At the beginning of the nineteenth century Reading
was predominantly an agricultural town with few major
industries; yet by the end of the century, while
farming still played an important role in the town's
activities, Reading had established itself as a major
employer with companies producing beer, biscuits and
seeds.
Reading was the largest centre for brewing in the
county. There were five brewers in the 1830s, but
Simonds established itself as the single largest
brewery in the town. The magnitude of the growth of
Simonds can be understood when we see that in 1860
beer output was 19,000 barrels a year, while by 1890
it had increased to ill,ooo barrels a year.
Meanwhile, another Reading company - Huntley and
Palmers - was achieving significant growth. In the
1850s the flour required for a nine-month period cost
just under £25,000: by 1873-4 the company's annual
intake of flour was more than 10,000 tons, costing
just over £195,000. Between 1874 and 1894 biscuit
production alone increased by 38.6 per cent.
Between 1851 and lgol the population of Reading
increased from 22,000 to 72,000. Migration was
playing an increasing role in the growth of the town,
attracted by the new industries. Reading had expanded
its boundaries in 1887 absorbing Newtown, the
Wokingham Road area beyond Cemetery Junction, and
part of Tilehurst. It had the largest population of
all the towns in the county and was the only one big
enough to achieve county borough status in 1889.
To understand the social background and employment
of individuals at this time we have to rely on the
decennial census returns. The official Census Report
every ten years gives a breakdown of the population
between men and women, and in the various age groups,
and also the numbers in the principal trades and
professions.
The transcription and indexing of the 1851 census
for Berkshire has given us a snapshot in time of the
age, family background and life in Berkshire's
largest town.
The 1881 index on CDROM, and that for 1901 (when
it becomes available), will enable us to trace the
working life of individuals over a period of time.
To take at random a not uncommon Reading name, the
1851 Census records George Shackleford, tinman, 55
and his two sons, Thomas, 27, foundry labourer, and
Charles, 24, tin plate worker. It would enrich the
Shacklefords' family history to know that one was
employed in what became the Reading Iron Works and
the other two at the future Huntley Boorne and
Stevens. In fact, Charles became the foreman and
inspector at the tin plate works, his son (also
Charles) was a tin plate worker, and another son,
Samuel, was a clerk at the biscuit factory. It would
also add to our knowledge of this family if
additional information were available, such as the
dates of their employment and wage rates.
So as not to raise expectations unduly, it has to
be said at the outset that surviving company archives
in Reading yield very patchy data on individual
employees. Yet that information is still well worth
exploring. To provide some background for those
interested, let us see how patterns of employment in
the town changed between 1851 and 1901. Here are some
of the changes in occupations that took place,
according to the Census Reports:
| |
1851 |
1901 |
| Professional people, including teachers |
430 |
1,600 |
| Construction workers |
680 |
3,000 |
| Engineers |
60 |
990 |
| Railway workers |
160 |
980 |
| Gardeners |
190 |
475 |
| Road transport workers(coachmen, carters
etc.) |
100 |
920 |
Table 1 Occupation changes
These figures are only rough guides, as they
depend on the skills of the Census enumerators in
finding out what some people - say clerks, labourers
or smiths - actually did. Also some categories
changed between Censuses. Yet they help to sketch in
the town's infrastructure, or the activities of those
behind the scenes in Reading's dramatic period of
industrial boom. At heart this was still a market
town, with weekly markets, a Corn Exchange, regular
fairs and agricultural shows. But by lgol Reading had
an enviable reputation far and wide for its
industrial products, internationally as well as at
home. The Three B's Bar, near the Old Town Hall and
Reading Museum, recalls the fame of biscuits, beer
and bulbs (or seeds), to which we may add (tin) boxes.
In an article in the Berkshire Family History Society
magazine (Spring 1980), I wrote about 'Reading's
Nineteenth-Century Industrial
Families: An Enquiry'. The principal families were:
| |
|
Founded |
Employees |
| |
|
|
1851 |
1901 |
| Simonds |
Beer |
1785 |
32 |
250 |
| Cocks |
Sauce |
1789 |
11 |
30 |
| Sutton |
Seeds |
1806 |
12 |
500 |
| Barrett Exall and Andrewes |
Iron works |
1817 |
250 (closed
1887) |
| Huntley & Palmers |
Biscuits & cakes |
1822 |
143 |
5000 |
| Huntley Boorne and Stevens |
Tins |
1832 |
12 |
850 |
Table 2 Reading's nineteenth century
industrial families
All six of these firms manufactured products out
of agricultural materials, such as wheat and barley,
often bought in from the countryside that still
surrounded the town, or else undertook ancilliary
business: Huntley Boorne & Stevens supplied
Huntley & Palmers with tins, while the Iron Works
made agricultural machinery. The founders of the
firms had usually been born elsewhere, but were
impelled to move to the town by its good
communications with the rest of England, whether by
road, canal, or rail (and now motorways). The
spectacular increase in the workforce of most of
these firms shows how their business leaders took
full advantage of the commercial opportunities in
this era.
