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Business & Commerce Records information for Berkshire and places above it in the hierarchy

Berkshire

  • General information about Business and Commerce.
  • See also Occupations
  • For books about companies and industries, see Bibliography. 
  • Biscuits. Beer & Bulbs - Reading's old company records, article from the Berkshire Family Historian, Dec 1999.  
  • Many records are held by the RBA but some are un-catalogued.  For catalogued records, use TNA's Discovery advanced search and include "Berkshire Record Office" in the "Exact word or phrase" field, in addition to your own search term(s).   Some un-catalogued records appear on this list and others are listed below:

Berkshire Printing Company, Reading, 1900-2001 (D/EX1667);  Blatch’s Brewery, Theale, 1763-1972 (D/EX 1639);  S & E Collier Ltd of Reading, brick and tile makers, 1902-1964 (R/D 130);  Henry Bird & Sons, brewers of Reading, 1738-1867 (D/EX 1668);  S H Higgs Ltd, brewers of  Reading, 1937-1960s (D/EX 1668);  John Hooper of Reading, pill manufacturer 1787-1849 (D/EX 1830), see also Vol 26 2004 page 3 of the Berkshire Echo;  Strange & Sons, brewers of Aldermaston, 1818-1999 (D/EX 1668);   Thomas Wethered & Sons, brewers of Marlow, Buckinghamshire, 1580-1983 (D/EX 1668);  Heelas & Co of Wokingham, department store 1798-1919 (D/EHS);  Maidenhead Waterworks Company, 1874-1957, and Wokingham District Water Company, 1926-1934 (D/EX 1913).

Check also the links below.

