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Originally, tithes were payments in kind (crops, wool, milk, eggs and so on) comprising an agreed proportion of the yearly profits from farming, and made by parishioners for the support of their parish church and its clergy. From early times money payments began to be substituted for payments in kind, a tendency further stimulated by enclosures, particularly the Parliamentary enclosures of the late 18th century. Enclosures were often made in order to improve the land and its yield, and had they proceeded without some arrangements respecting tithes, the rectors, vicars and lay owners of the tithes would have received an automatically increased income, as indeed they did when cultivation was improved without preliminary enclosure. One object of the Enclosure Acts was to get rid of the obligation to pay tithes. This could be done in one of two ways: by the allotment of land in lieu of tithes, or by the substitution either of a fixed money payment or of one which varied with the price of corn (hence the name corn rents applied to payments in lieu of tithes). The limits of the land allotted, or of the land charged with a money payment, were generally shown on a map attached to the Enclosure Award.

Statutory enclosure was a purely local affair, prompted by local landowners. Although much of the country was covered, in 1836 tithes were still payable in the majority of parishes in England and Wales. In 1836, the government decided to commute tithes (that is, to substitute money payments for payments in kind) throughout the country. The Bill received Royal Assent on 13 August 1836; three Tithe Commissioners were appointed, and the process of commutation began. Although the Tithe Act 1836 is a long and complicated piece of legislation, the underlying principle was the simple one of substituting for the payment of tithes in kind corn rents of the same sort as were already payable in many parishes under the authority of a local Enclosure Act. These new corn rents, known as tithe rentcharges, were not subject to local variation, but varied according to the price of corn calculated on a septennial average for the whole country. Existing corn rents were left unaffected: they continued to be paid according to the varied provisions of the local Acts which created them. The initial process in the commutation of tithes in a parish was an agreement between the tithe-owners and landowners or, in default of agreement, an award by the Tithe Commissioners. Generally the next stage was the apportionment of payments, and the substance of the preceding agreement or award was then recited in the preamble of the instrument of apportionment.

In most cases, the principal record of the commutation of tithes in a parish under the Tithe Act 1836 is the Tithe Apportionment. Most apportionments follow the general pattern set out in the instructions which were issued at the time. The standard form of apportionment contains columns for the name(s) of the landowner(s) and occupier(s) (because until the passing of the Tithe Act 1891 the payment of tithe rentcharge was the owner's liability); the number, acreage, name or description, and state of cultivation of each tithe area; the amount of rentcharge payable, and the name(s) of the tithe-owner(s). The apportionment opens with a preamble reciting the names of the tithe-owners, the circumstances in which they owned the tithes, and whether the amount of rentcharge to be apportioned was the subject of an agreement between the landowners and the tithe-owners or of a compulsory award made by the Tithe Commissioners. The preamble usually contains, too, statistics as to the area and state of cultivation of the lands in the tithe district; the extent of the land subject to tithes and of lands, if any, exempt on various grounds from payment of tithes; and the area covered by commons, roads and so on. It concludes with a statement showing the respective numbers of bushels of wheat, barley and oats which would have been obtained if one-third of the aggregate amount of rentcharge had been invested in the purchase of each of those commodities at the prices prescribed by the Tithe Act 1837. The detailed apportionment of the aggregate tithe rentcharge then follows. A rentcharge is set out against each unit of charge, termed a tithe area. The amount of the charge is the par value, not the amount actually paid, which varied from year to year. The annual value of tithe rentcharge was ascertained and published yearly, and tables were issued from 1837 onwards which enabled the precise payment due to be calculated for the par value of any amount of rentcharge.

Source: The National Archives Domestic Information Research Guide Number 41: Tithe Records (available online).

No biographical information has been discovered for the Berney family.

John Alfred Groom was a London engraver and evangelical preacher, who became concerned with the plight of the poverty-stricken and often disabled girls and women who sold flowers and watercress in the streets around Farringdon Market. His work with them began when he founded the Watercress and Flower Girls' Christian Mission in 1866. A permanent home for the mission was found in Harp Alley and Lord Shaftesbury became its first president. Religious services were held at Foresters' Hall until its destruction in 1890, after which John Groom purchased Woodbridge Chapel, Clerkenwell.

Taking inspiration from the trend for imported handmade flowers, John Groom set up a factory in Sekforde Street, close to the Woodbridge Chapel, where disabled girls could work at making artificial flowers and thus make a living for themselves. The girls lived in houses in Sekforde Street, rented by John Groom. Further factories were subsequently built in Woodbridge Street and Haywards Place. The name of the charity was changed to John Groom's Crippleage and Flower Girls Mission in 1907.

Rising inner London rents forced the charity's council to purchase a large estate in Edgware in 1931 and the whole operation moved there in 1932. In 1965 Edgware opened its doors to male residents. The charity's name changed again in 1969 to John Groom's Association for the Disabled and in 1990 to John Groom's Association for Disabled People.