Sadly, all but one of the above firms has now
disappeared from Reading. Only Simonds'brewery
remains. In 1960 it amalgamated with Courage and
Barclay of London, and later moved from its original
site in Seven Bridges (now Bridge Street) to the
southern edge of the town, as the headquarters of
Courage Ltd.'s Central Region. Its ultra-modern
building, completed in 1980, overlooks the M4
motorway at Worton Grange. Before the many changes
had taken place, I examined its archives, and found
no wages documents. I discuss the other five firms in
turn below.
Cocks
This firm closed in 1962, and the last chairman
handed me the remaining papers, comprising mainly
books of labels and the like. The name of William
Biggs, manager of the Reading sauce warehouse in the
mid-1860s, survives because he was Grand Secretary of
the Provincial Grand Lodge of Berkshire and
Buckinghamshire freemasons from 1869 to 1877. We know
about Luey Dore, 36, of 4 Vine Court, because in the
1851 Census she described herself as a labourer at
the sauce makers; I did not note her in my trawl
through the 1861 Census.
Huntley Boorne & Stevens
Again, there were very few surviving records of
this kind. George William Brown had been chief
engineer in the Reading Iron Works, but when it
closed in 1887, he moved to an identical post in the
tin factory. In 1873 Charles Shackleford (whom we met
earlier) was appointed Inspector of Work, in his mid-40s.
A printed notice warned the hands of his duties: 'To
prevent waste of Time, Tin-plate, Gas, Solder,
Solution, Iron, Varnish, Turpentine, Coke, Rosin,
Cotton Waste, or any other materials'. He must have
been a thoroughly detested work study man-cum-progress
chaser. A tradition handed down to my time recalled
an employee - his name now lost - who had suffered a
nasal accident and was given a tin nose. The only
nominal list, with wages between 21 and 27 shillings
weekly, was unfortunately undated but is clearly a
twentieth-century one. It contains 107 names, of No.
1-5 shops. Some pencilled comments include 'poor
hand', 'very old' and 'bad eyesight'.
Reading Iron Works
The Reading Iron Works Ltd., as it became in 1864,
then had about 350 employees. I managed to identify
158 names in the 1861 Census. This revealed that 33
per cent had been born in Berkshire; one came from
France and one from Germany. In the Berkshire Family
History Society magazine (Summer 1981), I discussed
two'Addresses'from the workmen (no women then) to the
partner Charles James Andrewes in 1858 and to Alfred
Barrett in 1863, both on the occasion of their
marriages. The former 'Address' contained 267
signatures, 18 marked with an X because of illiteracy
(someone else filling in their name). In 1863, there
were 331 signatures; six pencilled names are perhaps
of those unable to sign, but some others are clearly
the efforts of those still trying to master the art
of writing. One of those in the 1858 list was Stephen
Gyngell (1832-1904), a former apprentice there, who
two years later was the founder of the Reading Co-operative
Society. He obviously left to work full-time in the
co-op as he does not appear in the 1863 'Address'. A
fellow-committee member was Charles Henry Cheer,
foreman of the boiler shop, who signed both. One
would like to know more about the splendidly named
Rockeliff Greenaway (1863), who had some Greenaway
relatives there.
The firm closed in 1887, owing to a lengthy
agricultural and general depression. That was made
worse by Andrewes' poor commercial judgement in a
very cut-throat market for the agricultural machinery
and steam engines on which it had achieved such a
strong reputation.
Sutton & Sons
The man who built up the seed firm from an
insignificant flour and meal business to
international fame was Martin Hope Sutton (1815-1901).
The most gifted of all Reading's nineteenth-century
entrepreneurs, he spent his life making out lists of
one kind or another. He kept three separate diaries,
on personal, business and religious matters
respectively. Fifteen 'Labour lists' for the 1860s
and 1870s have survived, all on separate pieces of
paper in his handwriting. His first comprehensive
schedule dates from 1869, and contains 110 names by
department, with weekly wage rates, most in the range
of 14-16 shillings, with five shillings for juveniles.
As by then it was a mail order firm, fulfilling
orders from their annual catalogues, 33 of the
employees worked in the offices. The final list was
for 1878-9, with office staff numbering 69 out of the
243 employees. Martin's younger brother was a
committed evangelist; a note reads 'A book given to
each by Alfred Sutton' - almost certainly a religious
one.1
An altogether more valuable document is an A3 -sized
volume, a 'List of Employees', started at the
beginning of lgio but clearly kept in use up to 1939.
