1‘HISTORY IN FIRMS’ DOCUMENTS’: 75 YEARSOF THE BUSINESS ARCHIVES COUNCIL1
MIKE ANSONBank of England Archive
In June 1934 a letter appeared in The Times newspaper headed ‘History infirms’ documents. Preservation of records. New council formed’. The letter
was signed by a group of eminent names and it announced theestablishment of the Council for the Preservation of Business Archives(CPBA). Later, this slightly cumbersome title was dropped in favour of the
now familiar Business Archives Council (BAC). During the intervening
decades there have undoubtedly been vicissitudes in the fortunes of theorganisation but 75 years later, and the BAC is still actively promoting thepreservation and use of business records. While the story of the Council has
before featured in issues of this journal, the last major review appeared in1984 on the occasion of the BAC’s fiftieth anniversary.2 It is likely thatnewer members will neither have access to these journals, nor indeed might
they be aware of how the Council came into being, how it has developed,
and how it has been at the forefront of activity in the business archives
field. This piece is thus intended both to remind and to update. It is also theopportunity to celebrate 75 years of the Council’s existence. Finally, it isappropriate that such an article should be printed, coincidently in the onehundredth issue of the BAC’s journal Business Archives.
Origins
As the incoming President Professor Peter Mathias pointed out in a speechmarking the golden jubilee of the Council in 1984, most accounts of theorigins of the BAC start with that letter to The Times ‘as though thisindisputably set the seal upon the event and provided at the same time
incontrovertible evidence for the historian’.3 As Matthias relates, a great
deal had in fact happened during the years prior to 1934 which goes a long
way towards explaining the appearance of that critical letter in The Times.
It is worth recapping this situation.
First, it should be remembered that archives, business or otherwise,
were hardly developed in the sense that we know today. There wasparticular concern about records that were held privately. One extremely

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important initiative was the campaign launched by Lord Hanworth, who
was the Master of the Rolls, to rescue manorial records which were under
great threat of destruction. This scheme was one of the factors that led tothe establishment of the British Records Association (BRA) in 1932, withthe aim of storing and preserving all types of historical records, but again
especially those in private hands. Arguably the leading light behind the
BRA was its Honorary Secretary Hilary Jenkinson, later Deputy Keeper of
the Public Records. Jenkinson was also the author of the seminal Manual ofarchive administration, and a notable figure in the emerging archive
profession.4 He was to provide much assistance to the CPBA in its earlyyears. At its inception the BRA decided that the Master of the Rolls should,
ex officio, be the organisation’s President and so Hanworth assumed therole.
Another strand in the story was the growing interest in business history.
The United States was in the lead here with the Business History Society
being formed in 1926. In Britain, an increasing number of monographs
were appearing either about the history of businesses, or about industrial
sectors. The majority of these were penned by economic historians:
economic history itself being a discipline which was emerging as asignificant area of study. These books were mainly concerned with theindustries of the industrial revolution such as textiles, coal, iron and steel.
By this time some businesses, for instance in the banking sector, weremarking their centenaries and this resulted in histories being written. What
all of this had highlighted were the shortcomings in the coverage andavailability of business records. Clearly action was required and academics
started to make their concerns known. Mathias’ assessment is that theinitiative came mainly from economic historians, with the London Schoolof Economics (LSE) as the main origin of pressure.
Before turning to the role of the LSE, it should first be noted that when
George Clark, Chicele Professor of Economic History at Oxford, gave his
inaugural lecture in January 1932 he spent some time talking aboutbusiness history and drew attention to the fact that the destruction of‘superficially unattractive papers’ needed to be prevented. He noted that
Britain was behind other countries in this endeavour, ‘but we have made abeginning and the time has come for pressing on with the work.’5 Six
months later and at the LSE, Professor of Economic History, Eileen Power,
wrote a paper which argued for the establishment of a ‘Committee for the
study and preservation of London business archives’. Power wanted to
draw up a register covering the archives of London businesses, and toestablish a depository. This was seen as being analogous to the scheme

