparison and contrast between the inward- and

outward-facing films of the same companies is of course one of the most

entertaining and instructive research tasks presented by corporate film. Yet

the post-war years were also the heyday of the external ‘prestige’ film.

Wealthier firms sponsored truly high quality filmmaking, often covering

64

Adverts from a 1957 edition of Film User (BFI)

subjects tangentially related to central business objectives, so as to acquire

kudos from their sheer excellence. Several titles were Oscar-nominated,

65

and BP’s fiction featurette, Giuseppina, originally commissioned to smooth

the sponsor’s route into the Italian petrol market, actually won an Academy

Award in 1959, as did BTF’s natural history film Wild Wings in 1966.

14

Sponsorship now finally matched production in elaborate organisation.

Indeed the power to determine the subjects and messaging of industrial

films now decisively shifted from the latter to the former. Many

organisations now employed ‘Films Officers’, usually in their Public

Relations department, their remit determining policy and budgets for film

commissioning, production and distribution (there may be much valuable,

undiscovered paper evidence for their activities in corporate archives).

Some, like movement veterans Edgar Anstey, head of BTF, and Donald

Alexander, his counterpart at the National Coal Board (NCB), or like

Ronald Tritton at BP were eminent figures indeed. Internal units

proliferated – BTF, the NCB’s, the continuing units at Shell and ICI, new

66

Cinema lobby card for BP’s film Giuseppina (BFI)

ones at Dunlop, Vickers, Laing, Costain, Courtaulds, Fisons, and Rentokil.

Other companies developed long-term relationships with independent

producers. Others still ran a diversified slate, alternating producers project

by project.

Generally, we may divide sponsors into major, mid-range and minor

ones. The majors included the great state corporations and major private

ones like Shell and BP, ICI, Unilever and Ford. Such sponsors

commissioned continually, developing a familiar, respected house-style,

each ending up with literally hundreds of films in their back catalogues.

Mid-range sponsors included smaller oil companies like Esso and Mobil,

the ascending nuclear industry, steel firms like United Steel and Richard,

Thomas & Baldwins, construction companies like Costain and Laing,

Wimpey and John Brown, and such varied companies as United Dairies,

Joseph Lucas, Mullards, Vauxhall and Whitbread. Such groups either

sponsored on large scale but on relatively modest budgets, or

commissioned lavish films but only on an intermittent basis. The minor

sponsors included large corporations whose use of film was unambitious as

well as intermittent, and small ones which could only expect to deploy the

medium in highly localised circumstances. Additionally, trade bodies

increasingly turned to sponsorship: the British Iron and Steel Federation,

the Brewers’ Society and several marketing councils provide good

examples. The British Productivity Council, on which both sides of

industry were represented, sponsored some of the most heavily booked

films of the day, such as Introducing Work Study (1955). Trade unions, in

their own right, remained conspicuously inactive.

On the production side, besides the internal units, there were now many

‘documentary’ companies, specialising in sponsorship, both by government

through the new Central Office of Information and, more lucratively, by

industry. Increasingly, the distinction between producers with documentary

movement roots and those with more commercial origins ceased to be

meaningful. More importantly, a loose distinction between majors,

middling and minor producers mirrors the hierarchy among their clients. A

company’s positioning was often indicated by how much of their

production was on 35mm and how much on 16mm. The top tier of

production has now begun to be researched in some detail. Examples of

major 35mm London producers for which outline company histories now

exist include World Wide Pictures, the Realist Film Unit, the DATA

cooperative and the Film Producers Guild. The Guild was one of the largest

production consortia in the world and its members included Greenpark

67

Productions, Verity Films, Technical and Scientific Films and the animation

unit Larkins Studios.

15

The names of mid-market companies, which might

use 35mm, 16mm or both, are known, but fewer of their histories have been

researched (names include, among very many others, the likes of Random

Film Productions, Ace Film Productions, Editorial Film Productions, the

Cresswell Film Unit and Samaritan Films). These, too, were predominantly

London based, though several were to be found in Glasgow and other

regional cities.

Serious research has barely even begun on the ‘minors’, those much

smaller local producers, confined to 16mm and often also involved in stills

photography, that are likely to have existed on large scale in the period.

Complementing the work of the Imperial War Museum and BFI, from the

late 1970s a network of regional film archives developed that today covers

Scotland, Wales and all of the English regions. By means of illustrating

how ripe the regional dimension is for future research, consider

Newcastle’s Turners Film Productions, an ultra-prolific mid-market

producer whose work is currently being catalogued and preserved by the

Northern Region Film and Television Archive (NRFTA), while its paper

records are at Tyne and Wear Archives & Museums. According to an

NRFTA archivist, their collection includes no fewer than 7,200 items

which, he argues, are ‘remarkable in two ways: [they] document… the

great explosion in access to filmmaking equipment [and are] a valuable

historical record of the waning of traditional heavy industry on Tyneside,

and the expansion of Eastern high-tech businesses on the industrial estates

of the North East… and the lengths gone to by municipal development

agencies to promote the region in the face of economic change’.

16

Indeed, seeking macroeconomic patterns in post-war film production

generally, its mixed-economy model is immediately obvious, as is the

continuing on-screen presence of the old industries (temporarily buoyed by

war and then nationalisation), and the rise of their competitors in fields like

petroleum, electronics and pharmaceuticals. It would appear that the

equally important growth in service and financial sectors continued to be

under-represented, though there are important exceptions. The British

Insurance Association had massive non-theatrical and TV hits with the

films Six Candles (1960), Suspects All (1964) and The Stable Door (1966),

imaginatively dispensing public information about safety and security, and

the Midland Bank’s concurrent Meet the Midland (1963) and A Letter forLiz (1965) were similarly popular.

Far from all post-war industrial films remain extant, but virtually all

68

individually significant ones survive, and the survival rate among the rest is

higher than for any previous (or subsequent) period. Nitrate film was

phased out in 1951, 35mm stock henceforth being manufactured, like

smaller gauges, on acetate. Unfortunately, acetate was later discovered to

have its own severe archival drawbacks: its tendency to give off acetic

gases, triggering ‘vinegar syndrome’ prophesying destructive deterioration.

Its replacement, polyester film stock, has been proven to be much more

robust, but in recent years film archives have moved away from the

‘duplication’ model of transferring the contents of at-risk films from one

piece of stock to another, the scale of the necessary work vastly exceeding

its affordability. The trend has been towards greater investment in good

passive conservation, entailing lower and lower temperatures, humidity

levels and fluctuations.

Corporate archivists are advised to test for stability any post-war 35mm

films in their care (and any films of 16mm and below, regardless of date),

and also to consult with film archivists so as to establish their uniqueness.

They ought also to find out whether any films sponsored by their firms, even

if not in their own onsite collections, have made it into public sector film

archives, whether deposited by their predecessors or arriving there from

other sources such as distribution libraries, production companies or

laboratories. In many cases, their knowledge of the sponsor’s history may

provide their film counterparts with information that will greatly improve

dating and cataloguing. In some cases, there will be good grounds for

project-based collaboration, involving joint investment in creation of digital

access copies and a proactive access programme. What should never be

contemplated is the disposal of film elements following digital transfer: even

the highest quality digitisation, which is beyond the financial reach of most

archives anyway, cannot yet replicate the photographic quality of film. And

despite its instability when inadequately stored, film kept in ideal passive

conservation conditions is thought to have a lifespan of hundreds of years.

Industrial to post-industrial: 1970 to present

It is worth asking why the post-war shifts in the patterns of British industry

seem to have been inexactly tracked by corporate filmmaking. Perhaps it is

partly that heavy and manufacturing industries were simply more visual:

more cinematic. But it may also reflect the more generic, sector-wide, skills

required by the burgeoning white-collar industries, making sponsorship by

individual firms less cost-effective.

This thesis is bolstered by an important little written-about trend of the

69

period that advanced in the 1970s. In the pervious two decades, the

growing fields of safety and management training quietly birthed a new

model for commissioning business films that. Steel firm Richard Thomas

and Baldwins were unintentional pioneers with their film The Man WhoStops Accidents (1954) in which several categories of industrial accident

are diagnosed and their prevention promoted. Though aimed initially at

steelworks, the content was generic enough to be used in other contexts: the

film became popular among safety trainers across British industry. The

same became true of ICI’s Black Monday (1962), dramatising a research

lab disaster. Through the 1960s, the Rank Organisation Short Films Group,

the new industrial films arm of the Rank films empire, took this concept

and ran with it, by investing Rank money in generic training films offered

for rent or sale to any interested companies. This was industrial film

funding turned on its head: pictures that weren’t sponsored and were

designed expressly to turn a profit rather than as loss leaders. The pattern

proliferated in the 1970s, at a range of new companies. Notably, the ICI

Film Unit was renamed Millbank Films, reinventing itself as an

independent producer of generic safety and management training. More

famously, Video Arts, founded in 1972 by TV people led by John Cleese

and Antony Jay, forged a lucrative business out of such novel training films

as Meetings, Bloody Meetings (1976), for which high fees were

commanded. This emerging sector, its influence on business films and

even on workplaces themselves cries out for close study. But we can be

sure that this new breed of industrial film wore the whitest collar yet.

Even without such fragmentation, the 1970s proved an increasingly

disastrous decade for traditional sponsored filmmaking. Recession-hit

industries cut their film spending, major producers and films officers

retired, died or ran out of steam, non-theatrical film exhibition started to

crumple and public cynicism hardened towards state and capitalist

corporatism alike. Of the films still being made, a far higher proportion

were now being shot, even by the largest producers, on the less expensive

16mm stock, but the arrival of even cheaper if less expressive technology in

the form of video cameras and tape caused further anxious uncertainty in

the business. The very notion of enlightened ‘sponsor’ was in decline,

replaced by harder-headed, tighter-fisted ‘client’.

Essentially, the 1970s was a transitional decade, in which the established

form of industrial documentary was slowly dying, while alternatives

remained in their infancy. The final demise of 16mm as a viable mass-

communication tool occurred in about 1986. By then, it was mainly schools

70

rather than workplaces that were holding on to the remaining projectors. In

industry, videotape had already, by then, won the battle with film as

primary distribution medium and, increasingly, as production medium too.

Older production companies that survived, like the highly agile World Wide

Pictures, did so by switching almost entirely to video: those that didn’t

went to the wall. Meanwhile new small companies popped up, staffed by

generally younger filmmakers and technicians with none of their older

counterparts’ background in sponsored documentary. ‘Prestige’ films had

vanished and the emphasis had shifted overwhelmingly to small-budget

productions with highly targeted aims and audiences, much more often now

employees than general public. Far fewer commissioners were specialist

audio-visual officers, more of them being personnel, marketing or

recruitment officers only sporadically turning to moving image media.

Meanwhile, the very balance of industry itself was undergoing a paradigm

shift: the Thatcher government’s rewriting of the rulebooks for economic

policy and organisation.

It may come as no surprise that, beyond such broad statements, this

relatively recent era of tumultuous change should prove to be the least

documented of any in the history of industrial film. Virtually the entire

period needs to be reconstructed from scratch. As always, there is a strong

case for collaboration between corporate and film archivists, and in this

case the corporate archivists may be better placed to take the lead. This is

partly because so little video from the time actually survives, so corporate

paperwork may offer better evidence for business’ moving image

commissioning than surviving images themselves.

For some psychological reason, videotapes always felt more disposable

than film cans: many were simply thrown away, or were left unlabelled on

forgotten shelves. Surviving tapes are susceptible to their own share of

physical and chemical problems, and they too require a good, though less

stringent, passive conservation environment but the real problem for video

is format obsolescence. Ensure a reel of film survives physically and

chemically intact and you can be equally sure the images it carries can, in

principle, be perceived, retrieved and reproduced. The contents of its

frames will be visible merely by holding them to the light, while

determined enough engineers will always be capable of reconstructing

mechanical devices that can put images into motion or copy them onto

some other artefact. The physical and chemical stability of a videotape

guarantees none of this. Not only are the tapes needed but the machines and

the engineers who understand them. In the case of corporate production,

71

though some higher-pocketed clients paid for productions made at

broadcast quality on 2-inch or 1-inch tapes, the first master format really to

take off, and prevalent for a good fifteen years from the late 1970s, was the

Umatic, a clunky, quality-compromised medium now obsolete with ever

fewer machines able to play them. Subsequently, Beta and Beta SP

superseded Umatic before a period of stability and good quality in which

Digital Betacam (Digibeta) became the industry standard (though DV

formats will also have been quite widely used for more localised, low-

budget work), before themselves being superseded by High Definition.

Of the hundreds of thousands of master tapes that must few have been

made, a tiny proportion has found its way to specialist moving image

archives. Two significant exceptions at the BFI are the Umatics collection

of the British Coal Television Unit, which replaced its illustrious

predecessor the NCB Film Unit following the miners’ strike, and a

collection of award-winning corporate videos from the late 1980s and early

1990s, deposited by the International Visual Communications Association

(IVCA), effectively BISFA’s successor. Though most other corporate

videos have long since been lost, surely a significant number remain in

corporate archives or in contracted offsite storage. This era of analogue

videotape is the one that most urgently cries for proactive archival research,

and investment in preservation which cannot be postponed for very many

more years. The main preservation task will be to migrate sound and

picture from these original tapes to better supported formats. Digibeta

remains viable for the medium term. Data tape storage, such as LTO

(Linear Tape-Open) tapes, and equivalent server solutions if adequately

backed-up, now offer longer term possibilities. Business archivists

concerned about their tape collections are encouraged to speak to the BFI,

which runs a specialist video transfer unit, or to regional film archives,

some of which have their own range of working obsolete-format machines.

Since the 1980s, the corporate films business has greatly matured.

Leading producers like the Edge Picture Company, Crown Business

Communications and New Moon Television and, indeed Video Arts (still

going after 40 years) and World Wide Pictures (still going after 70!) have

now spent years honing both their business models and their creative and

technical standards. The IVCA has become a strong trade body. As well as

video production companies like those just listed, its membership includes

consultancies which undertake both moving image and other types of

commissions: live events and multimedia websites are seen as integral to

‘visual communications’. The IVCA runs an annual competition for the

72

year’s best communications films. Its 2011 Grand Prix award went to a

one-minute viral video, at the heart of a Nokia sales campaign, which has

attracted over two million viewers online. The previous four years’ winners

were, in reverse chronological order, a video-rich interactive website for

Channel 4’s schools service, a short witty film for screening before football

matches to encourage family-friendly behaviour by rowdy crowds, a

graphic and coarse British Army film dispensing road safety advice for

squaddies, and an anthropomorphic animation produced and distributed

internally at Nationwide in aid of cultural diversity awareness-raising

among its staff. These examples illustrate the continuing symbiosis of

private-sector corporate communication and public information, and each

might informatively be double-billed with older sponsored films, meeting

closely comparable objectives in wildly different social and technological

circumstances.

Recent technological advances have taken off far more rapidly in

corporate production than they have done in the feature film or television

industries. Five years ago, virtually all productions were mastered on

Digibeta or High Definition tapes. Now, well over half of them are filmed

using cameras containing hard drives rather than tapes, are edited on

computers, and distributed either on DVD or, at least as often, as files

streamed over the world wide web or the client company’s intranet. For

archivists, such technological change poses age-old questions. How much

of this stuff will survive? Might it remain permanently present, its very

production and distribution resolving at the same stroke and forevermore

the preservation and access issues that bedevilled the film archiving of

earlier days? Or will it accumulate, almost of its own accord, on cloud

servers, to be rediscovered a generation later like the film cans discovered

in forgotten vaults or closing laboratories in generations past? Or will it all

vanish?

Have we entered a golden age, or a digital dark age? The only sensible

answer must be the one given by the Chinese communist asked to judge the

effects of the French Revolution: It’s too early to say. We can be sure of

certain things, though. One is that neither DVD nor streamed files have

appreciable archival value. Just as film archivists’ grail was once the

original negative, or the master videotape, today’s equivalent is an

uncompressed master file. The archivist’s difficulty is in getting access to

this file while its whereabouts remain known. If that is done, the file can in

principle be copied quite easily, with no quality loss, to preservation media.

The BFI frequently contracts with corporate producers to borrow hard

73

drives containing selected films and clone their contents for retention on

LTO tapes.

Another thing we can be sure of, not just tomorrow but right now, is the

value of curation: of researching the landscape of sponsorship and

production so as mindfully to assemble collections illustrating the

continuing relationship of business and media in these most uncertain

times. Should such collecting turn out, later, to have caused more content to

survive than otherwise, then so much the better. The sooner corporate and

film archives can start pooling their thoughts and resources to implement

such curatorial strategy the better.

Acorn to oak

There are good reasons for thinking of these films, whether termed

industrial, sponsored or corporate, as the very backbone of our national film

industry, bread-and-butter for so many of the facilities and personnel it has

deployed. They’re likely, in turn, to have made at least as great a

contribution as feature films and television to the national economy itself.

17

Along the way, they illustrate corporate strategies, organisation of

workplaces, the relationships between managers, employees and consumers

as no other genre or medium can. The journey from ‘industrials’ through

‘documentary’ and ‘industrial film’, via ‘corporate video’ to viral ‘visual

communication’ online, from nitrate to acetate, analogue tape to digital file,

has been one of constant, dizzying change. And yet… its essence is

curiously timeless. Viewed from a high enough vantage-point, the whole

intricate story appears as but the unfolding of a simple, single idea, that the

modern workplace and moving image media are natural partners.

In the YouTube era, in which moving image penetrates every facet

of society, workplaces included, we finally understand what ‘film’

is about: entertaining the world, yes, but also communicating with,

persuading and recording it. In 1909, Charles Urban, American-

born pioneer of industrial, and much other, filmmaking in Britain,

asserted that:

… while the ‘amusement’ branch of the business will constantly

increase, the future mainstay [of film] will be through the

development of its most important fields, viz., the scientific,

educational, and industrial branches, and in matters of State.

18

A century on, the IVCA says:

The UK’s visual communications industry… has a direct turnover

in excess of £3 billion, with an impact many times greater than this

74

figure… It provides business communication solutions, which add

considerable value to the bottom line of its client companies, as

well as public service information materials, which keep the

population at large informed about, and responsive to, a range of

social issues … a sector that shapes perceptions, changes

behaviours, engages employees and builds skills.

19

It seems highly likely that a vast proportion of this £3 billion worth of

content is destined to disappear. Cooperation between corporate and film

archives should at least mitigate that loss, reducing its scale and cultivating

appreciation of whatever remains.

Notes1

The title From Acorn to Oak is that of a 1938 film for Dunlop marking the 50

th

anniversary of

the invention of the pneumatic tyre. Its form is echoed in the names of many industrial films

e.g. From Wool to Wearer (1913), From Coal-mine to Road (1931), Stone into Steel (1960)

and Picture to Post (1969).

