Records of Wallis Brothers Ltd, lace manufacturers of Draycott, Derbyshire, 1912-1973

The collection comprises:

• Memorandum and articles of association, April 1917 (BWS 1).
• Correspondence on subjects including Alfred B. Wallis, Strodex Corset Company, Midland Machine Trust Ltd, and the bankruptcy of T.A. Curtis and Son, December 1921-January 1946 (BWS 2).
• Wage books, October 1946-February 1960 (BWS 3-4).
• Account books, ledgers and sales books, January 1912-March 1973 (BWS 5-7).
• Bank books, statements and cheque stubs, May 1953-January 1958 (BWS 8-10).
• Sheets of headed notepaper (BWS 11).

The collection provides a very incomplete record of the firm. Of significance to the firm's history are the weekly trading account books (BWS 5) and the correspondence files (BWS 2), some of which contain personal correspondence between the Wallis brothers. Although modest in scope, the collection would support research into Wallis Brothers Ltd or the lace industry in general.

Wallis Brothers Ltd, lace manufacturers, appear in a trade directory for Derbyshire for 1908. Their address is given as Victoria Mills, Draycott. The company remained at this address until the 1960s. Victoria Mills was a large tenement factory built in 1888 and purchased by Ernest Jardine in 1899. Jardine had added an imposing front and clock tower by 1907 - when it was described as one of the largest lace factories in the world - and the mill remained in his ownership until 1957. Wallis manufactured Levers lace and had 19 Jardine and Hooton machines. Wallis moved to a new factory in 1968, also in Draycott, and amalgamated in 1980 with Malmic Lace, a Barmen lace manufacturer.

The memorandum and articles of association in this collection are for Wallis Brothers Ltd and are dated 18 April 1917 with one of their stated objects being to: 'carry on the business of Lace Manufacturers and Merchants now carried on by Thomas Black Wallis, Arthur George Wallis, Alfred Black Wallis, and Bernard Hedley Wallis, in co-partnership under the style of 'Wallis Brothers' at Draycott'.

As well as Wallis Brothers Ltd, the correspondence in the collection reveals that the several other companies were controlled by the Wallis brothers. Wallis and Wallis, described as a hosiery manufacturer in Russell Street, Nottingham, apparently confronted financial problems in 1929 and went into voluntary liquidation (BWS 2/3). Alfred B. Wallis Ltd, yarn agents and merchants of 77 Houndsgate, Nottingham is also recorded, remaining in existence until at least 1941 (BWS 2/4).

The collection has been divided by document type into 11 series. Within these series items have been arranged chronologically.

ACCESS: Accessible to all registered readers.

REPROGRAPHIC: Reprographic copies can be supplied for educational use and private study purposes only, depending on access status and the condition of the documents.

COPYRIGHT: Permission to make any published use of any material from the collection must be sought in advance in writing from the Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections (email mss-library@nottingham.ac.uk). The Department will try to assist in identifying copyright owners but this can be difficult and the responsibility for copyright clearance before publication ultimately rests with the person wishing to publish.

LANGUAGE: English

The bulk of the company's archive appears to have been lost. The present collection was preserved in the context of historical research and was given to The University of Nottingham's Department of Manuscripts and Special Collections in February 1999.