3which Hanworth had been pressing for manorial records. It was suggested
that the proposals should be discussed by a group of interested parties
including academics and the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records. The
memorandum was sent to the LSE’s Director, Sir William Beveridge andevidently convinced by the arguments he secured high-level agreement
within the LSE to pursue the matter. In addition, the School would be able
meet any expenses. Beveridge also canvassed support from some of the
LSE’s Governors who had business links. Foremost amongst these was Sir
Josiah Stamp, who was Chairman of the London, Midland and Scottish
Railway (LMS). 6
The following year, in February 1933, a meeting took place at the LSE,
and chaired by Beveridge. Here it was decided: that the register of archives
should not be limited to London businesses; that the new body should becalled ‘The Council for the Preservation of Business Archives’; that the
support of Hanworth should be enlisted; and that there should be a linkwith the BRA. By the summer of 1933 everything was apparently in place
for the launch, but this was then severely delayed because the negotiations
with the BRA became bogged-down. Although the BRA and the putativearchives body were intended to come together, they never did, for reasons
which are not entirely clear. In many respects the objectives of the twoorganisations would have seemed to have dovetailed well, and the BRA
offered a domicile and administrative structure. For its part the BRA waswary about any proliferation in the number of small representative groups
in the field: it wanted business archives to be a section of the BRA, andcome under the control of its ruling Council. But the CPBA was perhaps
reluctant to be subsumed, with the consequent loss of its specific remit. As
Clark was later to explain in this journal, ‘We were afraid however that weshould be drawn into other activities far outside our strictly limited aims.’
He went on to add, in an observation that some might feel sympathy withtoday, ‘We were all busy university teachers, and we did not want to be
involved in any more committee meetings or correspondence than wasnecessary.’7 Nevertheless, it was still the case that in 1934 the future
relationship with the BRA seemingly remained unresolved, and at theannouncement of the launch it was still anticipated that some union
between the two might take place. If Clark is correct there may have been
little appetite for this, and the CPBA was more than happy to operate as anindependent organisation with clear and limited functions. This has proved
to be a tenet that has remained strong over much of the Council’s history.
The culmination of the story came in May 1934, when a larger, and4public, meeting was called in order to launch the CPBA. It was this meetingthat marked the real beginning of the Council. Although not everyone waspresent, there were 39 founder members comprising academics, librarians,
and businessmen. Although the academics were predominant amongst the
supporters of the fledgling Council, there was also an important input frombusiness, something which has been stressed by John Wadsworth. For
example, representatives from some high-profile companies were invited to
the launch, and there were seven business leaders amongst the founding
members, including Arnold Power of WH Smith, and Arthur Tweed of
Twinings (Tweed was quickly replaced by Stephen Twining).8
One of the issues agreed at the meeting in May was the text of a letterto The Times and this duly appeared in June. It was signed by an impressive
and influential group of people: Stanley Baldwin, a past and a future Prime
Minister; Lord Davies, and of course, Lord Hanworth; bankers, F.C.
Goodenough (Barclays), Edward Hoare (Hoare’s), and Herbert Lawrence(Glyn Mills); and Josiah Stamp, who, as noted above, was Chairman of the
LMS. The remainder of the signatories were academics: Beveridge andClark continued their support, while the others were John Clapham(Professor of Economic History at Cambridge), A.F. Pollard (Director of
the Institute of Historical Research), and Arthur Redford (Reader in
Economic History at Victoria University, Manchester). The first officers of
the CPBA were Hanworth, who was President, Clark as Chairman, andHoare as the Treasurer. 9
The letter pointed out that there was a scarcity of one of the mostimportant classes of documentary evidence: the records of business andfirms. There were several reasons for this including that of shortage ofspace in offices. Where records did survive, they often remained
inaccessible. The purpose of the new association, the letter continued, waswith the co-operation of businesses and families, to gather information
about the existence of records and to prevent the further destruction of
papers which were likely to be of interest to historians. How would this beachieved? The first object of the Council was: ‘to map out the ground bycompiling a register of all business records over 100 years old’.10 This wasto be done by questionnaires and it was intended that the Council mightoffer help in exploring and classifying papers. In cases where thedestruction was a consequence of a lack of space, then it was the aim of theCouncil to make arrangements for records to be deposited in public
libraries or other institutions. Furthermore the Council could offer expert