  • Berkshire Industrial Archeology Group (BIAG)  aims to encourage a wider appreciation of industrial archeology and the area's industrial heritage.
  • Agricultural business records of farms and Berkshire firms in agricultural engineering, processing, and farm and garden seed production are held by MERL (part of University of Reading), including: Gascoignes, Reading; Goodenoughs, Reading; Nalder & Nalder Ltd, Wantage;  Suttons Seeds, Reading (see also below); Wantage Engineering Company; Thomas Baker of Newbury;  John Wilder of Reading.
  • Bus Companies - Paul Lacey has published several illustrated books about Berkshire (and other) bus companies.
  • Canals:
    • The RBA have archives of the Kennet and Avon canal and Reading Borough’s register of canal boats, 1879-1921 (see the Berkshire Echo Vol 60, 2012, page 4).
    • Railway & Canal Historical Society. 
    • A Parliamentary Act of 1877 introduced the registration of canal boats to ensure that only the registered number of people lived on them and that conditions on board each boat were maintained at a level considered fit for human occupation.  The registers subsequently created by the Reading Registration Authority are published in the book Reading Registration Authority, Canal Boat Registrations 1879-1921, Eureka Partnership, 16pp, 2018. It contains 53 boat registrations. Each registration includes the name and registration number of the boat, the name of the owner(s), the master’s name, details of the route along which the boat is intended to ply, the nature of the traffic (cargo) the boat is intended to carry, the mode of propulsion and whether it is a ‘narrow’ or ‘wide’ boat. Also the registers give the number and dimensions of the cabins, the date of registration and the maximum number of persons permitted to occupy the boat. Many of the registration pages have additional information regarding the history of the boat.
    • Kennet & Avon Canal:
    • The Wilts & Berks Canal opened in 1810 and linked the Kennet and Avon Canal at Semington near Melksham, to the River Thames at Abingdon. It had a chequered career until its legal closure in 1914, its demise hastened by the collapse of Stanley Aqueduct in 1901. In 1977, restoration of the canal began in a few places by the Wilts and Berks Canal Trust.
    • Barge People of the River Thames, published by The Eureka Partnership, 2007, A5, 56pp.
    • The novel The Cry Of The Heron by Dick Allan (ISBN 0-9533291-2-7) has a background on the River Wey and Basingstoke Canal in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, available from Reading Central Library. 
  • Clifford's Dairy of Bracknell - archives are held by the RBA. The firm started in 1874 in Hounslow, Middlesex, when William Clifford, a gardener’s son, sold milk from his own two cows, delivering them by pails joined with a yoke. By the 1920s it was an enormous regional operation with all the milk being purchased from farms in the Wokingham and Bracknell areas, brought to Hounslow by rail. Bracknell was picked for the site of the firm’s HQ in 1947, with a large modern dairy building and state-of-the-art testing laboratory.  (see the Berkshire Echo Vol 64, 2013, page 4 and Vol 97, Oct 2021).  
  • Cookham Bridge Company operated a private toll bridge over the Thames at Cookham until 1947, when it was nationalised.  Their archives are held by the RBA  (see the Berkshire Echo Vol 60, 2012, page 4).
  • Cox & Wyman printers of Reading, c.1901-2001 (some records DEX2477 are held by the RBA).
  • H Dolton & Sons, grain dealers in Newbury 1840s to 1910s, see article in Berkshire Family Historian, June 2016, Vol 39, page 22.
  • Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Reading Lodge - Two lists of members, one 1855–1891, with notes of their involvement up to 1919, and the other of those wishing to join the Branch 1855– 1863 which gives details of their current and previous employment and the names of those supporting their application. Companies mentioned include William Parsons, Great Western Railway, Huntley and Palmers (see below), and Barrett, Exall & Andrewes (see Reading Iron Works below). Available on line to members only of the Berkshire FHS.  
  • Heelas of Reading is a major department store in Reading, part of John Lewis. Their archives are held in Cookham.
  • Huntley & Palmer began in 1822 as a small bakery in London Street, Reading. In 1846, a new factory on King’s Road was opened and by 1900, the company was the largest biscuit manufacturer in the world and one of Berkshire’s largest employers, employing over 5,000 people. If you have ancestral roots in Reading or the surrounding area in the early 1900s, then you may well have a Huntley and Palmer’s employee. Unfortunately, few records about individual employees survive. Those that do are mostly held at the Reading University Library:
    • Reading Museum collection. 
    • University of Reading archives. 
    • Wikipedia. 
    • Bats, Balls and Biscuits, a brief history of cricket at Huntley and Palmers.  
    • Fire maps of the factory 1929-1941 are held by the RBA (D/EX2116 and D/EX1748/1/10, 14) and records of their football club 1946-1992.
    • Quaker Enterprise in Biscuits: Huntley and Palmers of Reading, TAB Corley, London, Hutchinson, 1972 is available from Reading Central Library. 
