George Crowther and Company, Business Archive

Scope and Content

Chronological list — includes items marked * were found with the Crowther items but are probably not referring to the same concern.

*1. Invoice Book (North and South America and Sydney).
Aug. 1833 - April 1840.

Invoices give great detail of colours, types and values of woollen cloths shipped by G. Barret from Liverpool or London for sale in America or Sydney. Carriage, insurance charges, duties and cargo markings are all given. Indexed by name of purchasing firm or agent abroad.

*2. Fragment of account book of unknown firm. 1832-40. Accounts of named suppliers of wool merchandise and dyeing and printing services - all West Riding.

*3. Book of weave pattern instructions inscribed Jas N. Barret, Churwell. Hardly used (n.d.).

4. Cash Book. May 1872 - June 1874.
Detailed entries of cash receipts and disbursements naming recipients, sources and reasons for the cash transfers. Includes weekly mill wages, disbursements from various mill departmental accounts, and colliery expenses. Summaries at the end of each month are given. Credits include mill, manufacturing, and Leeds bank accounts, debits include sales expenses, mill expenses, milling account, manufacturing, dyeing, colliery, and Leeds bank account. Columns differentiate between mill accounts and bank account. Loose invoices include two from cloth finishers and statements of the balance of named accounts 1876. Rough cash account, 1877-8.

5. 'Cash Book 1874'. July 1874-Aug. 1880.
As item 4.

6. 'Cash Book A 1878'. Feb. 1878-Jan. 1883.
As item 5 with overlap because of mistakes towards the end of item 5.

7. Details of bills receivable. 1863-78.
(Usual columnar details.)

8. Details of bills payable. 1870-7.
(Usual columnar details.)

9. Weaving Details. June 1882-Jan. 1883.
Record of pieces produced giving description, price, warp, set, picks, weight of warp, and weight of piece. Also details of wool weft inputs and cotton warps — their suppliers, weights and values. Costs of loom rent, weaving, lists and gears, milling, staining and finishing, are given.

Administrative / Biographical History

George Crowther and Company, of Lane Side Mills, Churwell, near Leeds, were woollen manufacturers, established in the late 1830s.

Arrangement

The BUS/Crowther catalogue is based on an historic inventory, created in 1968. The arrangement of material does not necessarily represent the original order of the archive and it is considered partly processed by an archivist. When making requests to consult, please be aware that there may be discrepancies between description and physical arrangement. The retrievable unit for this collection is file level.

Access Information

Access is to this material is unrestricted.

Other Finding Aids

Described in Patricia Hudson, The West Riding wool textile industry: a catalogue of business records from the sixteenth to the twentieth century , 1975

Geographical Names