advice in cases where firms were unsure about which records should be5preserved.
The early years of the Council were far from easy. There was a shortageof resources which meant that activities were highly circumscribed.
Nonetheless, the plight of business records had been raised, and a start wasmade on compiling the ‘register of archives’: the survey of London
business houses was apparently two-thirds complete by 1937. After only
five years of existence the war intervened and unsurprisingly, there weregreater priorities. The register was moved to Oxford for safe-keeping. Clark
records that the Master of Nuffield College, where the register was kept,
had peremptorily dismissed these ‘societies for preserving the junk of thepast’. 11
In the immediate post-war period there was little change in the fortunesof the Council and activity was somewhat muted. The name of theorganisation was formally changed to the Business Archives Council in
1952, though evidently this more convenient form had been in use for someyears. Membership numbers remained fairly static during the first 20 yearsof the Council’s life: membership was by invitation only and the original 39
had increased to just 50 or so by the mid-1950s. Thereafter a rapid rise inmembers occurred, thanks largely to the efforts of Stephen Twining who
was instrumental in securing the support of a wider business andinstitutional base. Although Twining died in 1960, the expansion continued
apace so that by 1965 there were more than 260 members, theoverwhelming majority being firms and institutions. Banks still provided
the bulk of income, but nonetheless there was a broadening of the corporate
coverage with firms such as Boots, Courtaulds, and Reckitt and Colman
joining. The successful attraction of new recruits was undoubtedly an
impressive achievement, yet all was not well. Appropriately enough eventscame to a head in 1968: a year characterised by student unrest and protest.
For the BAC it was not quite a ‘Paris spring’, but there was certainly arevolution and that year marked a turning point in the Council’s history.
1968: revolution in the air
Despite the increase in membership and the consequent additional incomethat this generated, there was also dissatisfaction is some quarters. To someat least the BAC was an increasingly moribund organisation: the Executive
Committee had met only three times in two years; communication was far
from effective. The ‘journal’ was a cursory and thin affair. Academics who,
as we have seen, had been at the forefront of the Council in the early years,
were unimpressed that its potential was not being fulfilled. Archivists too6were experiencing disquiet. The simple version of this story is that at theAnnual General Meeting in July 1968, presided over by the Council’s
President Lord Denning, the honorary officers and most of the executive
were ousted and replaced by new blood. This fails to do justice to the full
drama of episode. It fell to a small group of business archivists to don the
mantle of revolutionaries, with the figure of Len McDonald, the Archivist
at Pilkington as the leader. Yet it was an entirely peaceful revolution, albeit
at 28 votes to 25, a close vote. Much of this untold story was revealed in
the tribute to Len in Issue 95 of this journal in 2008, to which readers arereferred. There can be little argument with the conclusion of Edwin Green’s‘historical note’ that this was indeed ‘a pivotal moment’ in the history of the
BAC. 12In the decades following the ‘coup’ the BAC expanded its work in a
number of significant ways: the Council undertook survey and advisory
work; the conference became a key date in the diary of business archivists;
the journal was revitalised; the Wadsworth Prize for business history wasinaugurated. All this activity took place against the backdrop of a greater
prominence for business archives and an increasing number of what could
be termed specifically business archivists: it may even have contributed to
the growth.
The original founders of the Council would surely have approved of thesurvey and advisory work that has been undertaken as part of the expansionof activities since the late-1960s. A number of important surveys ofbusiness records have been carried out under the auspices of the Council.
These include banking (Alison Turton and John Orbell), brewing (Lesley
Richmond and Alison Turton), chartered accountants (Wendy Habgood),
pharmaceuticals (Lesley Richmond, Alison Turton and Julie Stevenson),shipbuilding (Alex Ritchie), and veterinary medicine (Pamela Hunter). The
results of this work have been published for the benefit of researchers.
Another important survey was that of the archives of 1,000 of the oldest
registered companies in Britain undertaken by Lesley Richmond andBridget Stockford, and later Richmond and Turton produced a directory ofcorporate archives.14 The BAC has also published Managing businessarchives edited by Turton and John Orbell’s A guide to tracing the historyof a business.15 In addition to the survey work during these years theCouncil was also active in providing advice to companies about archives,and in rescuing business records that were under threat. There were somenotable successes in this area: Lloyds of London, Fyffes, Unigate, Chubb,
and the Port of London to name but a few. It is worth reiterating that such