John Groom was also very concerned for the welfare of deprived and orphaned children. He bought a house at Clacton-on-Sea and built others around it and his orphanage opened in 1890. During World War II the older children from Clacton were evacuated to Davenport House, Shropshire, with the babies being sent first to Edgware and then to Farncote House, Wolverhampton. After the war the older children moved into a new home at Pilgrim's House, Kent, and the babies moved to the new Cudham Hall, also in Kent. In 1956 Charnwood, near Chislehurst was purchased to provide a family children's home with room for 12 children. Thorpe Bay Children's Home was added to the list in 1951 when John Grooms took over a children's convalescent home at Stamford Hill House. The charity's work with children finally ended in 1979.

John Grooms expanded its work with housing for the disabled during the early 1970s, with John Groom's Housing Association becoming a registered charity in its own right. The association's developments have included flats in Princess Crescent, Finsbury Park (1973), Dolphin Court, which was built on the site of the Thorpe Bay Children's Home (1984) and John Grooms Court, Norwich (1989).

The charity has also developed the idea of special holidays for the disabled, with hotels in Minehead and Llandudno, and self-catering caravans and bungalows. It has also been involved with a special Brain Injuries Rehabilitation Unit, Icanho, Stowmarket, Suffolk and the HOPE Nursery at Cheshunt, Hertfordshire which provides horticultural employment and therapy for disabled workers.

In 2007 John Groom's merged with the Shaftesbury Society to form Grooms-Shaftesbury with 'a vision of working with people and communities affected by poverty and disability, helping them to maximise their potential', becoming one of the UK's largest Christian charities.

A most unusual form of Victorian country house guest book. Each guest has signed on arrival, but the book requires them to record their weight, and also indicate how they were dressed. Lord Bingham suceeded his father as Lord Lucan, and therefore the visitors are particularly high status. The final entries, dated February 1st 1910 are of Edward VII, Queen Alexandra, Princess Victoria Mary (soon to become Queen Mary) and the princesses Victoria and Mary. The Royal Family did not include thier weight entries! Other high status Victorians who do include notification of their weight include Hardinge of Penshurst, Prince Hermann of Saxeweimar, Prince Francis of Teck, the future Queen Mary, Earl Howe, Lord Dorchester, the Duke of Hamilton, George Duke of Cambridge, the Earl of Munster, the Duke of Richmond and Gordon.

Laleham House was the seat of the Earl of Lucan, situated to the south of the village of Laleham.

Garnier and Company Limited, manufacturers of Vitreous enamelled steel signs, was founded by Charles Garnier (b. 1841, Paris), who came to London with his family in 1870s and worked as an engraver and manufacturer of enamelled copper medallions, jewellery and advertising letters.

On 1st February 1887 Charles Garnier formed a partnership with Mr. Andrew Agnes Maitland Herriott, who was appointed Director. The registered office of the first company was 10 Ash Grove, Hackney. This business stopped c. 1889, for unknown reasons.

On 22nd July 1890 Charles Garnier set up another business arrangement, forming a Company called 'Garnier Enamelled Letter and Advertising Sign Co.' and acting as agent for two French companies (G. Soyers and C. Merleu). The main shareholders were Mr. Charles Garnier and Mr. Henry Sells. Garnier concentrated on the manufacture of copper letters, which were used extensively for window advertising.

In 1908 the company changed ownership again, the new owners being Mr. C. Amey and Mr. F. Battams. After Henry Sells's death by February 1912, his son Alfred and his family become the main shareholders, together with Sells Publishing Agency. The Company seems to have survived the First World War, with the offices and trade counter in Farringdon Street and the new factory in Willesden.

On 6th February 1923 Mr. Amey (owner) and Mr. W. C. Sydenham (employee since 1921) formed Garnier & Co. Ltd. The business was to manufacture and deal in enamelled plates and signs, copper letters and other articles. Mr. Amey retired from the Company in April 1926. After the death of Mr. Sydenham in July 1930 the Company was left to his wife Elizabeth, and after her death in May 1934, to their daughter Miss Barbara Sydenham, who kept in touch with the Company's affairs through her advisors, solicitors Bevan Hancock and accountants Payne Stone & Fraser, based in Bristol, where she lived. Miss Sydenham eventually agreed to sell the Company to John Lovelock (Company's Works Manager) and Vera Thompson (Company Secretary) in January 1972. The Company continued to manufacture Vitreous enamelled steel signs, but copper letters had been discontinued in 1950s.

The business was sold again in October 1991. In 1998 the Company was still trading at 233a High Road and 37 Strode Road, Willesden, specialising in the Vitreous enamelled steel trade.