I am grateful to my colleague Bryony Dixon, and to Martin Stollery, for their comments on

earlier drafts of this essay. I would welcome feedback, ideas, challenges, responses of all

kinds from readers in the business archives profession. Please contact me via .2

This point is illustrated, for instance, by Rachael Low’s classic multi-volume history of

British film. Industrial film is strongly present in the narrative of early books, but little-

mentioned in the 1920s book which is primarily concerned with feature film.

3

Both films can be viewed on the BFI’s DVD anthology of early film, Primitives and pioneers.

4

Email communications from Verity Andrews, Archives Assistant, University of Reading.

5

The Olympic film is viewable online at the BFI’s website, and on the DVD anthology Talesfrom the Shipyard.

6

Viewable on the BFI’s website, http://www.bfi.org.uk.

7

Ibid.

8

Most of the major documentary movement films are now available on a series of DVD

anthologies as well as online. Three volumes of DVD box-sets of GPO titles were the result

of a joint curatorial and preservation project between the BFI, the British Postal Museum and

Archives and BT Heritage: a good model for collaboration between film and corporate

archives in which joint investment leading to co-branded outcomes yields significant public

value.

9

Elizabeth Sussex and Ian Aitken are among the writers who have written approvingly, while

Brian Winston has been perhaps the severest critic.

10

This is changing, though. A recently published anthology, S. Anthony & J.G. Mansell (eds),

The projection of Britain: a history of the GPO Film Unit (Basingstoke, 2011) makes great

strides by positioning the GPO’s films within the history of their sponsoring organisation as

well as the film industry.

11

ICI also, intriguingly, funded and ambitious and politically engaged curiosity about the

history and future of the agricultural industry, The Harvest Shall Come (1941), directed by

left-wing filmmaker Max Anderson and produced by documentary movement leading light

Basil Wright.

75

12

The fullest study to date of these developments is P. Russell & J.P. Taylor (eds), Shadows ofprogress: documentary film in post-war Britain (Basingstoke, 2010).

13

In addition to the private libraries, the Central Office of Information, besides commissioning

thousands of films itself for distribution through its Central Film Library, also ran a special

library of hundreds of industrial films for which it brought prints from numerous private-

sector sponsors for distribution at home and abroad.

14

Both films can be found on BFI DVD releases.

15

Britain’s most famous animation company, Halas & Batchelor, was also kept in business

mainly by its sponsored work.

16

Email communications from Edward Anderson, Northern Region Film and Television

Archive. He further elaborates, in keeping with themes of this article: ‘Working with

historians and archivists will be essential if the NRFTA is to develop a complete

understanding of Turners Film Productions’ films. While the films themselves are incredibly

lucid narrators of social, economic, and industrial history, considerable contextual research is

required to ascertain Turner’s wider importance in British industrial filmmaking. Obtaining

funding for this kind of interdisciplinary research will be paramount.’

17

And the international economy. This essay has focused on the industrial film in Britain.

Britain does have a singular history in this area, but the story of industrial filmmaking cannot

be confined entirely inside national boundaries. The comparison of national experiences is

another area ripe for future research. American sponsored films have become increasingly

familiar thanks in large part to the pioneering work of private collector Rick Prelinger. V.

Hediger & P. Vonderau (eds), Films that work: industrial film and the productivity of media(Amsterdam, 2009) is a landmark anthology, being the first to put the subject onto an

international footing, as well as a theoretical footing. A number of, mainly continental and

US, case studies are prefaced with a draft framework for theorising industrial film. The

editors argue for close attention to the occasion, purpose and addressee of industrial films,

and for ‘serial analysis’ of large bodies of work in order to identify patterns of ‘record,

research and rhetoric’. These important notions are arguably necessary but not sufficient,

risking being a little too reductive. My emphasis in this article has been on the relationship

between the client and supply sides of industrial filmmaking, on how varied those

relationships have been and have they have shifted over time.

18

Quoted by Luke McKernan (to whom I am grateful for his assistance) in his PhD thesis,

‘Something more than a mere picture show’: Charles Urban and the early non-fiction film in

Great Britain and America, 1897-1925’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of London,

2003).

19

This quotation is assembled from two separate statements in the IVCA guide to metrics(IVCA, 2011), on p.1 and p.21. The claimed turnover approaches the combined turnover of

distribution and exhibition of feature films (total film and video industry turnover, including

production, being close to £7bn). Thanks to Sean Perkins (BFI Research and Statistics Unit)

for this interesting comparative information.

76

PUFF PIECES AND CIRCULATION SCAMS:

MIDDLEMEN AND THE MAKING OF THE

NEWSPAPER ADVERTISING MARKET, 1881-1901

JONATHAN SILBERSTEIN-LOEB

Keble College, Oxford

On 4 August 1914, the Select Committee on Patent Medicines, under the

chairmanship of Sir Henry Norman, a dyed-in-the-wool journalist, issued a

report critical of quackery. According to the Committee, the situation

regarding the sale and advertisement of patent and proprietary medicines

could be quickly summarised:

For all practical purposes British law is powerless to prevent any

person from procuring any drug, or making any mixture, whether

potent or without any therapeutical activity whatever (so long as it

does not contain a scheduled poison), advertise it in any decent

terms as a cure for any disease or ailment, recommending it by

bogus testimonials and the invented opinions and facsimile

signatures of fictitious physicians, and selling it under any name he

chooses, on the payment of a small stamp duty, for any price he can

persuade a credulous public to pay.

The finding of Norman’s committee was a condemnation of the patent

medicine industry, but also, as one legal scholar has observed, ‘a severe

judgement on the judge-made law, both criminal and civil’.

1

Norman may have been reluctant to criticise his fellow Fleet Street hacks

outright, but his comments were additionally, if only implicitly, a scathing

attack on the practices of the press, which unscrupulously published these

misleading, and sometimes fraudulent, advertisements. The patent medicine

industry, according to the Select Committee report, spent approximately £2

million on advertising annually, and it showered much of this largesse on

the press, making it just as reasonable to speculate that the patent medicine

industry sustained late Victorian newspapers as much as the press promoted

the efflorescence of English quackery.

2

Norman’s negative assessment of state- and self-regulation of the

advertising market, although accurate, is sweeping. To understand the state

of the advertising market on the eve of the Great War requires greater

consideration not only of the way in which advertising content was

77

regulated, but how the market for advertising space worked as a whole. The

nineteenth-century advertising market was highly opaque, imperfect, and

uncertain. How did advertisers, advertising agents, newspapers, and the

state attempt to make this market more transparent?

The Monthly Circulars of the Newspaper Society, a run of which exists

in the St Bride Library, London, and at the Newspaper Society, which is

still extant, contain a great deal of information about the difficulties

encountered in the attempt to create a more transparent market for

advertising space in the press. Although the Newspaper Society was

established in 1836, extant copies of the Circular are only available from

1881, from which point there exists a complete run. These circulars contain

an extraordinary quantity of information and touch upon every aspect of the

newspaper industry that was of interest to publishers throughout the

country, and therefore every subject that could conceivably interest

historians of the British press, yet no mention to them may be found in any

bibliography of any book or article concerning the history of the British

press. In 1881, the Newspaper Society had 253 members, which comprised

many of the principal newspapers throughout the country. The Society and

its Circular were of particular value to newspapers in outlying districts,

where, as the Secretary of the Society observed, ‘men had not the facilities

of meeting and discussing the proceedings of their agents, of the

Government, or other matters which affected the interests of the

profession’. The Circular presented an opportunity for these newspaper

proprietors ‘to ventilate their grievances, to discuss trade questions, and to

promote, in many ways, mutual intercourse’.

3

By the reign of Queen Victoria, there were few statutory instruments for

the regulation of newspaper content. In most political circles, whether

enlightened or not, censorship was passé. The importance newly attributed

to freedom of expression, and a belief in the ability of competition to

eradicate misguided opinion, as John Stuart Mill so persuasively argued,

rendered successive Parliaments reluctant to regulate the press, and gave

impetus to the repeal of much legislation that censored expressly.

4

The

Lotteries Act, 1845, protected the revenue of the Crown and prohibited the

advertising of foreign and other illegal lotteries. Section 7 of the Betting

Act, 1853, made it a punishable offence to advertise betting house.

5

The

Indecent Advertisements Act, 1889, despite its ominous title, applied

principally to handbills and posters. Although attempts were made to

construe certain clauses of the Act to apply to newspapers, at least one

action brought against newspapers under this statute failed.

6

The

78

unwillingness of Parliament to control the content of advertisements

explicitly, and the hostility of newspaper proprietors toward any Member of

Parliament with the temerity to suggest otherwise, did not mean that

newspapers were unregulated. Rather, it meant that the regulation which

did exist was conducted either under legislation construed to grant such

powers indirectly, at common law, or through self-regulatory organisations

that enforced standards.

The Post Office Act, 1870, is an example of legislation that could be

enforced to control the content of the press. Section 20 of the Act explicitly

permitted the postmaster general, with the approval of the Treasury, to

prevent the sending or delivery of any ‘indecent, obscene, libellous, or

grossly offensive’ printed matter. Further, the Act, the ostensible purpose of

which was to enable the postmaster general to regulate further the duties of

postage on newspapers, allowed him to classify which publications

constituted newspapers within the meaning of the Act. Those publications

that qualified were entitled to reduced postage. One way in which the

postmaster general determined the appropriate classification was by the

ratio of news to advertisements.

7

Provincial publishers welcomed this

innovation insofar as it limited the quantity of advertisements that London

newspapers, such as The Times and The Globe, could publish and still

benefit from the reduced postage that enabled them to circulate widely in

the provinces. But when the rule was turned against them, provincial

newspaper proprietors were quick to complain that the Post Office had no

business meddling in their affairs. In 1881, the Secretary of the General

Post Office notified one member of the Newspaper Society that the number

of advertisements in his paper exceeded the quantity of news, and that he

might consequently be disqualified from receiving a postal subsidy, but the

newspaper proprietor replied that much of what the Secretary construed to

be advertisements was in fact news. ‘These warnings are intolerable as

evincing a spirit of obstruction’, complained the proprietor, and ‘should be

watched with jealousy and resisted’. The Secretary of the Society, offering

support for his co-member, argued in the Circular that the invasion was

‘completely uncalled for’ and instead suggested that the complaint would

have been much more appropriate ‘in the case of the Times with its

supplement, or the recent double numbers of the Globe’.

8

Hoaxing a newspaper by sending it bogus news was not a punishable

offence, although when payment was made for it then it became a case of

obtaining money under false pretences. In such circumstances it was

difficult to prove the sending of the report by the accused, and further, that

79

the sender, once proven, knew the facts stated were false.

9

In 1886, Charles

William Oldham was sentenced to six months’ hard labour for unlawfully

obtaining payment by false pretences with intent to defraud The Times by

means of bogus paragraphs. But six years later he was again up to his old

tricks.

10

Some of his communications were submitted as from the

‘International Press Agency’, others from the ‘London and Counties Press

Agency’, and even occasionally in his own name. One such report took the

form of a report of imaginary proceedings at the Marylebone County Court

involving an action brought by a fictitious Miss West against an imaginary

Mr James Andrews, supposedly residing at Broomhill, Sheffield. The

circumstances of the fabricated case reflected poorly on the defendant’s

father, who was alleged to have incurred the debt sued for in connection

with an ‘immoral intrigue’. The bogus report appeared in the SheffieldIndependent and in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph, and a few days after

publication both papers received sternly worded letters from a bona fide

James Andrew, of Sheffield, who disclaimed all connection with the case.

11

Between the explicit prohibitions of statute and criminality lay a vast

swathe of grey where the norms of professional practice were at best

indistinctly adumbrated and opportunistic behaviour reigned. Supposed

advertisers frequently turned out to be bankrupt, fraudsters, or both. The

Circular is full of hundreds of examples warning newspaper proprietors of

dishonest traders, many of which concern repeat offenders. The following

examples provide an inkling of the range of Dickensian scams perpetrated

on unwitting newspaper proprietors. Freeman of Brompton, largely

advertisers of patent medicines, such as Freeman’s Syrup and Dr Jenner’s

Phosphorous, were indebted to a large number of newspapers for

advertisements. Dr Freeman, whose real name was Walter Stafford, was

only apprehended after an action was brought against him for defrauding

the Inland Revenue of a considerable sum of money ‘by means of an

ingenious system of fraud in connection with the mutilation of Government

stamps’ that were affixed to patent medicines.

The Newspaper Society went to considerable lengths to expose would-be

advertisers worthy of neither credit nor trust. George Brindsley Richardson,

Secretary of the Phosphoric Institute of London, claimed to be of

‘gentlemanly bearing’, but was in fact ‘nothing more nor less than a

common swindler’. The Secretary of the Newspaper Society took it upon

himself to seek Richardson out at the Phosphoric Institute, 22 Sidmouth

Street, which consisted of a room in a ‘squalid-looking lodging house’ that

Richardson had rented a few weeks previously. The publisher of a scientific

80

journal alluded to in Richardson’s advertisement proved to be no more than

a small newsvendor’s shop, and inquiries at the Lancet, the MedicalGazette, and The Times, all confirmed that the professional opinions to

which Richardson laid claim were spurious.

12

For much of the 1880s,

Coleman & Co. of Norwich, maliciously took advantage of the similarity

its name bore to Colman & Co., mustard manufacturers, started a business

in the same line, and, to make the deception complete, established its

headquarters in Cannon Street, the address of the genuine firm, so as to

obtain advertisements in respectable newspapers without prepayment.

Colman & Co., the genuine firm, eventually bought out Coleman & Co.,

rather than pursue the firm in court.

13

John G. Penn, another notable swindler, arrived in Glasgow in 1886 and

set up business at 94 West Regent Street, from where he commenced

distributing through the post wholesale orders for the insertion of

prospectuses of various American companies. The principal of these was

the Chicago Repeating Fire-Arms Company, capital £300,000. The list of

directors included a senator, ex-governor, and a general. Enquiries soon

revealed that one of his alleged references, Messrs W. Pearson & Co.,

occupied the same building as Penn. Indeed, the office of W. Pearson & Co.

was situated across the corridor from Penn’s. No person was found in either

office, but a slip of paper was pasted on Penn’s door bearing the following

inscription: ‘When shut, parcels and letters to be left at the opposite door.’

Aside from the outright fraudulent, advertisers frequently contracted for

several insertions at a low rate and then disappeared before fulfilling their

obligations. Upon applying to the United May Lundy Gold Company for

payment of his account after publication, one newspaper publisher was

informed that the person who had ordered the advertisement had ceased to

act as secretary to the company, the officials of which repudiated all

responsibility, and referred the newspaper proprietor to the vendors. Upon

examining the prospectus it was found that the vendors were liable for all

preliminary expenses, including advertising. Although the order had been

received in the form of a telegram from the secretary, the newspaper

proprietor had no remedy.

14

Newspaper proprietors were occasionally as culpable as advertisers. On

29 May 1888, the Common Serjeant at the Old Bailey convicted Alfred

Braithwaite Emanuel, publisher of the Stock Exchange Times, of unlawfully

threatening to publish a libel of and concerning John Burbridge, the

advertising agent of the Andalusian Mining Company, with intent to extort

money. The trial at the Old Bailey revealed that Burbridge had refused to

81

give Emanuel any advertisements, believing his publication to be

‘insignificant’, ‘scurrilous’, and of ‘miserable circulation’. Emanuel entered

Burbridge’s office, demanded an advertisement, and then, when Burbridge

refused, threatened to ‘pillory’ him in the Stock Exchange Times.

15

‘Phantom newspapers’, as they were called, were publicised in the press

directories, or brought to the attention of the public by other means, solely

to obtain advertisements from unsuspecting businesses, but they were then

never published, or, if they were, they were only ‘rags’. Mitchell’s PressDirectory for 1882 listed four such ‘phantom newspapers’. The Hull DailyTelegram, Hull Sun and North of England Mining Journal, LicensedVictualler’s Advertiser and Trade Directory, and Turf Herald and YorkshireField, proved to be identical publications, the only variation being on the

front page. ‘A sufficient number are printed to satisfy the demands of the

deluded advertisers’, explained the Secretary of the Newspaper Society in

the Circular, ‘who, naturally, are content when they see their

advertisements in print, little suspecting that the newspapers they receive

are shams with no pretence to circulation.’

16

The Newspaper Society encouraged newspaper proprietors to collude in

setting prices for advertisements. ‘No doubt severe competition compels

many newspapers nowadays to make special arrangements contrary to

established principles, but a show of firmness at the right moment will

often prove to be more profitable in the long run than a yielding

disposition’, wrote the Newspaper Society to its members in December

1889. Only if attempts made to bring down prices were ‘met by a

determined negative the result will be the payment eventually of full scale

charges, and nothing more will be heard of applications for discount.’ A

member of the Society proposed forming a committee ‘to give a lesson to

these “go-between” gentlemen’.

The steadfast refusal of newspaper proprietors to divulge their

circulation statistics hardly helped to make the market for advertising space

any more transparent. Circulation figures amounted to carefully guarded

trade secrets. In the spring of 1890, Charles Stewart Parnell, who was

infamously libelled in The Times on the basis of several forged letters

penned by Richard Pigott, brought an action against the paper. The extent

of the distribution of the paper was thought necessary to determine

damages awarded to Parnell, but The Times refused to answer the

interrogatories of Justice Denman in the Divisional Court. ‘We decline to

state the number of copies issued to the public and circulated’, said counsel

for John Walter (the 3

rd

), proprietor of The Times. To answer the

82

interrogatory, said counsel, ‘would involve a disclosure of the business

transactions of the defendant’.

17 The Times might have been obliged to

divulge its circulation but the action settled out of court for £5,000 and

costs.

18

The Newspaper Society closely followed the point concerning

circulation raised in Parnell’s action against The Times, and by December

1890 it was again before the courts. Following Parnell v Walter, it appeared

to be within a plaintiff’s right in a libel action against a newspaper to

demand by interrogatory particulars of the circulation of the defendant’s

paper. In an action against the Cardiff Mail, the proprietors refused to say

more than that their paper was ‘the leading daily paper in South Wales, and

had a very large circulation, largely exceeding that of any other paper

published in that district.’ The plaintiffs, on the authority of Parnell,demanded a rough estimate of the circulation, but Sir Charles Edward

Pollock, baron of the Court of the Exchequer and uncle to the great legal

scholar Sir Frederick Pollock, held that the given answer was sufficient.

19

The important case of Whittaker v Scarborough Post Newspaper Co.upheld Pollock’s judgment and overturned Parnell. The plaintiff in an

action for libel against the newspaper proprietors issued an interrogatory to

the defendants about their circulation, to which the defendants only replied

that ‘a considerable number of copies’ were published. Lord Esher M.R.,

with Kay and Smith, LJJ concurring, held that this answer was sufficient.

The award of damages, said Esher, did not depend on the number of copies

of the newspaper that were issued.

Amidst widespread opportunism on the part of both advertisers and

newspaper proprietors, and in the absence of any reliable information

concerning the value of advertising space, the advertising agent emerged to

act as middlemen between the advertiser and the newspaper proprietor.