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activity was central to the establishment of the Council in the first place andthat this work has continued to be one of its central objectives. Indeed in
the present economic climate the need for it remains as great as ever.
As well as identifying and rescuing records, the Council has
undoubtedly made an enormous contribution towards encouraging andfostering the increased number of specialist business archivists. Indeed
many of those employed on the survey and advisory work have gone on to
become leading lights in the sector. The BAC has been involved inorganising training courses in pursuit of these aims. Just as important havebeen the annual conferences. These were started by Tom Ingram and David
Avery in the late 1960s and have served to highlight what has been
happening in the sector. While the format and content of the conferences
have changed according to contemporary trends and interests, the essential
benefits to those attending remain, not least that of meeting other businessarchivists and those using business records.
Another visible sign of the BAC’s work during these years was theenhancement of its journal, Business Archives. Until the end of the 1960s it
was little more than a newsletter. At this point Richard Storey became the
Editor and Business Archives became something altogether more serious.
While there later followed the inevitable trials and tribulations of
production, including the publication of only a single issue per year fromthe mid-1970s into the 1980s, by 1987 the situation was such that BusinessArchives was split into two titles Principles and Practice (BAPP, appearingin May), and Sources and History (BASH, appearing in November). Up
until 1987 Richard Storey, Richard Wilson, Philip Cottrell, John Armstrong
and John Orbell had spells in the editorial chair. Following the split,
Principles and Practice has been edited by Alison Turton, Serena Kelly,
Lucy Jones, and Valerie Johnson, while Sources and History has been under
the charge of Phil Ollerenshaw, John Davies, Lucy Newton, and Brad
Beaven. Mariam Yamin and Mike Anson are currently in charge of BAPP
and BASH respectively. The other outputs of the Council include thequarterly Newsletter, and in more recent years the website.
The Council has also sought to encourage researchers to use businessrecords. This has been achieved in several ways. In the early 1990s the‘Business History Research Fund’ was established thanks to donations fromSir Peter Thompson, the Chairman of the National Freight Corporation, and
the Wellcome Trust. In recent years the Bursary has assisted scholars
embarking upon their academic careers, with the results of the research
published in BASH. It has also meant that previously unused sources for8business history have been utilised and highlighted. It may well be the casethat there are too many literary awards, but the prominence of the BAC
Wadsworth Prize cannot be denied. Martin vander Weyer recently noted in
The Spectator magazine that the Wadsworth ‘may not yet be as celebrated
as the Booker or the Whitbread, but it richly deserves to be’.16 The
background is that John Wadsworth was an economist by training, but wasalso the co-author of a history of the Midland Bank: this work A hundredyears of joint stock banking was a pioneering work in banking history.
Wadsworth served in many capacities on the BAC Council for over 40
years and to mark his retirement in 1977 his colleagues formulated an idea
which resulted in the awarding of an annual prize for the outstanding
contribution to British business history. The Prize has now been awarded
on 31 occasions and the list of winners reads like a ‘who’s who’ of businesshistory. It is a sign of the standing of the Wadsworth that an impressive
range of contributors could be put together for a special issue of BusinessArchives to mark 30 years of the prize.17
Retrenchment and resurgence
The Council continued to pursue all of these various activities through thefinal decades of the twentieth century. However, problems were also
beginning to surface and by the early years of the twenty-first century, it
was clear that the Council, like many small charities, faced serious financial
difficulties which required urgent thought about the Council’s mode ofoperation. Costs were exceeding income by a considerable margin and theconsequence was that in the financial year 2001/02 there was a deficit of£17,000. It was a situation that was likely to continue without drastic
action. The principal manifestation of this was the decision to close the
BAC’s staffed office in London, something which accounted for a large
proportion of the annual outgoings. It was also necessary to find a newhome for the Library, and this was eventually transferred to the Centre for
Business History at the University of Glasgow. Another element of the
rescue package was that the Trustees were determined that, despite having
to continue operating on a much reduced basis, the core activities should bemaintained. This has required much in the way of voluntary input fromTrustees in order to ensure that this has been able to be achieved. The
advent of a new slimmed-down BAC coincided with an influx of new
Trustees and the Council has been able to continue the core activities suchas the conference, journals, newsletter, and now of course a website, whilepursuing new initiatives such as the National Strategy for Business9Archives. The impact of the recent financial crisis has demonstrated once
again the need for the championing of business archives, just as there had
been in the 1930s.
Arguably the most significant event since the restructuring of BAC’soperations, and one of the most important in the Council’s history, was thelaunch of the National Strategy for Business Archives in the summer of2009. There has been a lengthy gestation period for this, but it has long
been an aspiration. There is still much to be done in this direction, but
hopefully future history of the BAC will be able to judge that the strategy
was a success. The document was unveiled at the House of Lords in July2009 and keynote speakers included the Governor of the Bank of England,
Mervyn King, Chairman and Chief Executive of Marks and Spencer, Sir
Stuart Rose, and former Head of MI5 (and one-time archivist) Dame Stella
Rimmington. While undoubtedly an enjoyable and successful event which
attracted much positive publicity in the national media, this was only the
beginning. Much of the work of the Council in the coming years will bedirected towards the implementation of the Strategy.
Presidential reflections
There has been a fruitful association between the Council and the Twining
family. Stephen Twining had long been interested in business archives andhad written a history of his family firm, 250 years of tea and coffee,
published in 1956. He was one of the earliest members of the Council andhis interest was passed to his son, Sam Twining, who joined the BAC
Executive Committee in 1968 and four years later became Chair. In 1995
he took over as President, a position he held until stepping down in 2008.
Delegates at the BAC Annual Conference that year were treated to hisreflections on the changing face of business archives.18 The story describedin this article will a familiar one to Sam. His memories of the BAC go backto the mid-1950s when he had just joined Twinings and the Council was
run from a small room at the top of Twinings’ offices.
Sam noted a number of features about the BAC which bear repetition
because they offer some insight into the nature of the Council and why it
has survived all these years. First, was the remarkable level of loyalty of themembership with many long-term supporters: the average span of paying
members was 24 years, and 35 per cent had joined in the 1970s or earlier.
As Sam remarked, this was surely a result of a real community of interestsin the field. Second, Sam highlighted the continuity of service of thehonorary officers which had aided clarity and consistency. As he is only too