As it has separate alphabetical sections, names can
be found relatively quickly within each letter. Of
the 1,524 names, B is the most used letter (164),
followed by S, W and H (140, 135 and 132 respectively);
there are only six Y's and 2 Q'S. For each employee
the book gives name, address, wages, department, when
came, when left and'remarks'. An extra bonus for
family historians is that relationships (sons,
daughters, mothers, sisters) are noted; the first
lady clerks were employed, in the Despatch Office, in
1916.2 Other registers are those of sales
ledger and invoice clerks from 1872 to 1905 and
annual lists of ledger office staff between 1899 and
1914.3
Huntley & Palmers
The most noteworthy company in Reading, by
reputation and as the largest employer of labour, was
Huntley & Palmers, which departed from the town
in the 1970s. The co-founder, George Palmer, had in
1846 invented the first continuously-running biscuit
machinery in the world. Although his biscuits were
expensive, their quality was of the highest. The
goodwill he built up was helped by well-developed
marketing skills.
In the full-length history of the firm 1 wrote in
1972, 1 gave the number of employees and average wage
rates from 1844 to 1914. Over these seven decades,
the total workforce rose from 17 (all men) to 5,000
directly employed, of whom 1,200 were females. In
1914, average wages for unskilled men were 21
shillings; women (all unmarried) had to be content
with 11 shillings. Of the 143 employees in 1851, I
found 99 in that year's Census, 66 of whom had been
born in Berkshire.
During my time researching the book, the company
received a number of letters each month, asking about
an ancestor or two believed to have worked for the
company. It was then impossible to answer particular
queries of that kind. However, after my book was
published, Lord Palmer was kind enough to present to
the University of Reading (which had received many
benefactions from the Palmer family) all the company
records. These are now available, in the Archives
Office in the University Library, to all researchers
giving prior notice. Only a few very recent documents
are at present closed. Some of the employment records
are of specific interest: 23 names of those working
in No. 4 shop in 1891, loo names of staff between
1916 and 1931, and salaries Of 46 office workers
together with wages Of 27 skilled operatives such as
engineers, a chemist, photo artist, binder, stamp-maker
and ink grinder, between 1912 and 1923.4
Another relevant document is the minute and
account book of the firm's Sick Fund from its
establishment in 1849 until 1855. All employees who
wished (some belonged to other benefit societies)
could, after vetting, join the scheme. They
contributed sixpence a week, and received 12
shillings a week benefit during illness. The fund
employed a doctor at £25 a year; his services, which
included ,cupping, bleeding, tooth drawing and
leeches' were very heavily used until a refundable
shilling fee was charged for each consultation. A
list for 1855 has 98 names (including first names),
showing the amounts paid in and paid out and in
credit to each member.5
Other H & P records have their own family
history value. The 39 Visitors' Books cover the
period from 1869 to 1973. Many signers, of course,
gave addresses outside the borough, but during that
century most inhabitants of the town, especially
schoolchildren, must have done the factory tour
escorted by lady guides. A separate book shows
signatures of British royalty and overseas
dignitaries such as the ex-US president Ulysses S.
Grant and the Empress Eugenie. In 1892, Oscar Wilde
came with some theatrical friends and signed the
ordinary book. He was a friend of Sir Walter Palmer,
who dropped him when Wilde was tried and then
imprisoned in nearby Reading Gaol three years later.6
The company had its team of fire-fighters, with
its own launch to tackle any blaze with water-jets
from the canal: mercifully, seldom needed for real.
The Fire Brigade Report Book, covering 1881 to 1948,
recorded the names - over 100 in a separate list for
lgog and all the drills carried out.7 A
further document, with signatures, was described in
the Berkshire Family History Society magazine in 1981
in conjunction with the Iron Works' Addresses. This
was an illuminated Address given to George Palmer's
eldest son George William on his marriage in 1879. No
fewer than lio of the firm's reading-room committee
and members signed the Address, to accompany the
presentation of a silver epergne, or dinner-table
ornament.
Although covering only the period 1857-1868, for
family historians the most generally useful source
will be five books measuring 25cms by 20CMS -
recording names and wage rates. The first volume,
bound in black, runs from 1857 to 1859. It contains
517 names (surnames only, except to differentiate
those with a like surname), 286 in the manufacturing
department, 134 Plus 17 girls - in packing, 45
carpenters and coopers, 42 smiths and engineers, and
lo shop and general workers. Unskilled hands were
paid 4d. an hour, or 3s.4d. a day of 10 hours; they
worked from 6.30am to 6.30Pm, with 40 minutes for
breakfast and an hour for dinner. Their weekly wage
was then 20 shillings for six days, closing at 2pm on
Saturdays. As each employee left, a new name was
inserted; that creates a moving picture of activity
in the firm rather than a snapshot at one moment of
time.8
The four succeeding books are all red-bound. Like
the previous black one, the book covering 186o-3
lists all departments with a total of 65o names, 299
in manufacturing and 200 (plus 16 females) in packing.
