Darbishire papers

The collection contains material relating to the Darbishire family, the Penmaenmawr and Welsh Granite Company, Trefor Memorial Village Hall and Institute and the recreation club for ex servicemen.

The family papers consist mainly of photographs and newspaper cuttings. The quarry papers are mainly minutes of directors' meetings and miscellaneous financial and administrative items. In particular, there is an emphasis within the accumulation on material that relates to quarrying activity during wartime including reports, originating from Captain C.S. Darbishire regarding operation of Haut Banc quarry in France during the First World War. There is also material relating to the Trefor Comrades Recreation Club and the setting up in 1918 of the Trefor Village Hall and Institute.

This collection relates to the Darbishire family and the Penmaenmawr and Welsh Granite Company with which it was connected. This quarrying company was located at Penmaenmawr on the north coast of Gwynedd, formerly Caernarfonshire. In 1911 Charles Henry Darbishire (1844-1929), a prominent figure in engineering, was involved in the amalgamation of Graiglwyd quarry, which he controlled, with Penmaen quarry and the Welsh Granite Company to form the Penmaenmawr and Welsh Granite Company. The company produced materials for the building and repair of roads and railways and for other construction projects throughout the country. As well as Penmaenmawr, it had a mining operation at another site in Caernarfonshire, the Trefor quarry and another in south Wales in Bridgend, Glamorgan, with distribution and storage depots located throughout Wales and England.

The Trefor Village Hall and Institute was set up in 1918 at Trefor, Caernarfonshire, as a memorial to those who died in the Great War.

Papers were received on different occasions and have thus been catalogued separately. The collection has been arranged into sections relating to subject. Within each section the arrangement is according to type and then chronologically. They have been incorporated into the General Collection of Bangor Manuscripts.

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Darbishire family

Description compiled by Anne Lenaghan, July 2001

Item level word processed list is available at the Department of Manuscripts of the University of Wales, Bangor. Reference numbers: General Collection of Bangor Manuscripts: 25119-25130, 25617-25705.

Usual copyright conditions apply. Reprographics are made at the discretion of the Archivist.