10well aware, this is not something that is always present in the voluntary
sector. As an aside, this author has been delighted to find that he is only thelatest of a number of staff from the Bank of England to have served on the
Executive. Third, is the fact that the BAC is a broad church which has beenable to accommodate business people, archivists, and researchers, from all
manner of organisations. Finally, and this takes us back to the origins of theCouncil, the BAC possess a very strong sense of identity and purpose. For
these reasons, Sam was optimistic about the future.
Final remarks
While a few names have been mentioned in the course of this article, it by
no means a comprehensive treatment, and nor is it intended to be. Perhaps
at some stage in the future a fuller account might rectify this. Suffice to saythat over the years many people have given their time to the Council invarying ways and it is appropriate to thank them all here.
Characteristically, the commissioned history will pay tribute to thework carried out over whatever number of years is being celebrated andthen look forward to the future over a number of years until the next
significant anniversary is reached. An obvious ploy maybe, but in any event
let us celebrate 75 years of the Business Archives Council and at least lookforward to another 25 years of promoting the importance of ‘history infirms’ documents’.

Notes
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2

3
4

5
6
7
8

Thanks are due to Terry Gourvish for his research assistance with this piece.
The previous articles are Sir George Clark, ‘British business archives, 1935-48’, BusinessArchives, no. 34 (June 1971), pp.7-9; John Wadsworth, ‘Businessmen, bankers and theBusiness Archives Council’, Business Archives, no. 36 (June 1972), pp.14-7; Peter Mathias,‘The first half century: business history, business archives and the Business Archives
Council’, Business Archives, no.50 (1984), pp.1-16. Mathias’ piece was written with the helpof John Armstrong. I am also extremely grateful to Edwin Green for providing me with thetext of Sam Twining’s address to the BAC Annual Conference in 2008, which contains muchon the Council’s history.
Mathias, ‘First half century’, p.1.
Hilary Jenkinson, A manual of archive administration, including the problem of war
archives, (Oxford, 1922). The second edition appeared in 1937.
Clark, ‘British business’, p.7.
Mathias, ‘First half century’, pp.3-5.
Ibid, p.8.
Wadsworth, ‘Businessmen’, p.14.

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9
10
11
12

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17

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Hoare’s Bank are still the Council’s bankers today.
The Times, 21 June 1934.
Clark, ‘British business’, p.9.
‘Len McDonald (1993-2007): in tribute’, Business Archives: Principles and Practice, no.95(May 2008), pp.44-53. Edwin Green’s piece was based on a file of Len’s papers which toldthe ‘full story’.
Alison Turton & John Orbell, British Banking. A Guide to Historical Records (Aldershot2001). This publication updated a previous survey; Lesley Richmond and Alison Turton, The
brewing industry: a guide to historical records (Manchester, 1990); Wendy Habgood,
Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. A guide to historical records (Manchester1994); Lesley Richmond, Julie Stevenson, & Alison Turton, The Pharmaceutical Industry. A
Guide to Historical Records (Aldershot, 2003); Alex Ritchie, The shipbuilding industry: aguide to historical records (Manchester, 1992); Pamela Hunter, Veterinary medicine: a guideto historical sources, (Aldershot, 2004).
Lesley Richmond and Bridget Stockford, Company archives: a survey of the records of 1000of the first registered companies in England and Wales (Aldershot, 1986).
Alison Turton (ed.), Managing Business Archives (Butterworth-Heinemann and the BusinessArchives Council, Oxford, 1991); John Orbell, A Guide to Tracing the History of a Business
Turton (eds.), Directory of corporate archives (Business Archives Council, 4th ed., 1996).
The Spectator, 19-26 December 2009, p.57.
For some more detail on the Wadsworth and a list of previous winners see Mike Anson, ‘The
Wadsworth Prize at 30’, Business Archives: Reflections and Speculations, no.97 (November2008), pp.1-6.
Sam Twining, ‘Reflections: the changing face of business archives over the last 30 [actually40] years’, 12 November 2008.