20

Agents in effect made the market by reducing risk and facilitating the

connection of both parties in the face of considerable search costs. Agents

came in three kinds: general agents, who carried on business independently

of the newspapers, and who were more the representatives of the

advertisers than of the press, such as Street and Co., and T.B. Browne, Ltd.

These agents frequently contracted for large advertisers, and the

distribution of the advertisements was at their discretion. Advertisement

representatives undertook the advertisement business of a certain number of

newspapers, but were not exclusively employed by any journal. Canvassers

were exclusively employed by individual newspapers and they devoted

their entire time to the collection of advertisements for the proprietors.

83

The Newspaper Society understood the rise of the advertising agent in its

several forms to be in the interest of the press, and the Society facilitated

the establishment of the agent as a trade by encouraging its members to

support those found to be bona fide, and discouraging its members from

accepting advertisements directly from advertisers without the aid of an

agent. In 1881, the Royal Agricultural Society, facing heavy indebtedness,

attempted to circumvent its advertising agent, and to place advertisements

on its own at the rate discounted for agents, but the Newspaper Society

intervened to stipulate that no reduction in commission would be allowed

except to recognised advertising agents.

21

Likewise, in 1886, the Society

deprecated efforts by the Midland Railway Company to obtain the same

discount off the charges for advertisements sent direct by the company as

would be allowed were the same sent through an agent.

22

Coordination of

this kind, when effective, and when combined with consistent support for

particular agents, not only reduced uncertainty, but also granted newspaper

proprietors a modicum of negotiating power. By the 1880s, if not

considerably earlier, the Society published in the Circular a ‘List of

Recognised Advertising Agents’. In September 1881, the list included forty

different agents.

23

As the number of agents increased, so did competition among them to

obtain advertisement contracts. Agents consequently sought to entice

business with lower rates, which in turn reduced the rate agents were

willing to pay newspapers. The ‘middlemen’, as they were pejoratively

called in the Circular of April 1887, vied with each other quoting low

contract rates to large advertisers, and found it impossible to get the

advertisements inserted in the requisite number of newspapers at the prices

at which they had undertaken the contract. Advertisers succumbed to the

‘wiles of the middleman’, who made demands for heavy abatements on

prices that the newspapers had received for many years. ‘Of all the

difficulties with which the Provincial Newspaper Society has contended

from time to time that of placing a check upon the inroads of the

middleman in the person of the advertising agent is the greatest’,

complained H. Whorlow, the Newspaper Society’s Secretary.

24

Again in

December 1887, Whorlow complained that London advertising agents, ‘in

their anxiety to grow rich’, were luring large advertisers, who for many

years had paid fixed prices to the press, with tempting offers to undertake

the whole of their advertising for a fixed sum that represented a

considerable saving in annual outlay. ‘The evil’, wrote Whorlow, was one

that called ‘for serious attention on the part of newspaper proprietors’, and

84

he proposed ‘devising some means of united action on the part of the

provincial newspaper proprietors for their mutual protection.’

25

Advertisers also had cause to complain of agents, who misled clients

about the extent of publicity that they could be relied upon to provide.

Agents frequently claimed that more newspapers existed in particular towns

than were in fact published or gave false testimony about the state of the

publication in which the advertisements they placed appeared. A letter

published in the Globe of 21 March 1887 exemplifies the difficulty:

With a view to introducing a new article for use in the growing of

hops, I obtained from an agent a list of those papers, about thirty in

number, which he (the agent) thought best for me to put my

advertisement in; but before settling I resolved to inquire a little

into the merits of some of the papers, and decide upon the district

best suited to my trade. Accordingly I visited the town of _____, in

which no fewer than six papers are stated to me as published every

week; but upon inquiry I find that Nos. 1, 2, and 3 are not known in

the town. No. 4 is a paper which the shopkeeper obligingly

promised to procure for me; No. 5 had the appearance of a sheet of

nursery wall paper, and was of no value as a medium…

This letter from ‘Erasmus’ filliped several other readers who wrote in to

The Globe complaining of similar mistreatment. According to one

correspondent, out of the 2,135 newspapers then published in Britain, half

should have been styled ‘advertisement papers (? traps), not newspapers….

These hydra-headed sheets, which are made to do duty as local papers,

must be injuring the legitimate press to a very great extent’. Responding to

this outpouring of frustration, the editors of the Globe observed that ‘…a

man may go to considerable expense upon country papers of wide

circulation, and yet had better have thrown his money into the Thames,

where, at any rate, it will not fall into the hands of sharper men of business

than an honest tradesman has any business to be.’ These ‘shadowy papers’,

these ‘bogus newspapers without news’, lamented newspaper proprietors,

‘are the terror of both advertisers and of advertising agents, while genuine

newspapers suffer’.

26

The judgments handed down in the lower echelons of the judiciary

evince an inability among justices to appreciate the intricacies of the

advertising market. During the 1890s, many of the cases tried in London

came before Commissioner Robert Malcolm Kerr of the City of London

Court. Kerr took his seat at the Old Bailey in 1859 and did not retire until

1901, during which time he heard a great number of cases pertaining to

85

contractual agreements among newspapers, advertising agents, and

advertisers.

27

A contentious issue for much of the 1890s, and one that was

frequently before Commissioner Kerr, was whether agents could cancel

orders for a series of advertisements before completion. In 1891, Kerr

disallowed a claim for an advertising account, which gave rise to

considerable comment in the Circular. The plaintiffs had sued for the

balance of an account for a series of 26 insertions of an advertisement

ordered by the defendants, but countermanded before completion of the

series. In spite of an order to stop inserting, the plaintiffs continued to place

the advertisements, and the defendant refused to pay from the time of

giving notice.

The ruling was correct, insofar as either of two parties to a contract

could, generally speaking, withdraw from it subject to being liable in

damages to the other party for failure to perform what was undertaken, but

the ruling of Commissioner Kerr left much unanswered. According to one

barrister commenting on the judgment at the time, although the publisher

could recover for the advertisements actually inserted, it was ‘entirely

wrong to suppose’ that his remedy ended there. He was, wrote the

anonymous barrister, ‘just as clearly entitled to damages for breach of

contract to whatever extent a judge or jury may give.’ Yet the judgment of

the Commissioner left this open to misunderstanding. ‘In the mind of the

layman, it might be suggested that a person who had ordered an

advertisement to appear in a publication a stated number of times could

with impunity and at any time cancel the order’. This, held the anonymous

barrister, was not the law, regardless of any difficulty that may have arisen

in attempting to arrive at an exact measure of the damages the publisher

sustained. In a similar action in the Queen’s Bench Division for the

recovery of an advertising account brought by an agent against an

advertiser, Justice Sir John Charles Day, who had a reputation for annoying

litigants by seeming uninterested and occasionally slumbering, instructed

the jury to determine whether after the countermand the full price of the

advertisements would be recoverable, or only loss of profit arising from the

defendant’s departure from the contract.

28

In the Circular for September 1891, a correspondent wrote in to

complain that neither Commissioner Kerr, nor the anonymous barrister, nor

Justice Day had understood the matter fully. Kerr’s decision, claimed the

unnamed correspondent, was based on the assumption that the space

devoted to advertisements in a newspaper was limited, instead of being

capable of varying in length daily. A newspaper proprietor, therefore,

86

obtained as many advertisements as possible, so that if a contract was

cancelled then the proprietor lost the full extent of the unexpired series. As

prices were based on a graduated scale, regulated according to the length of

the series ordered, it was, wrote the unnamed correspondent, an injustice to

a newspaper proprietor if an advertiser, after having entered into a contract

for a lengthened period at a reduced rate, was permitted to withdraw from

the contract. It had also to be borne in mind for reasons of equity if not law,

that contracts for extended periods were typically obtained through

canvassers, who received a commission on the total amount of the order at

the commencement of the series, so that, if a contract upon which the

commission had been paid was not carried out in full the loss on the

transaction was aggravated. Orders for advertisements to the extent of £5

and upwards required a sixpenny stamp, and suits brought for recovering

unpaid bills were non-suited without one.

29

The effect of Commissioner Kerr’s ruling was to cause advertisers to

contract for a full year, say, when they wanted their advertisement to appear

for three months only. Had Justice Day fully understood the mechanics of

newspaper advertising, wrote the member of the Society, he would not have

instructed the jury that the defendant, after countermanding his order, was

liable only for loss of profit.

30

According to the Newspaper Society, the

general consequence of Kerr’s judgment, and others like it, was that agents

took large speculative contracts on the strength of the credit enjoyed with

the papers, and when things went poorly, the agent ‘is very sorry, but he

can’t pay, and must throw himself upon the merciful consideration of his

clients’.

31

The problem, which had plagued newspaper proprietors since at

least the 1840s, still remained unresolved in 1901.

32

That October,

Commissioner Kerr finally retired. ‘Some of the learned Commissioner’s

decisions in late years,’ memorialised the Circular, ‘although doubtless

arising from a rough and ready sense of justice, nevertheless resulted in the

setting up of awkward precedents not altogether beneficial to the

advertising trade.’

33

Although agents were permitted to countermand advertisement orders

with a modicum of impunity, it was generally held in cases of cancellation

of advertisement orders that newspaper proprietors had to carry out the full

extent of the bargain by completing the entirety of the insertions.

Proprietors were non-suited for discontinuing the advertisement before the

expiry of the time for which it had been ordered. In April 1898, in the

important case of Owen v Greenberg, Justice Darling of the Queen’s Bench

ruled contrary to this longstanding tradition, and in so doing gave

87

considerably greater powers to newspaper proprietors to remove ‘immoral’

patent medicine advertisements from their pages.

34

The plaintiff Owen

brought the action to recover damages for breach of contract by the

defendants to insert certain advertisements in Pick-Me-Up, a journal

relating to medicines for ladies. The defendants claimed to be merely

agents for the proprietors of Pick-Me-Up, and therefore not personally

liable, and, further, that the advertisements were of ‘an immoral and illegal

nature’, and that the plaintiff was consequently not entitled to maintain an

action. It was alleged that the advertisements in question were intended to

convey that the medicine advertised would procure miscarriage or abortion.

To procure abortion, or to attempt to counsel or assist to procure it, was a

criminal offence. ‘The proprietors’, said Justice Darling in summation,

‘were perfectly justified in saying that they would not by the

advertisements help the plaintiff to procure abortion if the medicine would

have that effect, and that if it would not they would not be parties to

defrauding the public.’

35

A like decision on appeal in the Recorder’s Court, Belfast, affirmed and

expanded the right of newspapers to reject advertisements. The plaintiff

instituted an action against Sir James Henderson, managing proprietor of

the Belfast News-Letter, to recover £5 damages for alleged breach of an

advertising contract. In the court below the case was dismissed on the

merits, the defendant tendering £1 15s. 3d. in full discharge of the

plaintiff’s claim. It appeared from the evidence that the plaintiff paid £1 2s.

9d. to the proprietors of the News-Letter for 13 insertions of an

advertisement. The advertisement appeared twice, and then a clerk from the

News-Letter office informed the plaintiff that Sir Henderson objected to the

word ‘huckster’, which appeared in the advertisement. ‘Huckster’, it was

said, was a reflection on other traders, and there were no ‘huckster shops’

in Belfast. The plaintiff refused to remove the word from the advertisement,

and the judge, affirming the dismissal, with costs to the defendant, said the

plaintiff could neither contend that the press occupied ‘a position like a

common carrier’ nor that it was ‘bound to insert any advertisement’.

36

A related point of law with regard to which there was also considerable

confusion was that of continuous, or perpetual, commissions. ‘Can you tell

me,’ wrote a perplexed member of the Newspaper Society to the Secretary

in February 1895,

whether it has been definitely ruled that an advertisement canvasser,

working on commission only, is entitled to claim commission on

renewal orders of an advertisement originally introduced by him,

88

whether such renewal order is actually canvassed and brought into

the paper by the canvasser or not?

Several decisions were given in minor courts in favour of the canvassers,

but in these cases the point of dispute was settled rather on the merits than

by virtue of any generally recognised principle. ‘It seems preposterous to

assert that an agent who introduces an advertiser to a newspaper thereby

becomes entitled to commission in perpetuity, but this contention has been

held by some,’ explained the Society Secretary.

37

A similar question came before Commissioner Kerr in October 1895 in

Hooper and Batty v Reid. The plaintiffs sued as the assignees of an

advertisement canvasser to recover the sum of £19 9s. commission alleged

to be due on certain advertisements that he had obtained for the defendants.

Although the plaintiffs had severed their connection with the canvasser, the

latter claimed that if the renewals of the orders which he had obtained came

in (and he alleged that they had), then he was entitled to commission on

renewal orders, although he had left the defendant’s service. Commissioner

Kerr agreed. The defendant’s could not take the canvasser into their service,

and then when he had obtained orders dismiss him.

From the perspective of the press, Kerr’s judgment again left much to be

desired. ‘If such a decision holds good we shall never be safe’, wrote a

member of the Newspaper Society when commenting on Kerr’s decision.

By Kerr’s logic, an advertisement canvasser would be entitled to

commission on all renewal orders, whether he was on the staff of the

newspaper or not. In such circumstances, wrote the newspaper proprietor,

‘it would be far better for the newspaper press not to have canvassers at

all’.

38

According to the Newspaper Society’s Secretary, ‘a curious

mistiness’ appeared ‘to pervade the judicial mind whenever it [was]

brought to bear upon cases concerning the profession of journalism.’ The

fact was, wrote Whorlow, still Secretary of the Society, ‘judges frequently

fail to grasp the true bearing of newspaper cases’.

39

The matter of continuous commissions remained a source of uncertainty

until a ruling precedent was established in 1900 by the Commercial Court

of the Queens’ Bench Division in the case of Bettany v Eastern Morningand Hull News Co. Ltd.

40

Henry Edward Duke, Q.C., first Baron Merrivale,

appeared for the prosecution and Thomas Scrutton, later Lord Justice

Scrutton, argued the case for the defendants before Justice Sir James

Charles Mathew. In his judgment, Justice Mathew held that there had been

no custom of the business that entitled the plaintiff to the payment of

commission where advertisements were inserted ‘until countermanded’ or

89

where advertisements originally procured by him were renewed with less

than a break of twelve months, and he therefore found for the defendants.

Had Bettany won his case, wrote the Secretary of the Newspaper Society,

‘newspapers would in future have been liable to pay something in the

nature of a pension to all advertisement canvassers leaving their

employment, so long as any advertisements introduced by them, either on

‘until countermanded’ or ‘renewal’ terms, continued to appear in the

newspapers.’

41

From circulation statistics to advertisement contracts, the courts

influenced to a significant extent the dynamics of the market for advertising

space in the press, but much was left to the market, where the coordination

necessary to effect change was lacking. A proposal raised in 1891 of

forming a ‘Newspaper Proprietors’ Bureau’, with the ‘altogether laudable

object of abolishing middlemen in connection with advertising’ through the

establishment of an advertising clearing house, proved abortive. ‘The idea

is by no means a novel one’, observed the Newspaper Society, ‘and its

impracticality must be obvious to anyone having practical knowledge of

newspaper advertising.’

42

Proposals among advertisers to form a self-

regulatory body did not take hold until the end of the nineteenth century.

The Advertisers Protection Society, established in 1900, now known as the

Incorporated Society of British Advertisers (IBSA), exercised limited

powers during the Edwardian era. Like so many areas of British economic

activity, the advertising market was not rationalised until after the Great

War. Increased transparency in the market for newspaper advertising may

have contributed to a remarkable growth in the size of the market. Between

1907 and 1930 press advertising alone rose from £22 million per annum to

£60 million.

43

Prior to the War certain newspapers, particularly several in London, did

in the face of increased rivalry being to provide advertisers with certified

circulation statistics, but according to one historian of the wartime press,

such figures were still ‘state secrets’.

44

The Audit Bureau of Circulations

(ABC), established in 1931, appears to have contributed rather little to

rendering the market for advertising more transparent. Even after it was set

up many publishers remained aloof and refused to join. Perhaps one reason

for this continued unwillingness to facilitate greater market transparency

was that it remained advantageous to leading firms on both sides of the

equation to perpetuate the existence of an opaque advertising market.

Insofar as advertising helped firms to raise barriers to entry, those in

possession of a functioning advertising apparatus may have perceived that

90

the prospect of a transparent market threatened to grant potential rivals

easier access to publicity. For those newspapers capable of commanding

artificially high advertising rates, an effectively functioning market would

have reduced their profit margins. Additionally, limited knowledge about

one’s readers, and little reason to care about them, may have protected

newspaper proprietors from pandering to their publics and competing

outright with other newspapers for market share whilst enabling them to

use their publications as mouthpieces. Further research concerning the

valuation of advertising space will help to shed light on these hypotheses.

Notes1

A.W.B. Simpson, ‘Quackery and contract law: the case of the Carbolic Smoke Ball’, TheJournal of Legal Studies, 14 (1985), p.386.

2 Report of the select committee on patent medicines; 1914 (414) IX.1.

3 Monthly Circular (hereafter MC), September 1881, p. 27.

4

See Mill, On liberty (London, 2010 [1859])

5

Lotteries Act, 1845 (8 & 9 Vict., c.74); Betting Act, 1853 (16 & 17 Vict., c.119). See, for

example, MC, February 1895, p.8.

6

52 & 53 Vict., c.18. NS monthly circular, March 1890, p.19.

7

33 & 34 Vict.

8 MC, December 1881, p.12.

9 MC, March 1892, p.27.

10 Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 6.0), Charles William

Oldham, June 1886 (reference number: t18860628).

11 MC, March 1892, p.27.

12 MC, December 1881, p.14

13 MC, September 1881, pp.24-5.

14 MC, August 1886, p.28.

15 Old Bailey Proceedings Online, May 1888 (reference number: t18880528-538).

16 MC, April 1882, pp.13-4.

17

24 Q.B.D. 441; MC, March 1890, p.16.

18

P. Bew, ‘Parnell, Charles Stewart (1846-1891)’, Oxford dictionary of national biography(Oxford, 2004) [last accessed online: 17 October 2011].

19

16 R 917. MC, December 1890, p.14.

20

T.R. Nevitt, Advertising in Britain: a history (London, 1982), p.61.

21 MC, December 1881, p.19.

22 MC, August 1886, p.27.

23 MC, September 1881, p.28.

24 MC, April 1887, p.25.

25 MC, December 1887, p.9.

26

As reproduced in MC, April 1887, pp.25-6.

27

G. Pitt-Lewis, Commissioner Kerr, an individuality (London, 1903).

28 MC, August 1891, pp.12-3. P. Polden, ‘Day, Sir John Charles Frederick Sigismund (1826-

1908), Oxford dictionary of national biography (online), accessed 19 October 2011.

29

E.g. MC, December 1881, p.11.

91

30 MC, January 1892, p.32.

31 MC, March 1897, p.11.

32 MC, May 1901, p.12.

33 MC, October 1901, p.10.

34 The Times, 10 March 1898.

35 MC, April 1898, pp.9-10.

36 MC, April 1899, p. 8 and Jun. 1899, p.12.

37 MC, February 1895, p.8.

38 MC, October 1895, p.6.

39 MC, January 1896, p 8.

40

(1900) 16 Times Law Reports 401.

