Waterlow & Sons (Printers)

[nigelp]

A brief history of Waterlow & Sons may be helpful.

The origins of the printing company date back to 1810. Waterlow & Sons Limited was incorporated in 1897 and by the 1920s was one of Britian's largest printers of bank notes, stamps as well as other material.

Waterlow & Sons Limited was acquired by Purnell and Sons Limited in 1960 and in 1961 part of the business of Waterlow was sold to Thomas De La Rue & Co Limited. This was the plant, machinery and goodwill of the security printing part of the business insofar as it related to bank notes, stamps and other forms of security printing produced wholly or partially by the direct plate printing process. Waterlow & Sons Limited remained a subsidiary of Purnell and Sons and continued to carry on all the rest of its printing business. Waterlow & Sons Limited retained the right to security printing which did not use the direct plate printing process and this included the printing of cheques, stock and share certificates etc.

In 1964 Purnell and Sons Limited merged with Hazell Sun Limited to form The British Printing Corporation (BPC), the largest printing company in Europe. The next 15 years saw regular conflicts between management and the unions with regular strikes resulting from the rapid changes being made in the printing industry. BPC closed Waterlow's Hyde (Cheshire) printing works in 1970.

Following several years of losses, Robert Maxwell bought a controlling interest in BPC in 1981 and changed the company's name to British Printing and Communications Corporation (BPCC) in 1982. In October 1987 BPCC changed its name to Maxwell Communication Corporation (MCC) - the name BPCC was reassigned to one of MCC's subsidiaries. As a result Waterlow & Sons Limited became a subsidiary of MCC.

In order to finance huge U.S. acquisitions, Maxwell abandoned or sold most of the printing side of MCC's business to concentrate on publishing. In 1989 Maxwell's deputy and other directors bought most of what was the BPCC Group from MCC. Large parts of the business were abandoned and what remained was merged in 1998 into a new printing conglomerate called The Polestar Group.

Waterlow & Sons Limited was a dormant company by the early 1990s and was put into voluntary liquidation by The Polestar Group in 2004. Its history ends on 20 Jan 2009 with the dissolution of the company.

The Waterlow name does, however, continue to live on as a result of specialist parts of the business having been sold over the years.

Nigel

[Plummiegirl]

Following all the recent activity on this thread I googled the Luton Records Office and their holdings though vast do not appear to cover their premises that were in London.

I do know that they had premises around the country.

Will let you all know what if anything I should find out.

[nigelp]

Following all the recent activity on this thread I googled the Luton Records Office and their holdings though vast do not appear to cover their premises that were in London.

I do know that they had premises around the country.

Will let you all know what if anything I should find out.

Since Waterlow & Sons Limited ultimately became part of The Polestar Group you might contact them for information. However, bearing in mind the history of the company many records were probably destroyed in the 1970s or early 1980s.

Nigel

[dave6023]

My father worked for Waterlows as a monotype operator. I know he worked for them in London before moving to Dunstable. They used to have an annual Christmas Party for the worker's children and I can remember my father taking me into the monotype department after one of these parties.
I have tried to track down photos of the Dunstable factory without much success apart from an aerial photo with the factory in the background. Most of the site where the factory was is now housing, though one of the roads is called Printers Way.
I emailed the Chairman of the DUNSTABLE AND DISTRICT LOCAL HISTORY SOCIETY in January this year to see if they had any information. I did not get a reply!

This link has some useful info   http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/wiki/Waterlow_and_Sons:_1934_Review

Dave

[dave6023]

I've just remembered something else. 

Waterlow's produced an in house magazine called  WandS.
You could try contacting the British Library as they may hold copies of the magazine.

Dave

[michael747]

Hi,

My name is Michael Sherring, currently living in Sydney Australia.  I am researching details on my mother Rosina Ivy Koekkoek, who I believe worked at Waterlows in London at some point in time as a bank note examiner.

On her marriage certificate from 1941, her profession was  given as a "bank note examiner"  It  seems to be hard to find the archive records of Waterlows during this period (say from  1936 - 1956.

Anyone out there got any ideas where I should look

Yours sincerely,

Michael Sherring

[p6steve]

My grandfather worked for Waterlow and Sons after the war for a considerable time. I'm just moving house and have found all his old 'wandS' in house magazines - well there more like books really - from 1946 - 1961. I have what appears to be the first copy which has no title as it had only just been started. Mr. Philip Waterlow invites people to write in with a suitable title with the winner receiving 2 guineas! Absolutely fascinating and I dare say some of you guys on here will have photos of relatives in them. I will get around to having a good look through them all at some point so if you have any names you'd like me to keep a look out for, let me know.
Cheers,
Steve

[IgorStrav]

Welcome to Rootschat, Steve!

I'm sure you'll have some takers for your kind offer, although sadly my parents (who both worked at Waterlow's, and indeed actually met there  ) left in the early years of the war.

This was at the London office, though, and I had another relative who looks like he worked in Dunstable, and was probably working till he was 65 in 1955.

So if there are any references to the Dunstable works, for a James Pay, who was probably a lithographic printer (born 1889, so would have retired in about 1949-1955) I'd be really interested.  James married a Rose Mary Small, and it appears from the 1911 Census that she also came from a family who were all lithographic printers, possibly at Waterlows works.

I expect you found Rootschat from Googling Waterlows, but now you're here, welcome, and do enjoy yourself looking at the other boards.   

[Plummiegirl]

Wow this thread seem to have been resurrected after sometime.

Would like to say that I have not really followed up on this.

But would like to thank all contributors and good luck to you all.

As Dad and Uncle worked in the garage/workshop do not think I will be chasing this up too soon.

But would add that a schoolfriends dad also worked there, she was Marion King, and this would have been in around 1960-2.

When I find it again I do have a photo taken on a works outing and will post it on here for all to see.  Just need to remember where I put it (not where I thought it would be)