English Trade Marks and Companies

[zenobia37]

(mods if there is a better place to put this please feel free to move it)

Has anyone had successful experience of tracing information about a family business including trademarks from the late 18th / early 19th centuries? I have an image of a business logo but no idea in what year it was registered. I'd love to know more about how the business developed but as far as I can gather I'm not likely to get anything from the TM without knowing when it was registered and I haven't found anything in the newspapers available. Just wondered if anyone has any other suggestions.

Thanks

[josey]

Bit of a damper really but as far as I know trademarks & copyright do/did not need to be registered; a small business could devise a logo & only if they found it was being copied would they be likely to register it. I was a sole trader & was told by an intellectual property lawyer that as long as I put 'TM' in tiny font underneath the business name on letter headings no-one else could use the name, but there was no need to register it.

[ThrelfallYorky]

Trade directories and local papers might possibly be helpful - but if you publish an image of the logo ( or trademark - strictly speaking they're not quite the same thing, although often now the term is used quite loosely) - on here,  and tell what you know of the area of the country the firm(s) worked in, and line of business, you may find some help. I never fail to be amazed at the combined knowledge of people on here.
(Josey: copyright law probably applied... that little c on a circle)

[stanmapstone]

Have you seen https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/copyright-records-stationers-hall/

Copyright records and images from before 1842 or, in the main, after 1912 – see the The Stationers’ Company Library and Archives for these
https://www.stationers.org/company/archive
Stan

[zenobia37]

Thanks all. It had occurred to me that just because it says 'TM' by the logo it might not be a guarantee that it actually was registered - I suppose you never know.

The business was an aerated water manufacturers named S & JW Mitchell, based in Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire. The logo is unclear but looks like a man riding a horse that is rearing up, with something that looks like it could be a serpent on the ground in front.

I think it had to be registered somewhere been 1880 and 1910; its such a wide gap that tracing through the trademarks registered fro all those years just isn't feasible, sadly, which is what the National Archives leads me to understand would be the only way.

[josey]

Have you tried looking through newspapers on BNA with the name in those years - you might come up with an advert with the logo.

[macwil]

. . .
 The logo is unclear but looks like a man riding a horse that is rearing up, with something that looks like it could be a serpent on the ground in front.
. . .

That sounds, to me, like it may be a representation of 'St George & the Dragon'

[Dyingout]

Typed in
S & JW Mitchell aerated waters Heckmondwike
On Google images, there is a bottle photo from eBay of one of their bottles.
Definitely St George and the dragon
Search eBay number 402066607454

[zenobia37]

thanks, it's the image on the bottle that has set me on this trail. I did wonder about it being George and the dragon although it looks more like a highwayman really.