41 MC, June 1900, pp.8-11.

42 MC, March 1891, p.23.

43

S. Pollard, The development of the British economy, 4

th

edition (London, 1992), p.83.

44

J.M. McEwen, ‘The national press during the First World War: ownership and circulation’,

Journal of Contemporary History, 17 (1982), 465.

92

SHARON QUINN-ROBINSON (1943-2011)

Sharon Quinn-Robinson, who died on 12 September 2011 at the age of 68,

was the Council’s popular and enthusiastic Office Manager between 1990

and 2003. Some members will remember how different the Council’s

organisation was in that period in comparison with today’s simplified

structure. We were maintaining an office and a library in London; we were

running training courses and archive visits; and we were also hosting the

Advisory Service and a succession of surveys of business archives. Sharon

played a huge part in these activities and many of today’s trustees, members

and former members of staff will always be grateful to her for her

dedication and for her valiant efforts on the Council’s behalf over those

years.

Sharon joined us in 1990 as part-time Office Manager, based at the

Council’s two-room office above the NatWest branch in Tower Bridge

Road. There she brought new personality and experience to our work. Born

in California and brought up in Barstow, after graduating from high school

she had headed for San Francisco. In the 1960s she loved the cultural and

artistic life of San Francisco, including drama and film-making, but

remarkably she also found time to work as a Mastercard executive.

However the early death of her first husband Martin Quinn in 1974 led her

and her daughter Deirdre to move to the Russian River. There she joined

the charismatic Sal Rossitto in running his health programmes for adults

with learning difficulties. She was devastated when, in the mid 1980s, the

county authorities withdrew their funding and prompted the closure of the

programme.

California’s loss was our gain when she moved to London and came to

the Council. She relished the style of life in London and, although office

work was probably not her first choice of career, she quickly adapted. She

was especially keen on developing person-to-person contact between the

Council and its members. In this, she was as helpful and friendly to a senior

corporate member as she was to a new student member or to the many non-

member visitors to our library. Sharon took charge of our register of

members, our mailing lists, the negotiation of Advisory Service projects,

and the administration of training and conference events (in particular the

two residential courses, Archives and records management in business, in

partnership with the European Association for Banking History at St

Mary’s College, Roehampton, in 1996 and 2000). She also oversaw two

93

office moves, to the Clove Building (behind the Design Museum) in 1993

and then to Whitechapel High Street in 1998. In 2002, however, the

Council needed to reduce its heavy and increasing costs, leading to the

closure of the office early in 2003 and the transfer of the library to the

Centre for Business History in Scotland.

In retirement Sharon continued to take an interest in the Council’s work

and she remained close to her many friends in the Council. She and her

partner John Orbell moved to Suffolk, where they made a welcoming home

and garden in Ixworth. In recent years Sharon suffered from several serious

and painful illnesses but her sense of humour and her wonderful gift of

insight stayed with her to the last. These and her many other qualities will

be greatly missed and the Council’s members and friends will always be

grateful for her special contribution.

EDWIN GREEN

94

95

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University of Wolverhampton

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114

115

BUSINESS RECORDS DEPOSITED IN 2010

MIKE ANSON

Compiled from information provided by the National Archives, Kew.

Advertising, media, printing and publishing

Black Cultural Archives, 1 Othello Close, Kennington, London, SE11 4RE:

Hansib Publications Ltd, Hertford: records 1980-2004 (AC2010/04)

Bristol Record Office, ‘B’ Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS16XN: Walter Reid & Co Ltd, newspaper proprietors and printers, Bristol:

minutes and accounts, articles of association and pension schedules 1915-

1961 (44406)

Bristol University Information Services: Special Collections, Arts andSocial Sciences Library, University of Bristol, Tyndall Avenue, Bristol, BS81TJ: Penguin Books Ltd, publishers, London: personal material relating to

the Eichberg, Mertens and Lane families incl Allen Lane, founder of

Penguin Books 1714-1970 (DM2244)

Denbighshire Record Office, 46 Clwyd Street, Ruthin, Denbighshire, LL151HP: Denbighshire Free Press: newspaper files 1985-2005 (DD/DM/1341)

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: FJ Parsons (Hastings) Ltd, publishers and printers: staff

lists 1953-66 (10669); QueenSpark books, community publishing house,

Brighton: records 1911-2010 (10468)

Flintshire Record Office, The Old Rectory, Rectory Lane, Hawarden,Flintshire, CH5 3NR: Caxton Printing Co, Mold: minutes, plant books and

other records 1920-86 (AN4448)

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Gloucestershire Echo, newspaper: photographs, photographers’ job

diaries and index books 1960-2008 (D12061); John Jennings (Gloucester)

Ltd, printer and stationer: additional, minutes, accounts and papers 1990-

2000 (D4757)

Hillingdon Local Studies, Archives and Museums Service, Central Library,14-15 High Street, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UB8 1HD: King & Hutchings Ltd,

printers, Uxbridge: share and member registers, account ledger, cash book

1880-1929 (ADB10/09)

History of Advertising Trust Archive, 12 Raveningham Centre,Raveningham, Norwich, NR14 6NU: Anthony Daffern Collection of

116

advertising agency proofs and show reels c1980-1999 (HAT 21/467); John

Simmons, advertising entrepreneur: collection of TV commercials c1970-

99 (HAT 21/465); Ken Spedding, sales promoter: material rel to sales

promotion, incl Greenshield stamps and the development of scratch cards

1959-2008 (HAT 21/466); Leonard Minsen Collection of Dunlop

publications, photographs and ephemera 1960-1985 (HAT 21/451);

Winston Fletcher, advertising writer: articles, reviews and advertising

ephemera c1970-2000 (HAT/21/473)

National Library of Scotland, Manuscript Collections, George IV Bridge,Edinburgh, Midlothian, EH1 1EW: W & R Chambers Ltd, publishers,

Edinburgh: MSS and business records with some family papers c1819-1990

(Acc.13178)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Jarrold & Sons Ltd, printers and booksellers, Norwich: additional

family and business records 19th-21st cent (ACC 2009/364)

Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Western Manuscripts, Broad Street,Oxford, OX1 3BG: Clutag Press, Thame: additional records incl material rel

to publications and to Archipelago I-IV; HN Swanson Inc, literary agency,

Los Angeles: corresp files rel to JRR Tolkien’s work 1957-99

Public Record Office of Northern Ireland, 66 Balmoral Avenue, Belfast,BT9 6NY: Ulster Print Works (Newtownards) Ltd: minutes, ledgers and

accounts 1880-1970 (D4484)

Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, Library and Archives, Kew, Richmond, TW93AE: Lovell Reeve & Co, publishers, London: minute books, corresp,

memoranda, articles of association, register of members, share ledgers,

share certificates 1862-2010 (PrP 10-0017)

West Sussex Record Office, Sherburne House, 3 Orchard Street, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 1RN: East Grinstead Courier, newspaper: records 1944-

2004 (Acc 15873)

West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, Central Library, NorthgateHouse, Northgate, Halifax, HX1 1UN: W Turner & Son Ltd, printers,

Halifax: balance sheets, trading accounts, profit and loss accounts 1929-

1993 (WYC:1512)

Aeronautical

Flintshire Record Office, The Old Rectory, Rectory Lane, Hawarden,Flintshire, CH5 3NR: Airbus, aircraft manufacturers, Broughton:

photographs of Airbus products and events 1940-60 (AN4453)

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, CHR002, County Hall, Pegs

117

Lane, Hertford, SG13 8EJ: De Havilland Engine Co Ltd, aircraft engine

manufacturers, Hatfield: aircraft movement and control tower log books rel

to Hatfield Tower 1956-1979 (Acc 5002)

West Sussex Record Office, Sherburne House, 3 Orchard Street, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 1RN: Shoreham Airport: annual reports and accounts

1972-89 (Acc 15725)

Agriculture, forestry and fishing

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: Manor Farm, Wilstead:

accounts of John Moore McDonald 1867-85 (Z1398); Newman family,

farmers, Wilstead and Cardington: additional papers and accounts 19th cent

(Z1249)

Derbyshire Record Office, New Street, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3FE:

Bailey family of Home Farm, Foremark: accounts, tenancy agreements,

farm licences, farm business papers, valuations and inventories, family

papers and photographs 1854-2009 (D7171); Bunting family of Ashover:

farm, personal and household accounts 1806-1859 (D7232)

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,Devon, EX2 7NL: Barton Farm, Shobrooke: accounts and papers 1860-

1939 (7885); Moor Farm, Crediton: deeds and papers 1802-1968 (7761)

Dumfries and Galloway Archives, Archive Centre, 33 Burns Street,Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, DG1 2PS: Robert Coulthard, Bluehill Farm,

Auchenairn: day book 1818-1842 (GGD697)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Bignell family of Netherhill Farm, Durley,

Botley: farm accounts 1932-72 (66A10); Southern Counties Agricultural

Trading Society Ltd (SCATS): records incl annual reports 1976-98

(158A10)

Museum of English Rural Life, Redlands Road, Reading, RG1 5EX:

Roadknight Farms, Oxfordshire: business records incl diaries, account and

wage records and sale catalogues 1930-74 (FR DX1922); Upton Court

Farm, Slough: farm diaries 1884-1910 (FR DX1895); Yeoveney Farm,

Staines: wages book, with a diary of the Sowery family 1907-41 (FR DX

1902); Farm, Lincolnshire: accounts and diary 1845-76 (FR DX1921)

North Devon Record Office, North Devon Library and Record Office, TulyStreet, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 1EL: Muckford Farm, Bishops Nympton:

deeds and papers 1664-1992 (A330); Radley family, farmers, High Bray:

farm account book and sale catalogue 1809-1981 (A414)

118

Oxfordshire History Centre, St Luke’s Church, Temple Road, Cowley,Oxford, OX4 2HT: Rowles family, farmers, Great Milton: farm diaries and

accounts, with family property records 1705-1943 (Acc 5965)

Peterborough Archives Service, Peterborough Central Library, Broadway,Peterborough, PE1 1RX: Headding’s Farm, Walton: diaries and invoices

1900-1940 (Acc No: 2010/24)

Somerset Heritage Centre, Brunel Way, Langford Mead, NortonFitzwarren, Taunton, Somerset, TA2 6SF: Hebditch family, farmers:

additional notebooks, diaries, account books, concerning the running of

New Cross Farm 1900-1989 (A\AJK); Pearce family, farmers, Stogursey:

farming accounts and papers incl parish rate book 1906 1930-1969

(A\DDD)

Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, 77 Raingate Street, BurySt Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2AR: Parker Brothers Ltd, animal feed

manufacturers, Mildenhall: ledgers, account books and other records early

20th cent (HC586)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Mapson family, farmers, Brinkworth: deeds, accounts

and papers rel to Greatwood Farm, Brinkworth 1833-1973 (3842)

Architects

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: MEPK, architects, Bedford:

plans, drawings and papers 20th cent (MEPK)

Cambridgeshire Archives, RES 1009, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3 0AP:

MEPK, architects, Bedford: architectural drawings and project files for

developments in Cambridgeshire 1971-1992 (R110/024)

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury,Buckinghamshire, HP20 1UU: Victor Farrar Partnership, architects,

Bedford: papers rel to restoration of churches and other historic buildings

in Buckinghamshire area (D-X 1910); Max Lock Group, architects,

London: records rel to projects in Milton Keynes c1980-2003 (D 278)

Clackmannanshire Archives, Alloa Library, 26-28 Drysdale Street, Alloa,Clackmannanshire, FK10 1JL: John Melvin & Sons, architects, Alloa:

plans and elevations c1914-1954 (PD 248)

Cumbria Record Office, Carlisle Headquarters, Petteril Bank House,Petteril Bank Road, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA1 3AJ: Herbert Cartner & Sons,

architects, Carlisle: plans of property in Carlisle and Houghton 1981 (DX 1973)

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,

119

Devon, EX2 7NL: Francis V Barker, chartered architect, Chagford: project

papers 1939-1957 (7893); Salisbury & Chandler, architects, Exmouth:

additional accounts, corresp and papers 1971-2005 (7721)

Dorset History Centre, Bridport Road, Dorchester, DT1 1RP: Barnes Grist

Partnership, architects, Warminster: plans rel to Dorset projects 1988-2000

(D.2255); Fletcher & Brett, architects, Wimborne: additional corresp, plans,

photographs and papers rel to Dorset projects 1888-1967 (D.2217)

Dundee City Archives, 18 City Square, Dundee: James MacLaren & Sons,

architects and surveyors, Dundee: architectural drawings 1862-1896

Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6YT: MEPK,

architects, Bedford: drawings, plans and corresp files rel to properties in

Essex 1965-2003 (D/F 316)

Falkirk Council Archives, History Research Centre, Callendar House,Callendar Park, Falkirk, FK1 1YR: Wilson & Wilson, architects, Falkirk:

architectural plans, deed plan books, etc 19th cent-20th cent (A2003)

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, CHR002, County Hall, PegsLane, Hertford, SG13 8EJ: Victor Farrar Partnership, architects, Bedford:

photographs and negatives of renovation projects in Hertfordshire c1977-

2003 (Acc 4919); MEPK, architects, Bedford: drawings and project reports

rel to properties in Hertfordshire 1960-1980 (Acc 4918)

Highland Archives: Caithness Archive Centre, Wick Library, SinclairTerrace, Wick, Caithness, KW1 5AB: Sinclair Macdonald & Son, architects,

Thurso: plans, job files and specifications 1873-1947 (SM)

Highland Council Archives, Highland Archive and Registration Centre,Bught Road, Inverness, Inverness-shire, IV3 5SS: Alexander Cattanach,

architect: architects drawings by Alexander Cattanach senior and

Alexander Cattanach junior incl Kingussie Free Church, Kingussie Roman

Catholic Church, and various properties in Inverness 20th cent (D1244)

Huntingdonshire Archives, Huntingdonshire Archives and Local Studies,Huntingdon Library, Princes Street, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA: MEPK,

architects, Bedford: architectural plans and project files for developments

in Huntingdonshire 1966-2004 (Acc. 5352)

Jersey Archive, Jersey Heritage Trust, Clarence Road, St Helier, Jersey,JE2 4JY: David Barlow Associates, architects, Jersey: plans, surveys and

photographs 1980-1999 (JA/1667); Barnes & Collie, architects, St Helier:

additional records 1960-2002 (JA/1704)

National Monuments Record, Enquiry & Research Services, EnglishHeritage, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon,SN2 2GZ: George Frank Allen & Leonard Gordon Allen, architects,

120

London: drawings, photographs and specifications 1949-1957 (AAA01);

Gilmore Hankey Kirke, architects, London and Plymouth: surveys, plans,

reports and photographs rel to The Grange, Northington, Hampshire 1980-

1986 (GHK02)

National Records of Scotland (formerly National Archives of Scotland),HM General, Register House, Edinburgh, EH1 3YY: James Maitland

Wardrop, architect: architectural drawings of Falkirk Prison and

Courthouse 1864-66 (RHP142427)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Purcell, Miller & Tritton, architects and historic buildings

consultants, Norwich: additional files and drawings 20th cent (ACC

2010/188)

North Yorkshire County Record Office, Malpas Road, Northallerton, NorthYorkshire, DL7 8TB: Douglas Wise & Partners, architects, Newcastle upon

Tyne: architectural conservation records rel to Fountains Abbey and

Studley Roger 20th cent (ZKD)

Perth and Kinross Council Archive, AK Bell Library, 2-8 York Place, Perth,Perthshire, PH2 8EP: AF Finlayson & Campbell, architects, Aberfeldy:

plans of houses, farm and public buildings in North Perthshire c1850-1970

(10/23)

Peterborough Archives Service, Peterborough Central Library, Broadway,Peterborough, PE1 1RX: Ruddle Wilkinson, architects, Peterborough:

working files, house designs, photographs and lantern slides c1900-1917

(Acc No: 2010/02, Acc No: 2010/04)

Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, 77 Raingate Street, BurySt Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2AR: MEPK, architects, Bedford: drawings and

projects files for developments in West Suffolk 20th cent (HG502)

Tyne and Wear Archives, Blandford House, Blandford Square, NewcastleUpon Tyne, NE1 4JA: Douglas Wise & Partners, architects, Newcastle upon

Tyne: records incl plans and reports c1960-1990 (DT.DW)

West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, Central Library, NorthgateHouse, Northgate, Halifax, HX1 1UN: Clement Williams & Sons,

architects, surveyors and valuers, Halifax: ledger, journal, day and letter

books, certificate book, photographs c1767-1994 (WYC:1535)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Barnes Grist Partnership, architects, Warminster:

plans rel to Wiltshire 1989-1998 (3851)

121

Auctioneers, estate agents, surveyors and property

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: Stephenson &

Alexander, chartered surveyors, chartered auctioneers and estate agents,

Cardiff: papers 1700-2000 (DSA34/10, DSA41/5-6, DSA51/4-5); Western

Ground Rents Ltd, Cardiff: rental books and plans 1938-44 (D696)

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Bruton, Knowles & Co, auctioneers and estate agents, Gloucester:

additional records, sales particulars, valuation books, corresp and papers

1874-1974 (D2299); Churchdown & General Land Co: minutes, ledgers,

registers and papers 1880-2007 (D12192)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Thomas Godwin, estate agent and

auctioneer, Winchester: accounts and letter book 1855-61 (150A10W)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Francis Hornor & Son, surveyors and land agents, Norwich:

additional records incl business accounts, private estate and charity records

and a swan roll 16th-20th cent (ACC 2010/16, 129)

Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch, Gatacre Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP12LQ: Oxborrow, Son & Morgan, auctioneers and surveyors, Ipswich: rental

books (18) for properties in Ipswich, cash books (9), book of work

undertaken and misc papers 1913-1971 (HE403)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Harding & Son, auctioneers, Frome: corresp and

papers rel to properties in Bradford on Avon and Martin 1902-1936 (3914)

Banking, finance and insurance

Aberdeen City Archives, Old Aberdeen House Branch, Old AberdeenHouse, Dunbar Street, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, AB24 3UJ: Huntly

Property Investment & Building Society: minute books 1889-1936

(DD1462)

Barnsley Archive and Local Studies Department, Barnsley Central Library,Shambles Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2JF: Barnsley Building

Society: records incl minute books, plans and photographs c1853-2008

(A/3292/B)

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury,Buckinghamshire, HP20 1UU: Chesham Building Society: records incl

minutes, registers of shareholders, mortgages and deeds, annual reports

1845-1995 (D 279)

122

Dundee University Archive, Records Management and Museum Services,Tower Building, Dundee, Angus, DD1 4HN: Alliance Trust Co Ltd,

Dundee: records incl material relating to investments in the United States

18th cent-20th cent (2010/392)

Glasgow University Archive Services, 13 Thurso Street, Glasgow, G11 6PE:

McLay, McAllister & McGibbon, chartered accountants, Glasgow:

additional ledgers and cash books 1899-1976 (ACCN 3436)

