Covent Garden Haulage Limited: Executive Board & AGM minutes, reports, etc, 1970-9; trading figures, 1967-72; list of member firms.
Meat Carriers Association Limited: includes Company returns, 1949-1979; Minutes, 1973-1978; Circulars, 1974-1979; Correspondence relating to winding-up, 1979.
Ralph Cropper (fl 1949 - 1981), road haulier and transport consultant, was a founder member of Covent Garden Haulage Limited. This was established in 1967 as a consortium of London market hauliers, to enable its members to increase efficient handling of imported fruit and to direct this traffic into the member firms.
Cropper was a director of Transport Counsellors (business advisers on road freight transport). He also served as secretary of the Meat Carriers Association (Southern) Limited, a trade association of meat haulage employers in London which negotiated directly with the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) and forumulated its own rates. The Meat Carriers Association Limited (wound up in 1979) succeeded the Smithfield Meat Carriers Association Limited (1965-1974). In turn, this had succeeded the Wholesale Meat & Provisions Transport Association Limited (1945-1965). In 1949 the main activity of this association was described as being "to represent the views of the chartered operators to Meat Transport Organisation Limited". It had a period of inactivity before resuming its role in 1954.
This collection is available to researchers by appointment at the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick. See http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/using/
Link to full catalogue: http://mrc-catalogue.warwick.ac.uk/records/CRO
The material in this deposit derives from the activities of Ralph Cropper, road haulier and transport consultant. It was presented to the Modern Records Centre by Gordon Mustoe and Arthur Ingram, August 1993.