The smiths and engineers, still 42 in number, remind
us how the factory relied on steam engines by then.
Bearing in mind the labour turnover, the 'snapshot'
number of employees in 1861 was 535.9 As
this total increased to 920 by 1867, all departments
could no longer be included in one volume, and the
last three books are divided.
The Manufacturing Department book partly
duplicates the earlier one, starting in August 186o
and running through to April 1869. It contains 602
names, as against the previous 299. Pasted in the
front are the 'Rules and Regulations, for the purpose
of preserving good order', which laid down fines for
offences such as swearing, bringing in liquor and
having hands and faces unwashed. The fines went into
the Sick Fund box; no one was dismissed except for a
criminal act.10
The Packing Department book runs from 1865 to 1868.
Numbers were up from 200 to 395, but there were only
eight females listed instead of 16. The final book,
of 'Fitters, Carpenters, Bricklayers, etc.' is for
1862-9, but a note reads, 'Transferred, March 1865'.
It lists 49 box carpenters (tins for overseas were
packed up in bulk wooden boxes) as against 20
previously, 32 smiths and engineers - formerly 42 -
16 tinmen, 29 bricklayers, 13 shop boys and lo
miscellaneous.11
Those were all the wages books I could find, but 1
remember seeing some large wages ledgers for the 1870s.
These were not kept in strong rooms but were stacked
in open shelves. No doubt they were discarded when
the premises in Kings Road were cleared before being
demolished. If we must regret their destruction, it
is a matter of satisfaction that all the documents in
safes and strong rooms were secure, and are now
available to be studied by researchers at the
University.
Conclusion
This is a preliminary attempt to bring together,
from the sources known to me, all the surviving
information by name about employment in Reading
industries before 1914. This information does seem to
be a little thin, with very large gaps in what the
firms concerned apparently felt to be worth
preserving. More extensive searches, or (as sometimes
happens) an unexpected reference in another document
or catalogue of archives, may help to broaden our
knowledge about those who worked in the town and are
nowadays almost entirely forgotten, except by those
family historians who are helping to bring their
memories alive again after so many decades.
My thanks are due to Michael Bott, Archivist,
University of Reading, and to Professor E J T
Collins, of the University's Rural History Centre.
References:
1 University of Reading, Rural History Centre, TR
SUT AD 3/4-18
2 ibid TR SUT AD 3/45
3 ibid TR SUT AD 3/24 and 28-44
4 University of Reading, Huntley & Palmers'
Archives HP 95,24,259
5 ibid HP 135
6 ibid HP 212
7 ibid HP 210
8 ibid HP 187
9 ibid HP 45
10 ibid HP67
11 ibid HP 140/1 and 2
Notes
The author, as T.A.B.Corley, has written the
following articles in the Berkshire Archaeological
Journal. The volume number is given before the date.
66 1971-2, 'The Earliest Reading Bank: Marsh,
Deane & Co., 1788-1815, pp 121-8
67 1973-4, 'Barrett Exall & Andrewes' Iron
Works at Reading. The Partnership Era 1818-64', PP.
79-87
68 1975-6, 'Simonds' Brewery at Reading 1760-1960',
pp 77-88
69 1977-8, 'A Small Berkshire Enterprise: J.
Dymore Brown & Son 1831-1944', pp. 73-80
70 1979-80, 'The Celebrated Reading Sauce: Charles
Cocks & Co. Ltd. 1789-1962', pp 97-106
71 1981-2, 'The Old Breweries of Berkshire, 1741-1984',
pp 79-88
72 1983-5, 'Huntley Boorne & Stevens and Tin
Box Manufacturing in Berkshire 1832-1985', pp. 59-67
74 1991-3, 'The Making of a Berkshire Entrepreneur:
Martin Hope Sutton of Reading 1815-40', pp 135-43
75 1994-7, 'A Berkshire Entrepreneur Makes Good:
Martin Hope Sutton of Reading, 1840-71' pp. 103-110
76 2000 (forthcoming), 'The Last Years of Mar-tin
Hope Sutton, Seedsman of Reading, 1871-1901'.
He also wrote Quaker. Enterprise in Biscuits,
Huntley & Palmers of Reading 182 -1972 (London:
Hutchinson, 1972). This is now out of print.