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Stroud & Swindon Building Society: minutes, ledgers and registers

incl records of predecessor companies 1851-2006 (D12214)

London Metropolitan Archives: City of London, 40 Northampton Road,London, EC1R 0HB: Cazenove & Co, stockbrokers, London: addnl records

incl partnership deeds, sealing books, ledgers, cash books and corresp

1880-2001 (CLC/B/039); Legal & General Assurance Society Ltd, London:

staff handbooks, “Temple Bar House” journal, brochures, pensions

newsletters 1940-1999 (CLC/B/144)

North Devon Record Office, North Devon Library and Record Office, TulyStreet, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 1EL: Sun Insurance Office Ltd, London:

Bideford agent’s policy book 1913-1975 (A337)

Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Unit 3, Clare Place, Coxside,Plymouth, Devon, PL4 0JW: Phoenix Assurance Co Ltd, London:

Plymouth ledgers 1860-1948 (3657)

Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch, Gatacre Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP12LQ: Ipswich & Suffolk Permanent Benefit Building Society: additional

records, incl register of title deeds, landlords rent book, mortgage account

volumes (2) and expense account ledger 1933-1985 (GF419)

West Yorkshire Archive Service, Leeds, 2 Chapeltown Road, Sheepscar,Leeds, LS7 3AP: Leeds City & District Building Society: private ledger

1895-1931 (WYL2299)

Brewing

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: Breeds & Co, brewers, Hastings: banking accounts 1926-

70 (10490); Kemp Town Brewery Brighton Ltd: staff records, roll of

honour and company history 1897-1965 (10603)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: George Gale & Co Ltd, brewers, Horndean:

plans of pubs and other buildings produced by John Upfold, architect 1928-

83 (104A10)

123

Building, construction and supplies

Aberdeen City Archives, Old Aberdeen House Branch, Old AberdeenHouse, Dunbar Street, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, AB24 3UJ: Joseph Brown,

stonemason, Banff: working papers, incl specifications for projects in

Banffshire and Nairn 20th cent (DD1485) Ayrshire Archives, Watson PeatBuilding, Auchincruive, Ayr, KA6 5HW: Matthew Wright & Nephew Ltd,

timber merchants, Irvine: ledgers and cash books 1854-1912 (10/45)

Bath Record Office, Guildhall, High Street, Bath, BA1 5AW: Hayward &

Wooster Ltd, builders, Bath: balance sheets and profit and loss accounts

1910-1970 (829)

Bristol Record Office, ‘B’ Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS16XN: Stride Bros Ltd, builders, Bristol: leases, plans, family wills 20th cent

(44365)

Bury Archives Service, Moss Street, Bury, Greater Manchester, BL9 0DG:

Wormalds Timber Co Ltd, Bury: accounts 1929-72 (BWM)

Cambridgeshire Archives, RES 1009, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3 0AP:

Builder, Histon: ledgers and plans rel to The Firs, Histon c1850-1915

(R110/009)

Centre for Kentish Studies, County Hall, Maidstone, Kent, ME14 1XQ:

William and Thomas Wilson, carpenters, Aldington: day books 19th cent

(Acc7731)

Clackmannanshire Archives, Alloa Library, 26-28 Drysdale Street, Alloa,Clackmannanshire, FK10 1JL: Alexander Thomson, plumber, Alloa:

accounts book 1931-1971 (PD 243)

Cornwall Record Office, Old County Hall, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 3AY:

Blake family, carpenters, Kerriers, Withiel: financial and client papers

1886-1983 (AD2078)

Derbyshire Record Office, New Street, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3FE:

Thomas William Beard, joiner and wheelwright of Kniveton: accounts

1882-1897 (D7258)

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,Devon, EX2 7NL: Herbert Read Ltd, woodcarvers and designers, Exeter:

additional glass negatives and photographic prints of ecclesiastical

furnishings and woodwork 1800-1999 (7829); Herbert Read Ltd,

woodcarvers and designers, Exeter: additional corresp and photographs

chiefly rel to the restoration of Exeter Cathedral c 1949 1898-1950 (7866)

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: Gordon Head & Co Ltd, builders, Hailsham: records

1936-99 (10689)

124

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: John Trill, signwriter, painter and monumental mason,

Dallington: accounts 1792-98 (10791)

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: E Edwards,

builder and contractor, Barry: copy letter book 1930-1933 (D681)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Roberts Adlard, builders merchants, New

Milton: business records incl cash books, wage and salary books and

accident reports c1934-90 (30A10)

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, CHR002, County Hall, PegsLane, Hertford, SG13 8EJ: JT Bushell & Sons Ltd, builders and

contractors, St Albans: customer accounts ledgers, staff wage book, journal

of works and architectural plans rel to properties built by company c1888-

1951 (Acc 4895, 4899); Charles E Maxfield & Son, builders, Waltham

Cross: timesheets for employees 1941- 1947 (Acc 5011)

Highland Council Archives, Highland Archive and Registration Centre,Bught Road, Inverness, Inverness-shire, IV3 5SS: Halcrow Group Ltd,

planning consultants, London: engineer’s drawings and photographs for

Glenmoriston Dam and other projects 1947-1965 (D255)

Huntingdonshire Archives, Huntingdonshire Archives and Local Studies,Huntingdon Library, Princes Street, Huntingdon, PE29 3PA: Builder and

decorator: accounts 1948-1955 (Acc. 5337)

Institution of Civil Engineers, 1-7 Great George Street, London, SW1P3AA: Guy Maunsell & Partners, constructional engineers, Beckenham:

reports and corresp 1950-1980 (Add); Sir Alfred McAlpine & Son Ltd,

building, civil engineering and public works contractors, Hooton: contracts

and related records 1906-1936 (1692)

Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Record Office for, Long Street,Wigston Magna, Leicester, LE18 2AH: J Hawes & Son, builders,

Loughborough: day book recording work done 1930-1949 (DE7963)

London Metropolitan Archives: City of London, 40 Northampton Road,London, EC1R 0HB: Falkner-Wood Ltd, builders, London: administrative

and financial papers incl ledger sheets and building job files 1900-1993

(B10/089, B10/02, B10/164); William Verry Ltd, builders, London: records

1934-2008 (B10/061, B10/182)

National Monuments Record, Enquiry & Research Services, EnglishHeritage, National Monuments Record Centre, Kemble Drive, Swindon,SN2 2GZ: Banister Walton & Co Ltd, steel frame manufacturers, London

125

and Trafford Park, Manchester: album of photographs of steel framed

buildings in construction 1930-1947 (BWS01); Sir Alexander Gibb &

Partners, consulting engineers, London: photograph albums (130) plans and

reports 1940-1989 (GBB01)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Bristow & Copley, timber merchants, Kings Lynn: accounts and

related material 1904-88 (BR 348); Charles Tuthill, builder and contractor,

Fakenham: customer ledgers 1914-39 (BR 350)

North Devon Record Office, North Devon Library and Record Office, TulyStreet, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 1EL: John Lambert Richard, mason,

Appledore: accounts 1893-1903 (A390)

Nottinghamshire Archives, County House, Castle Meadow Road,Nottingham, NG2 1AG: Charles Oxby, painter and decorator, Nottingham:

day book of building work carried out in Nottingham 1911-1912 (7892)

Oxford University: Bodleian Library, Western Manuscripts, Broad Street,Oxford, OX1 3BG: John Stefanidis, interior designer, London: images of

client projects

Oxfordshire History Centre, St Luke’s Church, Temple Road, Cowley,Oxford, OX4 2HT: Axtell & Perry Ltd, stonemasons, Oxford: business

records and corresp 1921-65 (B27); T & S Orchard, builders and

auctioneers, Banbury: records incl ledgers, auction accounts, farm books

and letter books 1854-1933 (Acc 5943)

Peterborough Archives Service, Peterborough Central Library, Broadway,Peterborough, PE1 1RX: J Nicholls, bricklayer, Peterborough: records

c1890-1930 (Acc No: 2010/27)

Southampton Archives Office, South Block, Civic Centre, Southampton,SO14 7LY: Brazier & Sons, builders, Southampton: minutes, financial

records and photographs c1920-99 (D/BRAZ)

Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6ND:

George Statham & Sons, builders, Horsell: payments book 1907-58 (8656);

Charles & Frederick Tice, builders, decorators and contractors, Send:

records incl client ledgers 1911-47 (8706)

West Sussex Record Office, Sherburne House, 3 Orchard Street, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 1RN: Redland Brick Co, Sussex: cinefilm 1931 (Acc

15856)

West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, Central Library, NorthgateHouse, Northgate, Halifax, HX1 1UN: James Wadsworth & Sons, joiners

and funeral directors, Southowram: funeral books 1884-1988 (WYC:1515)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,

Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Parsons Bros, builders and contractors, Westbury and

Dilton Marsh: account book and diary of Frank Parsons 1860-1917 (3848)

Chemicals, oils, plastics, refining and rubber

Derbyshire Record Office, New Street, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3FE:

Coalite & Chemical Products Ltd, London and Chesterfield: corresp,

photographs, operational and production records rel to production sites in

Bolsover, Doncaster and East Greenwich, advertising files incl original

artwork, directors’ speeches 1900-1999 (D7350)

Dumfries and Galloway Archives, Archive Centre, 33 Burns Street,Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, DG1 2PS: Uniroyal Ltd (formerly North British

Rubber Co Ltd), rubber goods and chemical manufacturers, Newbridge:

minutes, share, financial and staff records, etc 1856-1986 (GGD701)

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Permali Gloucester Ltd, manufacturers of composites: annual reports

and accounts, photographs films and papers 1930-1989 (D11937)

Hull History Centre (Hull City Archives), Worship Street, Hull, HU2 8BG:

United Premier Oil & Cake Co Ltd, London: recipe book 1881-1897 (C

DIMM)

Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Record Office for, Long Street,Wigston Magna, Leicester, LE18 2AH: John Bull Rubber Co Ltd, motor and

cycle tyre manufacturers, Leicester: supplied and received invoices and list

of companies traded with c1910-59 (DE7889)

Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, Liverpool Road,Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FP: Hardman & Holden Ltd, chemical

manufacturers, Clayton: records incl minute books, accounts, articles of

association, trade literature, photographs and wage rates 1916-1998

(2010.72)

Sandwell Community History and Archives Service, Smethwick Library,High Street, Smethwick, B66 1AA: Joseph Batson & Co Ltd, manufacturers

of greases, Tipton: ledgers, journals and day books, annual summaries of

shares, inventory of stock, wages book, title deeds c1841 - 1965 (acc

2010/37)

Co-operative societies

Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Unit 3, Clare Place, Coxside,Plymouth, Devon, PL4 0JW: Plymouth Co-operative Society: minutes,

accounts and papers 1711-1992 (3629)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,

126

Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: New Swindon Co-operative and Industrial Society:

records incl successor bodies 1860-1999 (3919)

Worcestershire Record Office, County Hall Branch, County Hall, SpetchleyRoad, Worcester, WR5 2NP: Co-operative Retail Services Limited: regional

reports for south and west Wales and Worcester 1971-1991 (BA15204)

Electrical, electronics and telecommunications

Barnet Local Studies and Archives, Hendon Library, The Burroughs,London, NW4 4BQ: Standard Telephones & Cables Ltd, London: reports,

newsletters, Southgate site plans, visitor books, photographs 1925-1984

(Ms 23004)

Cambridgeshire Archives, RES 1009, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3 0AP:

Pye Unicam Ltd, scientific instrument manufacturers, Cambridge: general

register, inventory and misc records rel to predecessor company, WG Pye

of Cambridge 1929-1938 (R110/016)

Cumbria Record Office, Kendal, County Offices, Kendal, Cumbria, LA94RQ: Westmorland & District Electricity Supply Co Ltd: records 1933-39

(WDB 150)

Greenwich Heritage Centre, Artillery Square, Royal Arsenal, London, SE184DX: Siemens Engineering Society: corresp and records 1897-2009

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Laurence, Scott & Electromotors Ltd, electrical engineers, Norwich:

additional business records incl board minutes, register of members and

photographs c1887-1975 (ACC 2009/377, ACC 2010/187, ACC 2010/260)

Science Museum Library and Archives, Science Museum at Wroughton,Hackpen Lane, Wroughton, Swindon, SN4 9NS: General Electric Company

plc, manufacturers of electrical and electronic equipment, London: Radio

Communications Laboratory, Transmitter Section, technical reports on TR

1464 radio transmitters for aircraft 1944-1945 (E2011.8.1)

Wolverhampton Archives and Local Studies, Molineux Hotel Building ,Whitmore Hill, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, WV1 1SF: Electric

Construction Co Ltd, electrical engineers, Wolverhampton and Bushbury:

visitors book, product book, photograph albums 1900-1950s

Employers, trade and business organisations

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: Bedford Chamber of Trade:

additional records 1984-2000 (Z1414)

Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Cheshire Record Office, Duke Street,

127

Chester, CH1 1RL: Chester and District Junior Chamber of Commerce:

constitution, membership lists, and publications c1964-72 (D 7801)

Dorset History Centre, Bridport Road, Dorchester, DT1 1RP: Blandford

Licensed Victuallers Association: minutes 1969-2004 (D.2239)

Edinburgh City Archives, Department of Corporate Services, City ofEdinburgh Council, City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1YJ:

Edinburgh and Leith Master Plumbers’ Association: records 1911-1970

(Acc 831)

Lambeth Archives Department, Minet Library, 52 Knatchbull Road,London, SE5 9QY: Vauxhall Employers Group and Vauxhall Regeneration

Company: records 1996-2010 (2010/5)

Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2RE:

Preston and District Chamber of Trade: records 1894-2006 (DDX 2792)

Tyne and Wear Archives, Blandford House, Blandford Square, NewcastleUpon Tyne, NE1 4JA: South Shields Business and Professional Women’s

Club: records of Newcastle club 1939-2004 (S.BPW3)

Warwick University: Modern Records Centre, University Library, Coventry,CV4 7AL: Confederation of British Industry: additional records (766)

Engineering, machine making and manufacturing

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: WH Allen, Sons & Co Ltd,

diesel engine manufacturers, hydraulic, mechanical and electrical

engineers, Bedford: further technical drawings, photographs and

publications 1897-1986 (AQ)

Clackmannanshire Archives, Alloa Library, 26-28 Drysdale Street, Alloa,Clackmannanshire, FK10 1JL: Weir Group plc, pump manufacturers:

records from Alloa works incl predecessor companies 1900-1986 (PD 253)

Cumbria Archive and Local Studies Centre, Barrow, 140 Duke Street,Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, LA14 1XW: Vickers-Armstrongs Ltd,

armaments manufacturers, shipbuilders and engineers: registers, photos and

plans 1935-52 (BDX 574)

Derbyshire Record Office, New Street, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3FE: J

Thorp & Son, engineers, Derby: order books 1929-1978 (D7292)

Gwent Record Office, County Hall, Cwmbran, Monmouthshire, NP44 2XH:

Braithwaite & Co Engineering Ltd, Newport: management committee

minutes, correspondence and diaries 1970-99 (D5102)

Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester, Liverpool Road,Castlefield, Manchester, M3 4FP: Crossley Brothers Ltd, engine and pump

128

manufacturers, Manchester: accounts, annual reports, papers rel to

reorganisation of company’s capital structure 1924-1934 (2010.2); Kendall

& Gent (1920) Ltd, machine tool manufacturers, Manchester: engineering

drawings for a plano-milling machine 1960-1970 (2010.3)

Peterborough Archives Service, Peterborough Central Library, Broadway,Peterborough, PE1 1RX: Baker Perkins Ltd, manufacturers of ovens for

bread and confectionery, Peterborough: account books, ledgers, balance

sheets, shareholder information, patent letters, corresp c1880-1940 (Acc

No: 2010/26)

Sheffield Archives, 52 Shoreham Street, Sheffield, S1 4SP: Starweld

Engineering Co Ltd, Sheffield: accounts and directors’ reports 1947-1980s

(X406)

Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, 77 Raingate Street, BurySt Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2AR: Robert Boby Vickers Ltd, grain and seed

cleaning and handling machinery manufacturers, Bury St Edmunds: papers

rel to company and its work 1962-1971 (HC537)

Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch, Gatacre Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP12LQ: James Smyth & Sons Ltd, agricultural implement manufacturers,

Peasenhall: addnl records, incl stock register and corresp 1923-1961 (HC23)

Teesside Archives, Exchange House, 6 Marton Road, Middlesbrough, TS11DB: Pickering’s Lifts, lift and crane makers, Stockton-on-Tees: records

incl photographs 20th cent (6954)

Tyne and Wear Archives, Blandford House, Blandford Square, NewcastleUpon Tyne, NE1 4JA: R & W Hawthorn, Leslie & Co Ltd, ship and engine

builders, locomotive engineers, Newcastle upon Tyne: papers incl order

books and plans 1865-1960 (DS.RSH); Westmoor Engineering Ltd,

Sunderland: wage books, letters and sketch books 1898-1945 (DS.WM)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: WJ Powell, agricultural engineers, Ashton Keynes:

order books, accounts, wages books, corresp and plans 1919-2009 (3859)

Family business and personal papers

Bolton Archive and Local Studies Service, Civic Centre, Le Mans Crescent,Bolton, BL1 1SE: William Hesketh Lever, 1st Viscount Leverhulme,

industrialist: corresp 1913-1925 (ZZ)

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Jones family of Gloucester: papers rel to family employment in

Conway Jones & Co, builders and decorators, Gloucester and papers rel to

First World War service 1888-1919 (D11907)

129

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Martin Richard Green, electrical and

telecommunications worker: diaries rel to business, family and personal

activities with comments on current affairs 1975-96 (142A10); James

Hinwood, veterinary surgeon and shopkeeper, Over Wallop: ledger, with

related cuttings and family history c1877-1977 (79A10)

Lincolnshire Archives, St Rumbold Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB: Jack Pugh,

construction engineer: records incl personal papers and rel to extension and

reconstruction work of the Ruston-Bucyrus Ltd works on Beevor Street,

Lincoln 1950-1979 (MISC DON 1581)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Appleton family of Saxlingham Thorpe and Ellingham: family

papers incl veterinary receipt books of John Appleton (1837-40), corresp

and farm accounts c1837-1975 (ACC 2010/166)

Nottinghamshire Archives, County House, Castle Meadow Road,Nottingham, NG2 1AG: Harold Edmund Mettham, newsagent and police

officer: personal papers incl City Police reports and business records for

newsagents at Dunkirk, Nottingham and autobiography 1938-2009 (7849)

National Library of Scotland, Manuscript Collections, George IV Bridge,Edinburgh, Midlothian, EH1 1EW: Charles Baird, engineer: personal and

family papers 1792-1867 (Acc.13204)

Food, drink and tobacco

Barnsley Archive and Local Studies Department, Barnsley Central Library,Shambles Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2JF: RT Willis, food

distributors, Barnsley: minutes and financial records 1963-1991 (A/3252/B)

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: Butcher, Keysoe: accounts for

unidentified butcher, presumably Eli Stanton and later Herbert Stanton 20th

cent (Z1419)

