HOWARDS AND SONS [CHEMISTS]

COMPANY FORMATION AND ORGANISATION

Records of partnerships

Memoranda and articles of association, notices of resolutions

Papers relating to formation of company in 1903 and its reconstruction in 1920

Records of shareholders

Records of debenture stockholders

Company seal

Board memorandum books

PROPERTY

Leases and related papers, insurance records, records of building work, plans:

Plaistow

Stratford

Ilford

FINANCE

Balance sheets, statements of accounts

General books of account

Correspondence

Bank statements, cheques, etc.

Invoices

Taxation papers

STAFF

Wages books, related papers

Sick benefit papers

Pension papers

Other

MANUFACTURE AND TRADE : VARIOUS PRODUCTS

Papers relating to patents, licences and agreements

Records of experiments

Records of stock, production and trade, including accounts, correspondence, price lists, advertisements and newscuttings

Papers relating to exhibitions

MANUFACTURE AND TRADE : QUININE AND RELATED PRODUCTS.

Papers relating to patents and agreements

Records of production and trade, including records of supply of bark, accounts, technical and business reports, correspondence, price lists and newscuttings

SUBSIDIARY AND OTHER COMPANIES

Hopkin & Williams Ltd.

Hopkin & Williams Ltd., Thorium Branch

Thorium Ltd.

Hopkin & Williams (Travancore) Ltd.

Hatton Contract Co. Ltd. and Golden Eagle Syndicate

James Anthony & Co. Ltd.

SUBSIDIARY AND OTHER COMPANIES

Agatash Estates Ltd.

Barking and Ilford Navigation Co. Ltd.

British Camphor Co. Ltd.

Demerara Development Co. Ltd.

Drogueria de la Estrella Ltda., Buenos Aires

Methylators Ltd.

O. Wallis and Co. Ltd.

FAMILY AND OTHER PAPERS

Howard family

Associates, being John Williams, Joseph Jewell, R. J. Law

Works and staff

G. E. Howard's collection

Miscellaneous

Records

PHOTOGRAPHS, DRAWINGS etc.

People

Places

Briggins Bible

TECHNICAL AND HISTORICAL WORKS AND RELATED PAPERS

Chemical subjects

Quinine

Company history

Local history

Biographical accounts

Note of some abbreviations used in text

Adj. adjacent or adjoining

Anon. anonymous

C. circa

Ctpt. counterpart

Decd. deceased

Esp. especially

Ff. following

Gent. gentleman

incl. including

Mess. messuage

Ms. manuscript

N.d. no date

Pp. pages

Pr. printed

RHS Royal Historical Society

The collection has posed problems of arrangement. Although surviving lists and notes (in particular ACC/1037/1744 and ACC/1037/811-812) testify to the conscious preservation of many items as archives, there is relatively little evidence of the organisation of the firm or of the manner in which it kept its records while they were current. While certain groups seem to have survived as such, [for example the main series of customers' correspondence (ACC/1037/374-647) which was kept by year in wooden boxes (a sample of which was sent to the Geffrye Museum), and the important laboratory account books (ACC/1037/316-364)], just as often related items were to be found widely dispersed. This applied, for example, to deeds relating to particular properties, annual accounts, and loose correspondence. Other apparently archivally unrelated items seem to have been grouped together because they are all of historical interest (for instance the contents of ACC/1037/811/10).

Four events subsequent to the creation of many of the archives in this collection should be taken into account. Firstly the company's office was destroyed by bombing in 1940. Secondly the relationship of company's records to those of the family was intimate and while it is true that an attempt was made to distinguish between family and records it cannot always have been successful. Two deposits of Howard (and Eliot) family records have been made at London Metropolitan Archives, ACC/1017 and ACC/1270, and here appropriate cross-references to those deposits have been made in the text of this list. Furthermore it is clear from records in all three deposits that various members of the family have held related records at different times and that some family papers at least have been deposited elsewhere (see ACC/1037/809). The third event to take into consideration is the series of deposits made by the successor company, which deposited the records in this list, of related records in Redbridge Central Reference Library from 1979 onwards. Some of those records at Redbridge appear in lists found in this deposit; others form parts of series of records deposited here (see for example ACC/1037/91-94). Where it has been possible to identify related items a cross-reference to this list has been added in the form R plus year of deposit; thus R1979, R1980/1, R no date. Most of the records at Redbridge date from 1923 or later. In addition a group of records was withdrawn from the Archives by the depositor in 1970, shortly after deposit: of those, the minutes only appear to have been deposited in Redbridge; two other items had originally been kept in envelopes which held some of the records in this deposit (see ACC/1037/811-812); the whereabouts of the other material is unknown. Finally it is known that in 1969 the successor company destroyed records it considered unsuitable for preservation, some of which were accidentally transferred to the Record Office and from which it was decided to retrieve a few individual items and a few samples from series.