Howards and Sons Limited were manufacturers of pharmaceutical chemicals, especially quinine. Before and immediately after World War I, Howards and Sons was the only British quinine manufacturer (the trade, and especially the supply of cinchona bark used for the production of quinine, was virtually monopolised by the Dutch at that time). In December 1916, following the outbreak of the war, the company's entire production was put at the disposal of the War Office Contracts Department.

On 3 September 1918 David Howard, the company's director and Chairman of the Association of Quinine Manufacturers in Allied Countries, was one of the signatories of an agreement between the allied governments of the UK, India, France, Italy and the USA on one hand and the Dutch manufacturers on the other, which secured a supply of quinine and cinchona bark for the Allied nations.

After the war, on 29 May 1919, Howards and Sons became a member of the newly-formed British Quinine Corporation and continued to trade all over the world.

The National Association of Decorative and Fine Arts Societies organises volunteers to act as church recorders, who inventory the contents of churches and write up their findings, including detailed descriptions and histories. The Blackheath Decorative and Fine Arts Societies set up a special interest group called the Blackheath Group of Church Recorders, who were responsible for producing this report.

Trade unionism in engineering first emerged in the 1780s when a Friendly Society of Mechanics was established in Bolton, Blackburn and Chorley. By 1799 employers in London asked Parliament to make it illegal for millwrights and engineers to combine. This resulted in the passing of the Combination Acts in 1799 and 1800. In the 1820s local engineering unions began to develop in industrial areas. This included the Steam Engine Makers' Society (1824), Friendly Society of Mechanics (1826) and the Friendly Society of Engineers (1833). In 1851 a successful attempt was made to form a national union. The result was the Amalgamated Society of Engineers, Machinists, Smiths, Millwrights and Patternmakers, also known as the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (ASE), formed in 1852. William Allan was elected General Secretary and by 1861 it had 186 branches and over 33,000 union members.

In the 1880s the ASE became more militant. Important figures such as Tom Mann, John Burns, and George Barnes, took part in demonstrations including those held at Trafalgar Square on 13 February 1887, which turned into the riot known as Bloody Sunday. By 1890, the ASE was Britain's third largest union and in circa 1900 there were nearly 90,000 members. In 1920, the ASE merged with the Steam Engine Makers' Society, a union of engineers founded in Liverpool in 1824, which had taken part in the discussions which led to the creation of the ASE in 1851; the Amalgamated Society of General Toolmakers, Engineers and Machinists; and seven other unions to form the Amalgamated Engineering Union (AEU). During the late 20th century, the union's name changed to the Amalgamated Union of Engineering and Foundry Workers, and then the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union. By 2000, it was still one of Britain's largest unions. The union had branches throughout Britain and Commonwealth, including Australia, Canada and New Zealand.

The Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues (ULPS) orignated as the Jewish Religious Union (JRU). The JRU was founded in 1902 by Lily Montagu, the daughter of Samuel Montagu who founded the Federation of Synagogues, and Claude Montefiore, theologian, scholar and philanthropist. Montagu and Montefiore initially intended to encourage a revival of interest in Judaism within the existing religious organisational framework. In 1910 it was decided to set up the movements' first separate congregation following disagreements with both the United Synagogue and the West London Synagogue - the leading Reform congregation in London. The Liberal Jewish Synagogue was opened in 1911.

Further Liberal congregations were established throughout the twentieth century; by 1991 there were nearly 30 affiliated synagogues. In 1944 the name of the movement was changed to the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues.

The Star Inn, High Street, Romford, Essex was established in 1708. In 1799 it was acquired by Edward Ind from George Cardon and a brew house was built on the site. Ind went into partnership with Octavius and George Coope in 1845, Edward Vipan Ind joined the partnership in 1848. They were known as Ind Coope and Company from 1856. Also in 1856 a second brewery was opened in Station Street, Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire. Ind Coope and Company Limited was registered as a limited liability company in November 1886.

Ind Coope took over numerous other breweries around the country before going into receivership in January 1909. A new company was registered in 1912 named Ind Coope and Company (1912) Limited which obtained certain assets from the receivers and expanded, acquiring several other breweries.

In 1922 Ind Coope and Company Limited was removed from the register of companies and in the following year Ind Coope and Company (1912) Limited changed its name to Ind Coope and Company Limited and continued to expand. After acquiring Samuel Allsopp and Sons Limited, High Street, Burton-on-Trent in 1934 the company became known as Ind Coope and Allsopp Limited. In 1959 Ind Coope took over Taylor Walker and Company Limited before changing its name to Ind Coope Limited in the same year.

In 1961 Ind Coope Limited merged with Tetley Walker Limited, Leeds, West Yorkshire and Ansells Brewery Limited, Birmingham, West Midlands which became Ind Coope Tetley Ansell Limited which later became known as Allied Breweries Limited.