Cambridgeshire Archives, RES 1009, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3 0AP:

Chivers & Sons Ltd, jam manufacturers, Histon: records, incl index of

employees, publications and photographs c1890-1970 (R110/009)

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury,Buckinghamshire, HP20 1UU: Butcher, Chesham: ledgers 1799-1927 (D-X

1917)

Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6YT: Howards

Dairies, Westcliff-on-Sea: directors minutes 1917-1954 (D/F 314)

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos Parc

130

Morgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: Cardiff District

Super Aeration Ltd: letter book (D687); Spillers & Bakers Ltd, grain

millers, Cardiff: trade agreements and licenses 1877-1913 (D684)

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, CHR002, County Hall, PegsLane, Hertford, SG13 8EJ: The Shredded Wheat Co Ltd, cereal

manufacturers, Welwyn Garden City: minutes, directors attendance books,

register of members and share ledger, register of salaries and directors fees,

pamphlets and photographs 1908-1992 (Acc 4892, 4988)

Hull History Centre (Hull University Archives), Worship Street, Hull, EastYorkshire, HU2 8BG: Needler & Co Ltd, confectioners, Hull: photographs

and journals 1920-1960s (U DX/339)

Liverpool Record Office, Unit 33, Wellington Employment Park South,Dunes Way (off Sandhills Lane), Liverpool, L5 9ZS: J Bibby & Sons, grain

millers, Liverpool: corresp and ephemera c 1920-30 (380 BIB)

London Metropolitan Archives: City of London, 40 Northampton Road,London, EC1R 0HB: Associated British Foods Pension Scheme: records

incl minutes, annual reports, financial papers, property and death registers,

trust deeds, trustees’ and chairman’s corresp 1930-2006 (LMA/4545)

North Devon Record Office, North Devon Library and Record Office, TulyStreet, Barnstaple, Devon, EX31 1EL: Torridge Vale Dairies Ltd, clotted

cream, butter and condensed milk manufacturers: corresp papers and

photographs incl records of predecessor companies 1885-1983 (A396)

Peterborough Archives Service, Peterborough Central Library, Broadway,Peterborough, PE1 1RX: W Williamson Ltd, confectioners, Peterborough:

typescript history of company with photographs and typescript

autobiography by William Felce Williamson 1865-1965 (Acc No: 2010/29)

Plymouth and West Devon Record Office, Unit 3, Clare Place, Coxside,Plymouth, Devon, PL4 0JW: Henry Nicholls, butcher, Plymouth: bills and

invoices, ration books and corresp with Ministry of Food re rationing 1937-

1941 (3696)

Surrey History Centre, 130 Goldsworth Road, Woking, Surrey, GU21 6ND:

LR Derisley, butchers, West Byfleet: additional records incl ledgers, stock

valuations and debt records 1916-92 (8339)

Funeral directors and undertakers

Dudley Archives and Local History Service, Mount Pleasant Street,Coseley, Dudley, WV14 9JR: J Hartland & Sons, funeral directors, Bilston:

funeral books, accounts, deeds, papers rel to land in Sedgley, other papers

1802-2010 (ACC 9621)

131

Jersey Archive, Jersey Heritage Trust, Clarence Road, St Helier, Jersey,JE2 4JY: Pitcher & Le Quesne, funeral directors, St Helier: funeral records

and accounts 1820-1989 (JA/1732)

Furniture

Bath Record Office, Guildhall, High Street, Bath, BA1 5AW: Frank Keevil

& Sons, furniture manufacturers, Bath: further records incl accounts,

corresp, plans and sketches 20th cent (853)

Bristol Record Office, ‘B’ Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS16XN: James Phillips & Sons Ltd, house furnishers, Bristol: photographs and

papers incl Phillips family papers 1877-1973 (44439)

Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2RE: HJ

Berry & Sons Ltd, chair manufacturers, Chipping: accounts and misc

records 1949-2008 (DDX 2796)

Gas

Barnsley Archive and Local Studies Department, Barnsley Central Library,Shambles Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2JF: Barnsley Gas Co:

records 1925-1961 (A/3291/Z)

Dumfries and Galloway Archives, Archive Centre, 33 Burns Street,Dumfries, Dumfriesshire, DG1 2PS: Moffat Gas Light Co Ltd: gas

consumers ledger, quarterly accounts 1939-1946 (PU3/842/7/18)

Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6YT:

Colchester Gas Light & Coke Co: cash book 1924-1932 (D/F 27/2/28)

West Sussex Record Office, Sherburne House, 3 Orchard Street, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 1RN: Woodall-Duckham Ltd, gas engineers and retort

manufacturers: records rel to Crawley works 20th cent (Acc 15726)

Glass, earthenware and pottery

East Riding of Yorkshire Archives and Local Studies Service, The TreasureHouse, Champney Road, Beverley, HU17 9BA: Hornsea Pottery: records

1958-2000 (DDPH)

North Yorkshire County Record Office, Malpas Road, Northallerton, NorthYorkshire, DL7 8TB: Bedale Gas Co: records incl minutes and accounts

1835-1934 (ZZB)

Hotels, inns and public houses

Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, 77 Raingate Street, BurySt Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2AR: One Bull public house, Bury St Edmunds:

132

account books, deeds and misc papers 1902-2009 (HD3129)

West Sussex Record Office, Sherburne House, 3 Orchard Street, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 1RN: Royal Norfolk Hotel, Bognor Regis: visitors’

books 1919-40 (AM 370)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Oxford Hotel, Chippenham: visitors’ book 1944-

1953 (3854)

Iron, steel and metal trades

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: Britannia Iron & Steel Works

Ltd, malleable iron castings mfrs: additional business records 20th cent

(Z1413)

Ceredigion Archives, Swyddfa’r Sir, Glan y Mor, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion,SY23 2DE: Belle Vue Hotel, Aberystwyth: records incl deeds 1813-94

(ABM/10)

Evan John Davies, blacksmiths, Llandysul: account books 1929-37

(DB/84)

Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Cheshire Record Office, Duke Street,Chester, CH1 1RL: N Greening & Sons Ltd, wire manufacturers,

Warrington: board minutes, private wages book and other records 1883-

1938 (D 7888)

Cumbria Archive and Local Studies Centre, Whitehaven, Scotch Street,Whitehaven, Cumbria, CA28 7NL: British Steel Corporation: records incl

registers, minutes, corresp, accounts, papers rel to scrapping of plants c

1930-2009 (YBSC)

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,Devon, EX2 7NL: Bodley Brothers & Co Ltd, ironfounders and engineers,

Exeter: additional corresp, plans, reports and accounts 1850-1963 (7814);

Finch Foundry, Okehampton: records (7853)

Edinburgh City Archives, Department of Corporate Services, City ofEdinburgh Council, City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1YJ:

Brown Brothers & Co Ltd, ironfounders, hydraulic and general engineers,

Edinburgh: drawings of several Royal Navy vessels (Acc 800); James Gray

& Son Ltd, manufacturing ironmongers and electrical engineers,

Edinburgh: minutes, account books 1869-1986 (Acc 828)

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: D Morgan Rees &

Sons Ltd, wire rope makers, Cardiff: papers rel to establishment of the

133

company, advertising material including a black and white film ‘Knowing

the Ropes’ and newspaper cuttings 1931-1962 (D683)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: David Lovewell, blacksmith, Bergh Apton: accounts 1880-1925 (BR

347)

Northamptonshire Record Office, Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN48BQ: Groom & Tattersall Ltd, ironfounders and engineers, Towcester:

accounts, photographs, factory inspection reports 1876-1942 (2010/154)

Rotherham Archives and Local Studies, Central Library, Walker Place,Rotherham, S651JH: Hattersley Bros, iron founders and radiator

manufacture, Swinton: board minutes and title deeds c1878-1980 (874-B)

St Helens Local History and Archives Library, Central Library, GambleBuilding, Victoria Square, St Helens, Lancashire, WA10 1DY: John Roby

Ltd, brassfounders, Rainhill: records 1868-2004 (RO)

Sheffield Archives, 52 Shoreham Street, Sheffield, S1 4SP: JR Bramah & Co

Ltd, aircraft, motor and general sheet metal workers, Sheffield: accounts,

trade catalogues, papers rel Second World War c1867-1975 (X440); Dyson

Refractories Ltd, refractory manufacturers, Sheffield: laboratory research

reports 1956-1998 (X428)

Jewellery and clocks

Cornwall Record Office, Old County Hall, Truro, Cornwall, TR1 3AY:

Arthur Trewin, jeweller and gunsmith, Launceston: business receipts 1891-

1918 (AD2041)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Metamec Clocks, East Dereham: misc records and ephemera 20th

cent (ACC 2010/196)

Leather and footwear

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: William Brice Johnson,

shoemaker, Ampthill: accounts 1852-71 (Z/1423)

Bolton Archive and Local Studies Service, Civic Centre, Le Mans Crescent,Bolton, BL1 1SE: William Walker & Sons Ltd, tanners, Bolton: photograph

albums c 1940-1950 (ZWW)

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, County Hall, Walton Street, Aylesbury,Buckinghamshire, HP20 1UU: Thomas Harding, cordwainer, Marsh

Gibbon: accounts 1821-62 (D-X 1929)

Ceredigion Archives, Swyddfa’r Sir, Glan y Mor, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion,

134

SY23 2DE: William Pugh & Co, bootmakers, Aberystwyth: account book

1930-32 (DB/83)

North Yorkshire County Record Office, Malpas Road, Northallerton, NorthYorkshire, DL7 8TB: Sample family, shoe and boot makers, Kirkby

Moorside: account and cash books 19th-20th cent (Z.1352)

Northamptonshire Record Office, Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN48BQ: S Patrick Ltd, leather merchants, Kettering: day books, purchase

ledger, sales ledgers, cash book and stock book 1906-1934 (2010/16)

Leisure, recreation and art

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,Devon, EX2 7NL: Exon Audio, recording business, Exeter: recordings and

associated papers 1960-1985 (7781 7807)

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: De La Warr Pavilion, entertainment venue, Bexhill:

records 1930-2006 (10599); SculptureCo Ltd, event organisers, Lewes:

papers incl publicity material and minutes 1999-2007 (10521)

Hull History Centre (Hull University Archives), Worship Street, Hull, EastYorkshire, HU2 8BG: Out of Joint Ltd, touring theatre company, London:

additional papers and digital records c1980-2004 (U OJO)

Nottinghamshire Archives, County House, Castle Meadow Road,Nottingham, NG2 1AG: Ritz Cinema, Clipstone: financial records c1923-

1968 (7872)

University of Bristol: Theatre Collection, Department of Drama, CantocksClose, Bristol, BS8 1UP: Crucible Theatre & Sheffield Repertory Co: cast

lists, press cuttings, seating plans and other material (2010/97, 2010/105);

Osiris Players, all-female theatre group: records (2010/0094); Prospect

Productions Ltd: memorandum and articles of association, financial

information, proposals, programmes and ephemera (2010/46)

Medical and pharmaceuticals

East Kent Archives Centre, Enterprise Business Park, Honeywood Road,Whitfield, Dover, Kent, CT16 3EH: William Jenner & Co, pharmaceutical

chemists, Sandgate: prescription register 1895-1903 (EK/U250)

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: BA Davies,

chemist, Rumney: prescription book, dangerous drugs register, cash book

and VAT returns book 1951-88 (D747); Stanley Baldwin Edwards,

pharmacist and dispensing chemist, Cadoxton-juxta-Barry: prescription

135

register and account books 1921-1957 (D680)

Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies, CHR002, County Hall, PegsLane, Hertford, SG13 8EJ: Sidney Herbert Atkins, chemists, Stanstead

Abbots: prescription books (2) 1922-1933 (Acc 4876)

Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2RE:

Smith & Nephew Ltd, medical devices manufacturers, London: records nd

(DDX 2813)

Sheffield Archives, 52 Shoreham Street, Sheffield, S1 4SP: Job Preston Ltd,

chemists, Sheffield: general prescription books 1879-1892 (X439)

Strathclyde University Archives, Andersonian Library, 101 St James Road,Glasgow, G4 0NS: John Baxter (Chemists) Ltd, Cambuslang: records

c1920-1989 (Accession 1146)

Wellcome Library, Archives and Manuscripts Section, 183 Euston Road,London, NW1 2BE: Portable Radiographics Limited: records incl those of

subsidiary companies and company founder JC Wilson incl minutes and

agendas, diaries and photographs c1920-1959 (SA/PRL)

Merchants, traders and dealers

Barnsley Archive and Local Studies Department, Barnsley Central Library,Shambles Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2JF: Fox family, wine and

spirit merchants, Barnsley: records incl letters and photographs c1800-1999

(A/3255/F)

Cambridge University Library, Department of Manuscripts and UniversityArchives, West Road, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, CB3 9DR: Henry Eaden

& Co, wine merchants, Cambridge: account book 1830-1845 (MS Add.

9867); Jardine, Matheson & Co Ltd, merchants in China and the Far East:

corresp and related papers from China c1905-1941 (MS Jardine Matheson

(additional)); Jardine Skinner & Co, tea, jute and rubber merchants,

Calcutta: corresp (2 vols) 1847-1849 (MS Jardine Skinner (additional))

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: Elphick & Son Ltd, corn and seed merchants, Lewes:

records 1883-1992 (10638)

Edinburgh City Archives, Department of Corporate Services, City ofEdinburgh Council, City Chambers, High Street, Edinburgh, EH1 1YJ:

David John Somervail, corn merchant, Leith: ledgers and account books

1826-1877 (Acc 809)

Glasgow University Archive Services, 13 Thurso Street, Glasgow, G11 6PE:

James Finlay & Co Ltd, tea planters, cotton manufacturers and East Indies

merchants, Glasgow: photographs of premises and staff 20th cent (ACCN 3452)

136

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Hay, fodder and corn merchant, Norfolk: ledger with entries rel to

Norfolk, Suffolk and parts of London 1870-71 (ACC 2010/150)

Northamptonshire Record Office, Wootton Hall Park, Northampton, NN48BQ: F Williams, coal merchants, Towcester: records incl papers rel to GB

Preedy, drapers, Towcester (1899-1902) c1850-1950 (2010/61)

Nottinghamshire Archives, County House, Castle Meadow Road,Nottingham, NG2 1AG: G Clower & Son, coal merchants and haulage

contractors, Nottingham: receipt and wages books 1800-1999 (7806)

Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1 2AQ: RT

Lightwood, coal merchant: records incl business balance sheets and ledger

showing local colliers 1930-1997 (8082)

Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich Branch, Gatacre Road, Ipswich, Suffolk, IP12LQ: CK Squirrell & Sons Ltd, corn merchants, Bildeston: financial

records 1908-1986 (HC494)

Suffolk Record Office, Lowestoft Branch, The Library, Clapham Road,Lowestoft, Suffolk, NR32 1DR: LW Waller, fish merchants, Lowestoft:

wage and salary books (4), balance sheets and accounts, and misc papers

1948-1993 (1704)

Mining and extractive

Aberdeen University, Special Libraries and Archives, Library and HistoricCollections, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, Aberdeen, AB24 3SW:

Craigenlow Quarries Ltd, Dunecht: minute books, slides and films 1946-

1979 (Acc 477)

Barnsley Archive and Local Studies Department, Barnsley Central Library,Shambles Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2JF: Elsecar Colliery:

ledger 1839 (A/3299/B)

Carmarthenshire Archive Service, Parc Myrddin Richmond Terrace,Carmarthen, Carmarthenshire, SA31 1DS: D Davies & Sons Ltd,

quarrymen, Llansawel: ledgers, cash books and contracts 1931-1956 (8139)

Lancashire Record Office, Bow Lane, Preston, Lancashire, PR1 2RE:

Cliviger Coal & Coke Co Ltd: minutes 1867-1946 (DDX 2805)

London Metropolitan Archives: City of London, 40 Northampton Road,London, EC1R 0HB: Rio Tinto-Zinc Corporation, mine owners, London:

minutes, annual reports, corresp, financial records and files of

subsidiary/predecessor companies 1828-2009 (LMA/4543)

Pembrokeshire Record Office, The Castle, Haverfordwest, Pembrokeshire, SA612EF: Newgale Colliery: record book with a small plan 1791-1910 (HDX/1813)

137

West Glamorgan Archive Service, Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road,Swansea, SA1 3SN: Glenavon Garw Collieries Ltd: records incl cost books

1921-1945 (D/D GGC)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Bath & Portland Stone Firms Ltd, quarry owners:

minutes, corresp, quarry plans and papers 1888-2005 (3385)

Motor vehicle and related industries

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: Vauxhall Motors UK, car

manufacturers, Luton: staff magazines and advertising material 20th cent

(Z1409)

Peterborough Archives Service, Peterborough Central Library, Broadway,Peterborough, PE1 1RX: Bowerings Garage Ltd, Peterborough: records

1938-1981 (Acc No: 2010/24)

Paper and packaging

Borthwick Institute for Archives: University of York, University of York,Heslington, York, YO10 5DD: William Sessions Ltd, self adhesive label

manufacturers, York: records c1811-2010 (SoY)

Glasgow University Archive Services, 13 Thurso Street, Glasgow, G11 6PE:

Somerville & Morrison Ltd, waterproof and protective paper

manufacturers, Glasgow: memoranda and articles of association, private

ledgers, accounts, corresp, building plans 20th cent (ACCN 3502)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Portals Ltd, bank-note paper makers,

Odiham and Laverton: staff newsletters 1968-2007 (162A10)

Retail

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives Service, Riverside Building, BoroughHall, Cauldwell Street, Bedford, MK42 9AP: Beavis Ltd, china and gift

retailers, Bedford and Newport: records rel to shops 20th cent (Z1399)

Cambridgeshire Archives, RES 1009, Shire Hall, Cambridge, CB3 0AP: A

Colin Lunn, tobacconists, Cambridge: minutes, register of shareholders,

sales ledgers, day book and misc papers 1909-1991 (R110/008)

Ceredigion Archives, Swyddfa’r Sir, Glan y Mor, Aberystwyth, Ceredigion,SY23 2DE: J R Jones, grocers, Aberystwyth: accounts ledger 1868-73

(BB/85)

Cumbria Record Office, Kendal, County Offices, Kendal, Cumbria, LA9

138

4RQ: Barnard Gregg, grocer and draper, Bowness-on-Windermere: day

book 1814-30 (WDB 151)

Denbighshire Record Office, 46 Clwyd Street, Ruthin, Denbighshire, LL151HP: Williams & Sons, shoe shop, Ruthin: customer accounts and work

book 1917-1960 (DD/DM/1728) East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings,Castle Precincts, Lewes, East Sussex, BN7 1YT: Bow Windows Bookshop,

Lewes: records 1960-2010 (10692); Village shop, Rodmell: day books

1865-83 (10604)

