Business records
The History Centre holds records for various kinds of businesses, including brewers, solicitors, architects and more. Our business archives include the internationally recognised company Poole Pottery and Britain's first garden centre, Stewarts of Ferndown.
Most of the collections described below can be searched using our online catalogue.
Solicitors
Solicitors' collections typically consist largely of deeds for various clients, though they might also include correspondence and other papers.
Architects
The History Centre holds several architects collections, the largest of which is for Crickmays and Partnership (ref: D/CMY), originally G R Crickmay of Weymouth, for whom Thomas Hardy worked for a time.
Other architects' plans can also be found in local authority planning records, school collections or parish archives.
Other examples
Poole Pottery: The Poole Pottery brand has become internationally recognised, and the History Centre holds the extensive archives of the company and its predecessor, Carter & Co, going back to 1855. As well as pottery and other giftware ceramics, Poole Pottery also produced tiles and signage. The archive includes the standard series of business records, as well as huge numbers of individual designs for Poole Pottery products.
Gundry of Bridport: Bridport-Gundry Ltd were a company of rope and net makers whose business can be traced back to 1665, although there were numerous changes in name and composition over the next three centuries as various local companies were amalgamated. The collection includes family and estate papers of the Gundrys, as well as the business records themselves.
Stewarts of Ferndown: The Stewarts plant nursery business has the honour of being
Britain's first garden centre (opens in a new window) 
, which was established in Ferndown in 1955, after the company's owner, Edward Stewart, saw similar centres whilst travelling around America and Canada. The family business can be traced back to Scottish plantsmen in the 1700s, although the collection itself dates from the 1850s onwards.
Eldridge Pope of Dorchester: The brewer Eldridge Pope first opened its site in Dorchester in 1881, although records within the business archive go back to 1865. The collection is currently uncatalogued, so please contact us in advance of your visit to discuss access.
Cosens of Weymouth: The Weymouth shipping company, mainly remembered for its fleet of pleasure cruise paddle steamers, had a number of different business interests during its 150-year history, including mast making, yacht building, transporting coal and ice and property management.