    • Their sister company Huntley, Boorne & Stevens tin box manufacturers of Reading (records for 1846-1987 D/EX2870, D/EX 1745 are held by the RBA). It was founded by Joseph Huntley Junior, a relative of the biscuit making family, who made tin boxes for Huntley and Palmer’s biscuits from 1832 onwards. Part of Huntley and Palmer’s success has been credited to the highly decorative and interesting tins produced by Huntley, Boorne and Stevens, a large collection of which may be seen at Reading Museum. The firm also carried out general ironmongery and contracting. Due to the Quaker beliefs of managing director Samuel Beaven Stevens, the firm would not make weapons, but they did manufacture cases for smoke bombs and some of the first steel helmets issued to British troops at the front as well as rations tins during the First World War. The business was sold to Huntley and Palmer’s outright in 1918. The factory finally closed in 2000.
  • Jacksons of Reading - The last independent department store in Reading, its origins lie with the small shop of Henry Fox, clothier, woollen draper and tailor, hatter, hosier and general outfitter, at 6 High Street, Reading, established in 1848. Edward Jackson bought the shop in 1875 and expanded the business, which stayed in the hands of his family until its closure in 2013. Their archives are held by the RBA  (D/EX2414, D/EX2670). See the Berkshire Echo Vol 89, Oct 2019.  
  • Peek Frean (biscuit manufacturers) archives are in the University of Reading archive.
  • Pitman & Bazett, Newbury solicitors, Records 1481-1937 are held by the RBA (D/EPT) .
  • Plenty of Newbury (lifeboats, marine steam engines, and latterly, pumps), 1746-1997 records are held by the RBA (D/EX1739, 1771, 2097, 2240).  See article in Berkshire Family Historian, Dec 2012, Vol 36, page 12. 
  • Railways:
    • Most railway records are held by TNA.
    • The RBA hold only limited records, including: 
      • Some 19th and 20th century photographs and papers relating to Reading and Twyford stations (D/EX 1680). 
      • East Berkshire railways, 1845-1884 (D/EX 1705), including material on the opposition in 1846 to a proposed line (never built) Windsor Slough and Staines Atmospheric Railway.   
      • Also use TNA's Discovery advanced search and include "Berkshire Record Office" in the "Exact word or phrase" field, in addition to your own search term(s).  
      • They hold some books about railways for reference, including some specific to Berkshire.
    • Reading Central Library hold many books about local railway companies and lines.
    • British Railways Pre-Grouping Atlas and Gazetteer, Ian Allan, has maps of the routes served by the railway companies before they were amalgamated, available in Berkshire FHS library.
    • Brunel:  An Engineering Biography by Adrian Vaughan, 2006, ISBN (10) 0 7110 3078 2 and (13) 978 0 7110 3078 7. Provides some detail of the engineering of the Great Western Railway, with drawings and photographs.  Available from Reading Central Library. 
    • My Ancestor was a Railway Worker, Frank Hardy, Society of Genealogists, 2009, A5, 110pp, ISBN 9781907199028, available from Berkshire FHS.  
    • Railway & Canal Historical Society. 
    • Disused Railway Stations has a number of Berkshire railway stations. 
    • Didcot Railway Centre and the Great Western Society. 
    • Museum of the Great Western Railway, including online photographs.  GWR staff records and accident reports are held by TNA, see above.  
    • Great Western Hotel, Reading (now Malmaison Hotel): designed by Brunel, built in 1844, probably the oldest railway hotel in the world still operating, was used as offices by the Ministry of Supply in WW2, see Wikipedia.
    • Lambourn Valley Railway. 
  • Reading Football Club
  • Reading Gas Company and Reading Gas Work
    • Records 1899-1965 are held by the RBA (D/SG 8 & D/EX 1593). 
    • Reading Gas Company 1862 -1912, Douglas H Helps, 1912  available from Reading Central Library and Berkshire FHS library.
    • Gasworker Ancestors: How to Find Out More About Them, a guide to genealogical sources for the British gas industry, A4 booklet available in Berkshire FHS library.
  • Reading Iron Works - Barrett, Exall & Andrews' Reading Iron Works, an article in Berkshire Family Historian, Dec 2010, Vol 34, page 19 describes the life of this agricultural equipment manufacturer 1858 - 1872.
  • Salter’s Steamers (founded in Oxford in 1858 and known for much of its existence as Salter Bros Ltd) did more to popularise pleasure boating on the non-tidal river Thames than any other business. It grew from a leading racing-boat constructor in Wandsworth to become one of the largest inland boat-builders and passenger boat operators in the country.
  • Simond's Brewery was founded in Broad Street, Reading, by William Blackall Simonds in 1785. After a move to Bridge Street, it remained there until 1978 and is one of the reasons Reading was known for the 3 Bs – biscuits, beer and bulbs.  Wikipedia entry.
  • Snares of Minster Street, printers in 19C Reading.  The Snares of Minster Street, the Printer and the Picture, Diana R Mackarill, booklet available from Reading Central Library and Berkshire FHS.  
  • Stuchbery & Son, Windsor solicitors, records 1708 - 1893 are held by the RBA  (D/ESB).
  • Suttons Seeds was formed in 1806 to sell corn, moved to Market Place, Reading in 1832.  The Market Place site was vacated in the early 1960s and the company moved to Torquay in 1976. At present, it is part of a large multi-national conglomerate.
  • Taylowe (printers) founded in Slough in the 1930s and moved to Maidenhead in the 1950s - records are held by the RBA (D/EX2012).
  • Thames Conservancy (see also River Thames)
  • Windsor Royal Gas Light Company records are held by are held by the RBA (D/SG 8 & D/EX 1593), including an interesting photograph of the 1947 floods (D/SG7). They also have the records of gas companies in Ascot (D/SG1), Maidenhead (D/SG4), Pangbourne (D/SG5), and Newbury (D/SG11)
  • Whitchurch Toll Bridge records are held by the RBA. 
  • Some employers' and trade association archives are held by Warwick University's Modern Record Centre.

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