Falkirk Council Archives, History Research Centre, Callendar House,Callendar Park, Falkirk, FK1 1YR: Charles Ure, grocer, Falkirk: spirit

account book 1833-1864 (A1856) Glamorgan Archives (formerlyGlamorgan Record Office), Clos Parc Morgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff,Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: Bowles & Son Ltd, tobacconists, Cardiff:

photographs and publicity brochures 1924-39 (D417)

Herefordshire Record Office, Harold Street, Hereford, HR1 2QX: Harding

Brothers, ironmongers, Hereford: business and personal documents 1836-

1934

Highland Council Archives, Highland Archive and Registration Centre,Bught Road, Inverness, Inverness-shire, IV3 5SS: Robert Rutherford &

Sons, drapers, Helmsdale: records incl ledgers, account book and letter

book c1853-1911 (D1224)

Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland, Record Office for, Long Street,Wigston Magna, Leicester, LE18 2AH: Edgar Sprigg, mobile green grocer,

Leicester: invoices, personal papers, accounts 1937-1971 (DE7979)

Liverpool Record Office, Unit 33, Wellington Employment Park South,Dunes Way (off Sandhills Lane), Liverpool, L5 9ZS: Lewis’s Ltd,

department store, Liverpool: records 19th-20th cent (Acc 6389)

Perth and Kinross Council Archive, AK Bell Library, 2-8 York Place, Perth,Perthshire, PH2 8EP: James Fleming, general drapers, Blairgowrie:

records c1920-1953 (10/38)

Tyne and Wear Archives, Blandford House, Blandford Square, NewcastleUpon Tyne, NE1 4JA: Allen’s Department Store, South Shields: director’s

minutes 1963 (DX1376)

West Sussex Record Office, Sherburne House, 3 Orchard Street, Chichester,West Sussex, PO19 1RN: AR Taylor, grocer, Harting: sales ledgers, with

later notes on content by Mr H Sladden 1911-19 (Acc 15193)

Shipping and shipbuilding

Bristol Record Office, ‘B’ Bond Warehouse, Smeaton Road, Bristol, BS1

139

6XN: Charles Hill & Sons Ltd, shipbuilders and repairers, shipowners,

Bristol: articles of agreement with George Hillhouse, ship builder and

owner, Bristol 1825 (44372)

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: Abbey Line

Shipping Co, Cardiff: general and petty cash books 1931-1936 (D686);

Bute Shipbuilding, Engineeering & Dry Dock Co Ltd, Cardiff: minutes of

shareholders’ meetings 1883-1957 (D746)

North Yorkshire County Record Office, Malpas Road, Northallerton, NorthYorkshire, DL7 8TB: Cochrane Shipbuilders Ltd, Selby: papers, wage

books and shipping plans 20th cent (ZZU)

Southampton Archives Office, South Block, Civic Centre, Southampton,SO14 7LY: Vosper Thornycroft Ltd, shipbuilders and engineers,

Portsmouth: registers of negatives 1912-71 (D/VT)

Tyne and Wear Archives, Blandford House, Blandford Square, NewcastleUpon Tyne, NE1 4JA: Brigham & Cowan Ltd, ship repairers, South

Shields: dock engagement book 1914-1941 (DX103)

West Glamorgan Archive Service, Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road,Swansea, SA1 3SN: Swansea Harbour Trust: ledger relating to repairs and

plans of Swansea docks 1820-1840, 1865-1894 (D/D/Z 7861 and 810)

Solicitors

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,Devon, EX2 7NL: Symes & Robinson, solicitors, Crediton: additional

deeds, wills and papers 1800-1999 (7870)

Dorset History Centre, Bridport Road, Dorchester, DT1 1RP: Boodle,

Hatfield & Co, solicitors, Westminster: papers rel to legal charges for work

done on the death of Lord Stalbridge 1938 (D/BHD)

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: Attree & Sons, solicitors, Brighton: additional letters

1806-48 (10465)

East Sussex Record Office, The Maltings, Castle Precincts, Lewes, EastSussex, BN7 1YT: Fitzhugh Gates, solicitors: deeds, with papers of Charles

Wolley, former partner 16th-20th cent (10611); H & R Hughes, solicitors,

Hailsham: client papers 19th-20th cent (10509)

Essex Record Office, Wharf Road, Chelmsford, Essex, CM2 6YT: Crick &

Freeman, solicitors, Maldon: clients deeds and papers, incl altered tithe

apportionments and tithe redemption certificates for Purleigh and papers rel

to Maldon Loan Co 1750-1950 (A12915)

140

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Baileys, solicitors, Cheltenham: deeds, client and business papers

1700-1999 (D11106)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Lamb Brooks, solicitors, Basingstoke: office

disbursements book with client papers 16th-20th cent (149A10)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Eversheds, solicitors, Norwich: additional business records and client

papers 19th-20th cent (ACC 2010/102); Pomeroy & Son, solicitors,

Wymondham: deeds and papers of founding partner John Mitchell and

various clients, including deeds to land in Attleborough, Dickleburgh

(1309-1509), accounts of William Rose for groceries supplied to Mrs P.

Rose (1805-17), farming diaries of Robert Mason at Wymondham and later

at Marham (1812-34) 1309-1944 (ACC 2010/204, ACC 2010/242)

Suffolk Record Office, Bury St Edmunds Branch, 77 Raingate Street, BurySt Edmunds, Suffolk, IP33 2AR: Gross & Co, solicitors, Bury St Edmunds:

diaries of Charles Gross, deeds and rel papers 19th cent (HB504)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Forrester & Forrester, solicitors, Malmesbury: firm’s

accounts and additional Wiltshire client papers 19th-20th cent (3855)

Textiles, carpets and clothing

Bolton Archive and Local Studies Service, Civic Centre, Le Mans Crescent,Bolton, BL1 1SE: Bolmoor Industries Ltd, news bag and workwear

manufacturers, Bolton: records 1913-2007 (ZZ)

Derbyshire Record Office, New Street, Matlock, Derbyshire, DE4 3FE:

Robinson & Sons Ltd, textile and packaging manufacturers, Chesterfield:

annual accounts and financial statements c1962-2008 (D5395)

Devon Record Office, Great Moor House, Bittern Road, Sowton, Exeter,Devon, EX2 7NL: Wippell Brothers & Rowe, clerical outfitters, robe

makers and church furnishers, Exeter: accounts and papers 1800-1999 (7788)

Dundee University Archive, Records Management and Museum Services,Tower Building, Dundee, Angus, DD1 4HN: Don Brothers, Buist & Co Ltd,

jute and flax spinners and manufacturers, Dundee: Buist family personal

and business papers c1806-1945 (2010/398)

Glasgow University Archive Services, 13 Thurso Street, Glasgow, G11 6PE:

J & P Coats (UK) Ltd, thread manufacturers, Glasgow: title deeds for the

Ferguslie and Anchor mills, Paisley, and related papers 1772-1964 (ACCN

3476)

141

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Powell & Son, tailors, Wotton-under-Edge: customer account books,

sales ledgers and papers 1905-1977 (D11660)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Nathaniel Hinves, gentlemen’s outfitter,

Lyndhurst: sales ledger and memorandum book c1824-38 (159A10)

Heriot-Watt University Archive, Records Management and MuseumService, Mary Burton Centre, Cameron Smail Library, Heriot-WattUniversity, Riccarton, Edinburgh, Midlothian, EH14 4AS: Kemp, Blair &

Co Ltd, woollen dyers and finishers, Galashiels: records c1890-1969 (KB);

William Wilson & Son, tartan manufacturers, Bannockburn: tartan pattern

book c1830 (GH)

West Yorkshire Archive Service, Calderdale, Central Library, NorthgateHouse, Northgate, Halifax, HX1 1UN: Bairstow, Cawthra & Co,

commission weavers, Halifax: sales ledger, wage records, day book,

purchase journal, order books c1947-1989 (WYC:1530); Cinderhill

Spinning Co Ltd, cotton waste spinners, West Yorkshire Archive Service,Calderdale, Central Library, Northgate House, Northgate, Halifax, HX11UN: Todmorden: register of members and share ledger, minutes, nominal

ledger, wage books 1923-1999 (WYC:1510)

Transport

Aberdeen City Archives, Old Aberdeen House Branch, Old AberdeenHouse, Dunbar Street, Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, AB24 3UJ: John Shirras,

traction engine owner, Auchinblae: records incl cash book detailing

payments by farms for transporting goods around Kincardineshire, the

Mearns and Aberdeenshire 1906-1925 (DD1514)

Cheshire Archives and Local Studies, Cheshire Record Office, Duke Street,Chester, CH1 1RL: British Rail: Crewe Works staff registers c1950-70 (D

7796)

Cumbria Archive and Local Studies Centre, Barrow, 140 Duke Street,Barrow-in-Furness, Cumbria, LA14 1XW: Furness Railway Co, Barrow-in-

Furness: plan and staff register 1901-23 (BDX 611, BDX 616)

Cumbria Archive and Local Studies Centre, Whitehaven, Scotch Street,Whitehaven, Cumbria, CA28 7NL: British Rail: station working books,

track plans for Carlisle Area, file rel to closures of Sellafield, Moor Row,

Corkickle stations, and other records 1926-1991 (TBR)

Edinburgh University Library, Special Collections, Centre for ResearchCollections, Main Library, George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9LJ: Christian

142

Salvesen Ltd, transport and logistics company, Leith: diaries of Dr IM

Macintosh when with the company 1956-1962 (E2010.32)

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: Great Western

Railway Co: railway share registers of the predecessor companies 1858-

1923 (DNMW/49); South Wales Public Wharf Warehouse & Transit Co

Ltd: company records 1885-1989 (DSWW)

Gwynedd Archives, Meirionnydd Record Office, Ffordd y Bala, Dolgellau,Merionethshire, LL40 2YF: Fairbourne Railway Co: records (Acc No.

6681)

Hampshire Archives and Local Studies, Hampshire Record Office, SussexStreet, Winchester, SO23 8TH: Bursledon Bridge & Road Co: additional

records incl corresp, maps and lists of tolls c1806-2001 (50A10)

Highland Council Archives, Highland Archive and Registration Centre,Bught Road, Inverness, Inverness-shire, IV3 5SS: Highland Railway Co:

records c1890-1970 (D1212)

Liverpool Record Office, Unit 33, Wellington Employment Park South,Dunes Way (off Sandhills Lane), Liverpool, L5 9ZS: Railway Signal Co Ltd,

signal and electrical appliance mfrs, Liverpool: records 19th-20th cent (Acc

6372)

Norfolk Record Office, The Archive Centre, Martineau Lane, Norwich, NR12DQ: Great Eastern Railway Co: North Walsham station records 1890-

1955 (ACC 2010/133)

Shropshire Archives, Castle Gates, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, SY1 2AQ:

British Rail, London Midland Region: records incl train registers for Coton

Hill and Woofferton Junction 1956-1994 (MI8112)

West Glamorgan Archive Service, Civic Centre, Oystermouth Road,Swansea, SA1 3SN: Tennant Canal Co, West Glamorgan: estate records and

papers (D/D T)

Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre, Cocklebury Road, Chippenham,Wiltshire, SN15 3QN: Westinghouse Rail Systems Ltd, Chippenham:

corresp, minutes and papers incl records of related companies 1880-1986

(3886)

Water

Falkirk Council Archives, History Research Centre, Callendar House,Callendar Park, Falkirk, FK1 1YR: Falkirk & Larbert Water Trust: letter

books, accounts, meter survey books 1890-1970 (A1263)

143

Miscellaneous

Glamorgan Archives (formerly Glamorgan Record Office), Clos ParcMorgannwg, Leckwith, Cardiff, Glamorgan, CF11 8AW: BTD (Office

Equipment) Ltd, Cardiff: minutes of board of directors and annual general

meetings, accounts, correspondence, employee records and press cuttings

1941-89 (D719)

Gloucestershire Archives, Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, GL13DW: Landowners Secretarial Services Ltd, Cheltenham: annual general

meeting minutes 1916-1936 (D11939)

Hackney Archives Department, 43 De Beauvoir Road, London, N1 5SQ:

Lesney Products & Co Ltd, toy manufacturers, London: plans of the

Lesney factory 1960-1980 (2010/07)

Lincolnshire Archives, St Rumbold Street, Lincoln, LN2 5AB: Beeton’s

Basket, Hamper, and Perambulator Manufacturers, Barrow upon Humber:

accounts 1865-1875 (MISC DON 1563)

Tyne and Wear Archives, Blandford House, Blandford Square, NewcastleUpon Tyne, NE1 4JA: RTC North Ltd, business support organisation,

Sunderland: reports relating to north east regeneration 1994-2007

(DT.RTC)

144

MIKE ELLIS, Managing and growing a cultural heritage web presence (London: Facet

Publishing, 2011, pp.203, ISBN 978 1 85604 710 4, £49.95)

Led in by Mike Ellis’ trademark enjoyably informal, conversational style, this book

adopts a slightly more formal voice in subsequent chapters, but is highly readable

throughout. Early in the first chapter the author provides a helpful clarification of

‘What this book is not’. It does not provide detailed practical guides to specific

technical topics such as Cascading Style Sheets or improving search engine rankings,

since these are widely available online and in any case change rapidly. Such

knowledge, the author suggests, is best developed through conversations with others

working in this and related fields. And this helpful tip is typical of the advice on offer

in this book, which is based on many years’ experience as a web master in the cultural

sector, and is focused on helping the reader develop their own strategic approach, partly

though ‘providing some insight into the day-to-day activity of keeping your sites up

and running with fresh content as well as the longer term horizon of growing as your

content, visitors and working environment changes.’ Another aspect of the book’s

approach is summarised thus: ‘One of the key themes running through this book is the

examination of the means by which you – as website manager, owner of website or

interested staff member – can move yourself into a position in which you become more

empowered.’

Following the introduction, Chapter 1 ‘Evaluating what you have now’ invites the

reader to do some top level thinking about their current situation, mindful of the fact

that ‘The role of institutions on the web changes constantly’, which is one of the

reasons why the self-reflective approach encouraged in the book is so important. Good

use is made of references to Pew Internet research, The Gartner Hype Cycle and the

‘long tail’ to get across the need for continuous review and reassessment of objectives

and approaches. The approach to taking stock advocated in this chapter includes

assessment of the organisation, the web team, stakeholders, current content generation

systems, metrics and a technology audit.

Chapter 2 offers some ‘ways that you can start to put your site into some kind of

wider context. This chapter looks at some techniques to help you take charge of your

site and begin to step outside of the reactive mode that often overcomes many website

owners.’ Topics such as ‘What should a strategy cover?’, how to structure it and then

how to ‘evolve your strategy’ are covered, with such practical advice as who should

site on the web strategy team and the need for regular strategy reviews. The third

chapter on ‘Content’ deals with the use of web content management systems (WCMS)

and how they can help with the challenge of keeping content fresh and up to date. It

also looks at ‘what it means to have content outside your site, and how this makes your

website into a web presence.’ The importance of dealing with off-website web content

is explored further later in the volume.

Would that more organisations would heed the advice implicit in this statement: ‘It

is an unfortunate fact that many WCMS systems are procured by technical people –

unfortunate not because technical people are deficient in any way, but because it is very

likely that your content is actually going to be provided and edited by non-technical

people.’ The next chapter on ‘Marketing’ covers search engine optimisation to improve

visibility, as well as offline marketing and online marketing. It is backed up by useful

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chapters on traffic and metrics and on the social web.

The chapter on policy and guidelines offers more of the real-world grounded advice

that is one of the key strengths of this book. It is all too easy for web people to get

distracted by the fascinations and challenges of technical activity and miss the value of

internal communication in helping others in the organisation share a common view of

the bigger picture. Much of this chapter, as with a few other areas of the book, seems to

be aimed at those in medium to larger institutions, although the issues are equally

important for smaller organisations. There is more sound practical advice, illustrated by

examples, in Chapter 8 on ‘The website process’, including an overview of project

phases, writing a website brief, defining and addressing target audiences, prioritising

requirements using the MoSCoW approach (Must have, Should have, Could have,

Won’t have), working with external agencies, and so on, concluding with some tips on

budgeting and keeping track of progress against deliverables.

Chapter 9 ‘Away from the browser’ offers a look at specific technologies and

approaches that it would be wise to be aware of, including development for mobile and

Open Data (including references to the Semantic Web, RSS and APIs). These areas are

developing rapidly and updates will be provided at heritageweb.co.uk/book where

various materials referred to in the book are available, based around a list of chapters.

The short final chapter called ‘Pulling it all together’ reviews the content of the book

and offers some ideas for gathering feedback and staying informed. It would have been

useful to have more on audience consultation, either here or in chapter 8, focusing on

its role in guiding ongoing and future developments. Overall though, this is a timely

and very useful guide, drawing on many years’ experience in web development and

management. The easy going style and down to earth approach both contribute to the

overall effectiveness in encouraging self reflection and taking time out from day-to-day

practice to foster strategic thinking and planning. In some places flow diagrams or

similar devices would have been useful in getting across a few particular points and in

general more visual material would have been welcome, such as that which

characterises the author’s inspirational conference presentations. But the book is an

enjoyable read and, more importantly, offers sound advice, tips and practical strategies

that should prove useful to people in a wide range of cultural sector roles involved in

managing and growing web presences.

MARTIN BAZLEY Martin Bazley & Associates

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JENNIE HILL (ed), The future of archives and recordkeeping: a reader (London: Facet

Publishing, 2010, pp.256, ISBN 978 1 85604 666 4, £49.95)

‘The transformation from paper to digital has forced a rethinking of basic approaches

and assumptions about the record or professional mission’ says Richard Cox in his

contribution to this neat volume. Hill has taken this to heart and sets out to provide a

‘reader around concepts and themes’. The book comprises 11 chapters arranged in four

sections: defining archives; shaping a discipline; archives 2.0 – archives in society;

archives in the information age – is there sill a role for the archivist? Hill has lined up a

formidable cast of international heavyweights such as Duranti, Ketelaar and Harris

alongside home-grown talent such as Flinn, Cunningham and herself. With such a

pedigree the reader can expect a lively tour through the archival landscape and they will

not be disappointed. Each author manages to give a succinct and reasonably objective

account of the conditions that have created the current archival climate and the

development of archival thought that has led up to their own views.

‘Defining archives’ gives Lane and Hill the opportunity to introduce the recurrent

theme of the need to apply a post-modernist analysis of the archivist’s role which, for

them, is a move away from some overarching ‘truth’ and the life-cycle model to a

series of ‘micro-narratives’ and the records continuum. In this post-modernist world the

archivist must question the fundamentals of their professionalism in an environment

and record landscape that is continuously changing but where as a consequence the

archivist’s skills of contextualisation become even more important (as Convery agrees).

Breakell explains how, through wide linguistic use, there are now numerous

interpretations of the term ‘archive’ both amongst the public who, as individual archive

users, seek for personalisation of historical resources as archivists aim for

standardisation (though I would say to aid this personalisation). Archives and the past

they recount are regarded by the user as fixed. Yet each user brings their own personal

responses creating a myriad of interpretations. So the archivist’s role is accurately to

contextualise archives to counter that personal response and balance the perspective of

the creator of the record, particularly given the changing nature of digital records and

how easily they can be removed from their original context. Archivists also

contextualise how the users work with archives to meet their needs. Buchanan looks at

how other professions view archives and the potential for interdisciplinary

understanding and discovery through archives, as long as the archive profession is open

to contemplating new definitions.

