RECORDS OF PRIDAY, METFORD AND CO. LTD., FLOUR MILLERS OF GLOUCESTER

Company management:

Articles of partnership

Registers of directors and shareholders

Minutes

Directors' and company secretary's correspondence

Salesman's correspondence

Inventories and valuations

Agreements

Publicity material

Photographs

Miscellaneous

Accounts:

General

Statistical references

Sales

Expenses

Mill purchases

Production records

Subsidiary companies and interests:

Fox Elms Ltd.

Wyeland Jones (Gloucester) Ltd.

Charles E. Ford & Co. Ltd.

Gloucester Pilotage Authority and Gloucester Harbour Trustees

Gloucester and Sharpness Port Users' Association

<span class="wrapper"><p>(See Gloucestershire Record Office D5355/1/8/3 below)</p> <p>(See Gloucestershire Record Office D5355/1/1/1)</p></span>

• <corpname>City Flour Mills, Gloucester, 1850-1900</corpname>
• <corpname>Priday, Metford and Company Ltd, Gloucester, flour miller, 1900-1989</corpname>

Company minutes from 1957 and other more recent records have been moved to Dalgety's headquarters at 100 George Street, London W1.

Documents deposited by Messrs. Priday, Metford and Co. Ltd., City Flour Mills, The Docks, Gloucester

Priday Metford continued production after an amicable management buy-out in 1986: Mr Paul Cleary, the former managing director, became chairman, Mr Knibbs remained finance director and company secretary and Mr Tom Berrow became a director; the representatives of the former share holding families ceased to be directors. Dalgetys subsequently took over the firm and closed down production at the docks, transferring business to mills outside Gloucestershire, Mr Pike, who had joined Priday Metford as production manager in 1989, was overseeing the mill's de-commissioning at the time of this deposit.

History of firm

The City Flour Mills were built in 1850 by Joseph and Jonah Hadley; when they moved their business to London in 1860, the mills were taken over by Joseph Reynolds and Henry Allen. In 1875, Reynolds' and Allen's two sons continued the business in partnership with Francis T. Pearce, but within ten years they had run into financial difficulties.

Under a scheme of arrangement of 1886 the mill was taken over by a partnership of Charles Priday, a Gloucester miller, Francis Killigrew Seymour Metford, who had trained as a miller in Bristol, and F. T. Pearce. The business was in-corporated in 1900 under the name Priday, Metford and Company Ltd. and its ownership remained in the hands of the founding families' descandants up to 1986.

The firm's records provide very full evidence for its processing and sales activities from 1886 onwards.