As an example of the gaps in the surviving records it is instructive to look at Bernard F. Howard's treatise on the firm. He commends the series of laboratory account ("LA") books as a source of information for the profitability of the company. From 1872, when he believed they began, to 1930 they had been deposited in this accession (ACC/1037/316-364): the remainder (at least to 1947) are at Redbridge. They were based on the following series:

sales analysis books 1889-1918 deposited at LMA (ACC/1037/303-304); 1914-1916 and 1929 - 1948 at Redbridge

white stock books 1877-1946 deposited at LMA (ACC/1037/294-297); thereafter at Redbridge

small white stock books none noted (except possible draft page ACC/1037/370)

'C' books none noted

purchase analysis books 1934-1943 only survive (ACC/1037/299-300)

wages books possibly 1922-1946 (ACC/1037/258); possibly 1856-1886 at Redbridge

salaries books 1877-1892, 1921 and 1930-1938 at Redbridge

repairs/maintenance books none noted

The arrangement of the list therefore does not claim to reflect any pre-existent overall order; it has been devised to allow a coherent account to be presented of what material has been deposited, incorporating original sequences where they could be perceived while dispensing with some later 'artificial' groupings if alternative arrangements appeared to reflect particular activities more clearly. It is evident from the lists and notes mentioned above that many of these later groupings had in any case already been disturbed, as a number of the items documented are not to be found in the present collection. It has not been possible to record every instance of rearrangement, but all wrappers have been preserved and the more complex cases of arrangement have been noted at the relevant points in the list.

The firm of Howards and Sons, noted as manufacturers of pharmaceutical chemicals, especially quinine and aspirin had its origin in the partnership entered into by Luke Howard and William Allen in 1798 (ACC/1037/1). Many printed works give the date as 1797 and it may be that the two men began working together after the dissolution of Allen's partnership with Samuel Mildred but before the formal deed of partnership was signed. Allen and Howard had their pharmacy at Plough Court, Lombard Street, City of London, under the management of Allen, and a laboratory at Plaistow, Essex, directed by Luke Howard, with the assistance of Joseph Jewell. The laboratory moved from Plaistow to Stratford around 1805, and on the dissolution of the partnership in 1807 (ACC/1037/2) Luke Howard and Joseph Jewell continued their manufacturing activity there. After a series of name changes reflecting the changes of partners (for which see ACC/1037/801/20/1) the style of Howards & Sons was adopted in 1856 (see ACC/1037/17) and used continuously from then on. The firm became a limited company in 1903. It was purchased by Laporte in March 1961.

Stratford remained the company's headquarters until 1898, when land was purchased in Ilford and new premises were gradually constructed. The first transfer there was of the work done at Hopkin and Williams' works in Wandsworth and other processes followed as buildings were erected until the final move to Ilford was made in 1923.

The firm of Hopkin and Williams, manufacturers of fine laboratory and photographic chemicals had been purchased in May 1888 (for which see ACC/1037/92). They had offices and warehouses in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, and a manufactory in Wandsworth. In 1906 Howards set up the British Camphor Corporation for the synthesis of camphor from turpentine by Behal's process and the factory was built at Ilford (ACC/1037/743-753). Changes in world prices for raw materials and other factors led to the company going into liquidation in 1909. In the meantime Edmund White, general manager of Hopkin and Williams, had been working on the development of thorium and in 1914 a separate company, Thorium Ltd., was established to process the raw materials (ACC/1037/730-731). In 1915 Hopkin and Williams (Travancore) Ltd. was set up to mine monazite sand at a site in Travancore to secure supplies of the raw material to Thorium Ltd. (ACC/1037/732-735). A later successful development overseas was the purchase of the Sadarehe planatation in Java which was intended to secure supplies of cinchona bark for the production of quinine. Another company, James Anthony and Co. Ltd. (ACC/1037/790) was set up to run it, which it did until the planation was seized by the Japanese in 1943. War-time and post-war conditions made it impossible to revive production. In contrast the purchase of the Agatash plantation in British Guiana to grow limes for citric acid (ACC/1037/739-740) was a short-lived and unsuccessful venture.

The company had a long history of uninterrupted production and its products developed and changed over the years in large measure as the result of experimental work done by members of the Howard family and by their employees. It began by producing fine chemicals, many for the pharmaceutical industry, and by the 1830's Howard and Jewell's work on quinine was beginning to expand. For most of the remainder of the nineteenth century quinine production was the greatest profitable enterprise of the company (for which see ACC/1037/316-364 and especially B.F. Howard's treatise Howards 1847-1947). After the First World War it became clear, despite the success of Howards' Aspirin, that the company no longer led the market in chemicals for pharmacy, and a research laboratory was set up in 1919 to explore new fields. This resulted in the development of Howards' solvents and technical chemicals which became the mainstay of the company.