In ‘Shaping a discipline’ Duranti gives a very clear account of the development of

appraisal theory, notably the rise of contextualisation, and structural and functional

analysis and her own role in drawing in diplomatic analysis. Likewise Ketelaar

provides a neat history of the rise of archival ‘science’ and its shift from a descriptive

to a functional approach although inconclusively decides ‘archivistics’ could be both a

science and an art.

In ‘Archives and society’ archivists are confronted with their potential weaknesses.

Harris provides a rousing and beautiful analogy of ‘archons and angels’ for the

committed archivist and the need for ensuring the ‘surviving trace’ of past life. Theimer

takes the reader on a whistle-stop tour of the internet and Web 2.0 technology and how

this has shifted the archive out into the public arena and given the archivist the

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opportunity to overcome their anonymity through blogging and the like. Flinn shows

how the community archive saves history. Ignored by the mainstream curatorial bodies,

communities are consequently impelled to act as archivists. In so doing they step

outside commonly accepted archival concepts and place greater value on the symbolic

than the functional or evidential value.

‘Archives in the information age: is there still a role for the archivist?’ provides a

resounding ‘Yes’ to its own question. However, Cunningham points out this role is

within a very different landscape of distributed, digital archives where the archivist

must intervene early in the record creation and survival process and support its

management with physical custody being moved to minor concern. Archivists are

moving from passive defenders to interventionist promoters of archives to both record

creating bodies and users. Convery concurs, giving an insightful list of possible roles

for the archivist of the future, optimistic given she also describes how the archivist is

often sidelined in corporate activity despite its core need for good information. Convery

argues for a far greater emphasis on contextualisation whilst Cox focuses on the need

for archivists to drive forward rigorous appraisal techniques.

For the traditionalists this tome is going to be a hard slog. It is made very clear from

the beginning, and is constantly referred to throughout, that we are now operating in a

post-modern world. As Lane and Hill point out, post-modern is difficult to define

precisely. They settle on an interpretation of the world which moves away from a

unified view of society progressing to one end point and the Enlightenment ideal of

human progress, towards a multi-faceted interpretation with accompanying ‘micro-

narratives’ and constant change. Traditional archive practice is simply not fit for

practice in the digital world of interactive users, complex formats and rising volumes.

The Jenkinsonian approach of fixed absolutes and assured certainty once a record

crosses the professional archival threshold is truly dead. One by one the nails are

hammered into the coffin with unnerving finality. Harris, having spent his professional

life at the sharp end of the archival experience in South Africa, completely rejects

Jenkinson’s concept of impartiality and Lane and Hill concur. Convery firmly rejects

the model of the passive archivist. Flinn notes community archives do not seek out

unbroken chains of custody or unquestionable provenance but rather symbolic

resonance. Cunningham points out that access and outreach is now just as important as

physical and moral defence, given the rise of ‘distributed custody’. Indeed, the concept

of custody is questioned by several authors. Duranti is notable by her exception of

praising Jenkinson for identifying authenticity as a key characteristic of a record.

Traditional practice is constantly questioned as the rise of the electronic records

forces us to reconsider professional approaches, recognising we may be moving to

being more advisers than curators and that the user is now king. Convery rejects

traditional selection approaches and argues that archives need to preserve knowledge,

not information, to inform future decision-making. She also highlights the theme

echoed elsewhere in the book that the modern archivist can no longer be passive but

must actively intervene. Theimer provides an admirable summary of the rise of the

internet and Web 2.0 and its archival ramifications with lots of useful examples. The

consequent impact is that archivists need to go to their audiences, rather than the

traditional role of users seeking out the archive. Duranti highlights the impracticality of

the concept of ‘unbroken custody’ for the digital record and the re-invigoration of

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diplomatics. Harris bluntly tells us that ‘what is being described is the mess of the

political in archive (sic)...getting one’s hands dirty is unavoidable’ so bang goes the

impartiality argument (again). Flinn’s analysis of the growing ‘community’ archives

sector challenges the value of traditional professional demarcations and the need for

originality and uniqueness, pointing out that ‘it is the very act of collecting which

ultimately defines the community archive’. Indeed, several authors note that archives

will no longer always inhabit a particular place but that archivists are even more

necessary to bring order to the chaos. But in so doing need to recognise their own

human and professional weaknesses.

There are several calls to arms for the archival profession. Whilst Buchanan

proposes a world of new possibilities if the archive profession is willing to accept other

disciplines’ definitions of archives, Duranti surmises that the archivist needs to be

involved in the record creation process from the point of creation of record keeping

systems i.e. well before the document itself is even conceived. Ketelaar pleads with us

to work into collaborative relationships with other disciplines. Harris makes an elegant

and engaging ‘call to open the archive in a fundamental way to those alienated or

estranged by it’. In so doing such activists will be ‘angels’, rather than purely an

‘archon’, enabling Derrida’s ‘essential criterion’ of effective democratisation of

‘participation in and access to the archive’.

The profession, notably in Britain, gets several sharp sticks to poke it out of its

tendency to avoid theorising, research and philosophical debate in favour of everyday

demands. Hill and Lane bemoan the British attachment to the Jenkinsonian model

whilst Ketelaar gently reminds us ‘practitioners can be theorists too’. Harris starkly

points out the power of the archivist to deny both the historical record and access to the

archive. The ‘archival intervention’ must be thoughtful and democratic he argues,

whatever its scenario. Convery feels that information professionals should each define

their roles more clearly (although whether anyone outside these professions would care

is another matter).

With one small book containing so many ideas it is unsurprising that I found

arguments that raised an eyebrow. For example Convery argues that too often corporate

bodies fail to value their archive as an ‘active knowledge resource’. Whilst I happen to

agree with this opinion to a point, this is a difficult one to argue to outsiders given that

so many companies do not maintain an archive but do succeed in business. Perhaps

they find other ways of obtaining that understanding and if so how? Likewise, there are

some contradictions. Whilst Cox, Duranti and Ketelaar argue for the value of appraisal,

Convery questions the importance of selection and suggests archivists should rather

concentrate on contextualisation to bring some order and understanding for users in a

distributed digital world. It all makes for engaging and relevant debate.

Hill is to be praised for this book. Whilst the primary audience is students I would

strongly promote her secondary audience of practitioners seeking an update. The

subjects covered are highly relevant. The historical overviews of each area of

professional practice and thought are succinct and logical. The writing is engaging and

to the point. I would strongly recommend this book to anyone who has archival

responsibilities, practitioner, manager, even user or depositor - both to understand the

challenges the archive profession faces and to contemplate the wealth of potential

opportunities. Furthermore, the content has a broad reach and whilst drawing its

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examples primarily from the West, South Africa and Australasia, the principles

discussed are central to any archive. To return to Cox, ‘If one is looking for fascinating

challenges, these are good times indeed’. Better take this book with you on your hunt.

ELIZABETH OXBORROW-COWAN Consultant Archivist

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TERRY JENKINS, Sir Ernest Lemon – A Biography (Oxford: Railway & Canal

Historical Society, 2011, pp.272, ISBN 978 0 90146 158 2, Hbk, £24.95)

The subject of this book, Ernest Lemon, rose from poor agricultural labouring stock to

qualify as an engineer, eventually rising through the ranks of the London Midland and

Scottish Railway (LMS) to become a Vice President. His skills as an organiser were

recognised by government and utilised to organise the crash programme of aircraft

production before the Second World War for which he was knighted. The book is

welcome for a number of reasons of which two are particularly important. The first is

that it is assiduously based on archival research, some of it from new and important

sources, which is regrettably not always the case, particularly with railway books. The

second is that its subject is a manager and an engineer. In the United States the early

managerial revolution has been described as the application of engineering principles to

organisation. Lemon is a relatively rare United Kingdom (UK) example of an

engineering career culminating in senior general management who actually fulfilled

this criterion. In company with his peers, Lemon has been largely ignored. The UK

public figure or the entrepreneur gets the biography and the ‘technician’ who made

their career possible gets a footnote.

Terry Jenkins very ably shows that many of the innovations on the LMS which are

routinely ascribed to Josiah Stamp (later Lord Stamp) were instigated, designed and

implemented by Lemon including the reorganisation of carriage and wagon workshops,

the appraisal of the large array of locomotives inherited from amalgamation and their

steady winnowing out, the reorganisation of locomotive maintenance shops and

methods. These were huge organisational tasks conducted with great energy. Jenkins is

right to hint that Stamp should be remembered as someone smart enough to recruit very

able senior managers to do most of the work. (Jenkin’s appraisal of Harold Hartley is

also welcome in this respect. I may add that it was Hartley who introduced the concept

of budgetary control to the LMS and Stamp who reduced it to a crude set of spending

cuts.) At least Lemon’s work on aircraft production was rewarded with the public

recognition of a knighthood.

Jenkins contributes some revelatory detail on Lemon the man, raising questions of

social conventions and hidden lives which could, perhaps, have been further explored.

He was effectively adopted and detached from his labouring family by a middle class

couple who presumably paid for him to become a premium engineering apprentice. His

rise would have been impossible otherwise. The story of the desertion of his wife and

his subsequent partners is evidenced precisely, but any account of the stifling gender

politics and fear of scandal of the times is underdeveloped. But this, perhaps, would

have been another kind of biography. The book is very detailed and will be useful

above all to the transport historian and informed railway and aircraft enthusiast. It does

not follow the clichéd story arc of ‘great man’ biographies and the detail gives a

realistic picture of the task-storm and conflicts of managerial life. This lack of

‘fictionalisation’ however, while utterly virtuous, will not make it an easy read for the

ordinary reader, whoever they might be. As an account of an exceptional engineer and

manager, however, this is a fine achievement.

JOHN QUAIL University of York

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MYRDDIN JOHN LEWIS, ROGER LLOYD JONES, JOSEPHINE MALTBY, and

MARK DAVID MATTHEWS, Personal capitalism and corporate governance(Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, pp.250, ISBN 978 0 7546 5587 9, Hbk, £65.00)

This book is made up of a series of case studies of significant United Kingdom (UK)

steel and engineering firms in the first half of the twentieth century which fall into

Chandler’s ‘personally managed’ category. The authors suggest there is a scholarly

‘gap in the study of the evolution of corporate governance in Britain’ in respect of such

firms. Filling that gap, they say, ‘provides the means for a systematic and critical

examination’ of Chandler’s dominant paradigm ‘that the long run persistence of

personal capitalism shaped the governance of British manufacturing well into the

twentieth century and acted to erode their competitive performance.’

The introduction identifies two key themes for the case studies: firstly the

relationship between personal capitalism and economic performance with emphasis on

the business culture that underlay decisions and structures; and secondly, the nature of

shareholding and the extent of separation of ownership and control and its

consequences for firm governance. The case studies consider Raleigh, Hadfields, BSA,

Alfred Herbert and Greenwood & Batley, which with the exception of the latter, the

authors have variously engaged with before, and are based on considerable archival

work.

The picture that emerges is of companies that initially prosper with charismatic

personal leadership and emerge from the First World War with ready funds for

acquisition and diversification. They then have to ride the booms and slumps of the

interwar years. The stresses of complexity of operation and external shock produce

devolution of power to long serving senior managers who become directors. The formal

structures that are adopted, unitary public or private companies, holding company, and,

in BSA’s case, a divisionalised structure, are all in various degrees typified by over-

centralisation and under-management and directorates which stay in place despite

questionable and declining competence. The best survivors are Raleigh who withdraw

from all diversification and concentrate on bicycles and Alfred Herbert which stuck to

the knitting of machine tools and organic growth, in other words managing within the

limits set by proprietorial competence.

With the exception of Alfred Herbert, which was a private company until 1944, the

dispersal of share ownership meant that in formal terms directorates steadily ceased to

hold a majority of shares. In other words the separation of ownership and control was

well advanced in the UK as Hannah and others have also argued. Yet a case made by

the authors for the consequent increase in the importance of shareholder voice is

sustainable only to a very limited extent – dissident shareholders could be embarrassing

at Annual General Meetings, could marginally increase disclosure, or have to be bought

off – but the board remained impregnable because of general shareholder apathy and/or

loyalty, and the insurmountable logistics of making a possible majority a reality. An

utter lack of transparency on reserves, on the performance of subsidiaries and in group

director recruitment, gave directors wide scope for adventures and the cover-up of

adverse consequences, and the rewards they drew from the company. The only

organisations capable of forcing change on the companies were in fact the banks. The

sections dealing with these issues are the most useful in the book.

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There is regrettably no concluding chapter which systematically addresses the issues

set out in the introduction and readers are rather left to piece things together for

themselves and perhaps consider more Chandlerisms against the evidence provided.

One can see that, whatever the faults set out by the authors in Chandler’s line of

argument, personal ownership leads to large dividend payouts and the consequent

under-resourcing of the firm and poor performance: the performance of the majority of

companies under consideration was poor. It was poor because management skills in

many areas – financial control, developing coherent control structures, integrating

design, production and marketing, for example – were poor. Furthermore attempts by

new managerial blood to improve them were blocked from the top. And top

management, which did the blocking, was the product of personal management

sustained by a widely accepted proprietorial theory of the firm.

We may also observe that managers (as a class?) were advancing. But while they

were arriving on boards in numbers, with an increasing expectation in the senior ranks

below that their time might come too, there was no revolution in structure and methods.

Diversification as a strategy was not followed by structures that enabled it to succeed.

Divisionalisation at BSA was forced on the firm by the Midland Bank and was no

magic bullet. While Chandler’s sunny version of progress and light in corporate

developments in the United States is undoubtedly over-egged, the high degree of

dysfunctionality in UK companies as they passed some threshold of size and

complexity in the interwar years and beyond remains a critical area of study in business

history.

JOHN QUAIL University of York

153

MARY LYNN RITZENHALER, Preserving archives and manuscripts (Chicago:

Society of American Archivists, 2010, pp.525, ISBN 978 1 9316 6632 9, $65.00)

Preserving archives and manuscripts is a new edition of the work first published by the

Society of American Archivists in 1993. It is part of the Archival Fundamental series

which has been used by archive courses in the United States. The world of conservation

and preservation moves along at a fast pace so a second edition is needed to reflect

these changes. The book synthesises a wide-ranging literature into a coherent narrative

in ten chapters and 512 pages. The text is written in a flowing style and it can be read in

a linear way from introduction to index, yet it is probably the author’s intention for the

book to serve as a reference manual for both student and experienced archivist alike.

In the introduction the author states that the preservation of an item is a core

management function and the primary ethical responsibility of archivists, manuscript

curators and other custodians of historical records. Presumably the author intends that

archive conservators and preservation managers form part of the other custodian group.

The target audience for the book can be confusing as some chapters have technical

detail that will appeal to the practising conservator and others have simple common

sense observations with a more general appeal.

The chapter on implementing a preservation programme from its first steps to

evaluating the progress is very useful. It describes how the collections manager or lone

archivist can achieve a great deal within an existing repository to improve procedures

and implement a viable preservation programme. A strategy is clearly set out to initiate

activities commencing with the formulation of a preservation policy through to guiding

planning and resource allocation. A preservation policy is a useful tool for any archival

institution, regardless of size, confirming the commitment to preserving historical

materials. The importance of the assessment of current conditions and practices in order

to establish priorities and goals is stressed explicitly in the volume. The preservation

needs assessment survey is well advocated and the value of data gathering for those

that control the purse strings is strongly argued.

Means are identified for archivists to make an immediate difference in the repository

by making changes in the way archival materials are handled and processed. Costs for

training staff should be relatively small compared to the improvements gained. A

thorough understanding of the building and the needs of a collection is encouraged.

Archival records can be complex physical and chemical objects and Ritzenthaler

provides good information on paper, photographic materials, animal skins and

adhesives, yet there is scant coverage of modern media formats. This could be best

addressed in a separate book.

The causes of deterioration and damage are discussed in an adequate, but fairly

brief, way. The essential message is, however, conveyed that to take measures to slow

natural aging of materials by providing a secure and sympathetic environment should

be paramount.

The benefits of an ongoing environmental monitoring regime, with a mass

preservation approach to extending the life expectancy of archives, are proposed. There

is an understanding accepted by Ritzenthaler that this can be both difficult and costly.

The significance of good housekeeping and creating a preservation environment

includes the education of staff in the correct ways of handling archives, showing a shift

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of emphasis to focus on the physical structure and condition as well as on the context of

the records. Advice is proffered on safe handling practices for all categories and

formats of documents in a comprehensive and informative chapter.

Appropriate storage and housing systems are described in detail. The materials used

to fabricate enclosures are investigated along with the problems posed by loose

oversize objects. Specific packaging techniques for new accessions are explained. This

is important to consider as it may be many years before they can be properly

catalogued. The weeding out of poor quality, acidic packaging materials is advised.

Copying and reformatting archive materials are discussed as useful preservation

tools. It is critical that any preservation copying be carried out correctly on the first

attempt to avoid any deterioration in condition. For the lone archivist, the chapter on

conservation treatment will be invaluable to an understanding of the approach,

philosophy and aims of the archive conservator. It is essential they should develop this

requisite knowledge to be able to ensure adequately the utmost protection of the archive

in his or her charge.

I feel that the glossary is a little superfluous in these days of easy internet access, but

it may be of use to the student archivist. The appendix dealing with basic preservation

procedures, although well written, includes a section on humidifying and flattening

documents which, although a good addition, in theory should perhaps be left to

professional conservators. It is a textbook that works well on the whole; with such an

ambitious work there are bound to be some oversights. The historical conservation

treatments of silking and lamination are dealt with well, but more could be said about

the problems of iron gall ink corrosion. Calcium hydroxide is considered to be too

strong an alkali to be used in de-acidification of manuscripts these days, yet the

importance of preventing damage from sources of light is covered well. Disaster

preparedness is not discussed in sufficient detail. The informational environment for

archivists and conservators has shifted somewhat with some blurring of the boundaries.

The breadth of this book is an illustration of just how wide an encyclopaedic

knowledge is required to be applied in order to preserve our heritage.

MARK ALLEN Flintshire Record Office

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CONTENTS

Regulating the supermarket in 1960s Britain:

exploring the changing relationship of food manufacturers

and retailers through the Cadbury Archive

ADRIAN R. BAILEY

Roche: a Swiss pharmaceutical company in the United Kingdom

ALEXANDER L. BIERI

The Morrison Archives

CAROLINE DAKERS

From acorn to oak: industrial and corporate films in Britain

PATRICK RUSSELL

Puff pieces and circulation scams: middlemen and the making

of the newspaper advertising market, 1881-1901

JONATHAN SILBERSTEIN-LOEB

Obituary: Sharon Quinn-Robinson

Bibliography in business history 2010

Business records deposited in 2010

Book reviews

http://www.businessarchivescouncil.org.uk

ISSN 0007-6538