Waterlow & Sons (Printers)

[Plummiegirl]

Both my father & my great uncle worked in the Garage/Workshop for the above firm, which was somewhere round the back of Liverpool Street station.  I think my step-granddad may also have worked there.

What  I would like to know is where I can find the old records for this firm.  I have googled but all I get is information about stamps (which they printed).  I have been unable to find out where all the old company records are kept, do not think they are at LMA.  Not too worried about this so much now.
Can anyone help or put me onto someone who may know about this.  I also have in my possession 2 photos of all the workshop staff standing by a coach ready to go off on a beano.  This would have been in the mid to late 1950's.

My father was Arthur Simpson (from London), my Uncle John Butler (from Ireland) & my step-grandfather Bill Sturdy (from Yorkshire).  Yes I am a mongrel!!  Also a girl I went to primary school whose surname was King, her father also worked here.


UPDATES: Yippee have finally uploaded 1 photo,  uncle John (John Butler) is the man standing next to the supervisor in the suit.  And now the 1 of the 2 others.  They are almost identical so have only uploaded 1.  My dad is the tall young chap in the middle of the  back row.

[robesur]

A quick google on the companies name, mentions that there are records at the Bedfordshire and Luton Archives & Record Services. I think the company must have moved to Dunstable in its latter years.

[Plummiegirl]

Thank for that I will be contacting them. 

How is it that when I googled all I got was articles on stamps & ebay to buy stamps, but nothing about Luton. 

I did know that they moved from London.  I think they merged with another company at some time in the late 60's early 70's.  And I think that is around the time the name of Waterlow & Sons may have been dropped.

[Miss Trees]

Hello Plummiegirl

I would love to know if you have had any success tracing Waterlow records.
I believe my great-great grandfather, a bank-note engraver, worked for them also. This would be prior to 1930. I have a large book of samples from the firm which passed through our family, and I may never know if some of it could be my gg grandfather's handiwork.

I have been trying to find any records of the firm for a while now without much success (but it's a bit tricky from across the water).  At one time I contacted De La Rue which acquired the company in the 60's I believe, but they replied promptly that they had not inherited any archive material from Waterlow & Sons.

[Plummiegirl]

Oops, sorry have not got that far.

I am researching ALL the branches of my family which means that sometime some bits get forgotten.

As this thread was.

So sorry.

Will make a note of this and put it in with my things to do (loads of them!! as you can imagine)

Will update as and when I get round to Waterlow & Sons.

Have so many "old" companies I am looking into, I sometimes feel I am just chasing my tail.

[bodger]

They also had a factory in Hyde,  Cheshire

[Keitht]

a2a, the catalogue of national archives, shows 126 entries containing the name Waterlow and Sons:

http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/results.aspx?tab=2&Page=1&ContainAllWords=Waterlow+and+Sons

Keith

[IgorStrav]

Both my father and mother worked at Waterlow's the printers during the 1930's in the London offices.

Recently I tracked down my half great great uncle (my great great grandfather's son by a second wife), and in 1911 he was a printer in Maidstone and then I suddenly found him enlisting in the army from an address in Dunstable.  I then found his marriage in Bedfordshire, and when I looked back at his wife when she was with her family in the 1911, I saw they were all lithographic printers, in Waterlow Road, Dunstable.

I am ashamed to say it took a little time for the significance of the name of the road to dawn on me (despite it being a long time family story about where my parents met). 

Then when I googled Waterlow's I found that they operated in Maidstone and in Dunstable and in London too.  He'd evidently moved from one works to another.

If you ever do find anything else about Waterlow's, Plummiegirl, perhaps you'd add me to your list of people who'd be interested?

Incidentally, my father (seen in my avatar) was a Conscientious Objector in WWII, and when he announced that to Waterlow's they promptly gave him the sack (he spent the war in the ARP).  My mother remained there, but declined to print the bombing maps they produced, and they gave her the sack too.  She was a VAD.

[Miss Trees]

I thought I had read somewhere that records from the firm had been destroyed in the war, but where I read that or whether I'm confusing it with another of my brick walls, I can't remember. Like you plummie I've been chasing a few tails (and tales) over the past year or two! Every once in a while I resurrect this one... in fact I found this thread while googling.

I'm not sure if I'll ever find out whether my gg grandfather worked for them, but it seems likely for a number of reasons. And after all I think there are few places England where a banknote engraver would be employed? (I can safely tell people my gg grandfather made a lot of money at his job.... just unfortunately none of it was his!) Also I know my family and the Waterlows were at the very least acquainted - an elderly cousin told us they were friends of the family, and one of them helped her get her first job at a bank when she was a young girl. I'm sure my family moved in different circles than theirs and so 'friends' might be a stretch, but employers could be more likely!

Find it interesting that a number of us are coming out of the woodwork suddenly!