Broad Street Securities Limited had a registered office at Bilbao House, New Broad Street, London, EC2. The company minute book mostly refers to property acquisitions and sales. Company number: 618669.

Groot Constantia Wines Limited, importers of South African wine, were incorporated in 1938 with a registered office at 89 Upper Thames Street, EC4. Their registered office changed to River Plate House, Finsbury Circus, in 1939 and they began to work with a wine shippers and agents, Williams and Bertram Limited, who were based at the same address. In 1944 Williams and Bertram went into liquidation and was purchased by Groot Constantia Wines, who changed their name to Churchill and Williams Limited.

According to an advert in the Times newspaper of November 1st 1948, Lings of London Limited were a "West End wine merchant" based at "5 Avery Row, Brook Street, London, W1".

Thomas McAndie and Company Limited was incorporated in 1945, with registered offices at 21 Church Street, Inverness and 242 Clyde Street, Glasgow. The company described themselves as 'blenders and exporters of Scotch whisky", and owned the Clachar Bar, Inverness. Company number: 23274. Duncan MacLeod and Co company number: 19753.

P G Ward and Company were incorporated on 7 October 1944. Their registered office was at Kilver Street, Shepton Mallett, Somerset.

The Winchester Brewery Company Limited operated the Winchester Brewery, founded before 1812. In 1923 the Company and its 108 licenced houses were taken over by brewers Marston, Thompson and Evershed Limited of Burton on Trent. The Brewery was closed in 1927 and used as a bottling plant until 1969.

The Horseshoe Brewery was founded before 1764 and was situated at 269 Tottenham Court Road, London. The business was purchased by Sir Henry Meux after a dispute at his previous business, Reid, Meux and Company, resulted in him leaving. The Horseshoe Brewery had previously been managed by Blackburn and Bywell.

The brewery traded under the name Henry Meux and Company. Sir Henry Meux the Second ran the brewery after the death of his father in 1841 until 1878 when Henry Bruce Meux and Lord Tweedmouth took over management and renamed the company Meux's Brewery Company Limited which was registered in 1888.

In 1921 operations were transferred to the Nine Elms Brewery, Nine Elms Road, Wandsworth which was the premises of Thorne Bros Limited, acquired by Meux in 1914. The Nine Elms Brewery was renamed the Horseshoe Brewery and the old Horseshoe Brewery was closed.

The company acquired Burge and Company Limited, Victoria Brewery, Victoria Street, Windsor, Berkshire in 1931 and Mellersh and Neale Limited, Reigate, Surrey in 1938. In 1956 Meux's Brewery merged with Friary, Holroyd and Healy's Breweries Limited, Guildford, Surrey, to form Friary Meux Limited.

Meux's Brewery Company Limited went into liquidation in November 1961 and the Horseshoe Brewery ceased to brew in 1964.

John Locke Lovibond founded his brewery in 1834, but did not move to London until 1847, purchasing a brewey in Greenwich. In 1872 Lovibond's four sons set up a partnership, trading as "John Lovibond and Sons, Greenwich", later forming a limited company in 1896 as "John Lovibond and Sons Ltd". In 1959 the company stopped production of beer and became wine merchants. The company was purchased by Wine Ways Supermarkets Ltd in 1968, and a year later the Greenwich premises were sold.

Source of information: Lovibonds Brewery website at http://www.lovibonds.co.uk/about.php (accessed Jan 2010).

Sir Peter Anthony Newsam (knighted in 1987) was born in November 1928. He was educated at Clifton College and then Queen's College, Oxford. In his early career he held the following positions: Assistant Principal, Board of Trade (1952-1956); Teacher (1956-1963); Assistant Education Officer for North Riding of Yorkshire (1963-1966); Assistant Director of Education for Cumberland (1966-1970); Deputy Education Officer at West Riding of Yorkshire (1970-1972).

In 1972 he became Deputy Education Officer, and then succeeded Eric Briault as the Education Officer (Controller of Education) in 1975, for the Inner London Education Authority (ILEA). The authority, based at County Hall, had been established in 1965 and had taken over the responsibilty from the London County Council for education in the inner London boroughs.

Newsam's duties as head of the authority, were to:

1. be 'the principal adviser to the Education Committee and sub-committees on matters of professional, administrative or managerial education policy with responsibility for securing co-ordinated advice to enable members of the authority to a) decide the authority's objectives, policies and priorities and b) to monitor and control the implementation of policy and the use of resources and ensure consistency of the department's proposals with the authority's policy';
2. 'advise the Education Committee and sub-committees on all major questions of organisation and on questions of staff management including the distribution of functions across the authority's service';
3. 'be responsible for securing the professional administrative managerial effectiveness of the authority's teaching and non-teaching staff';

4. 'have the right to intervene in and report separately to the Education Committee and sub-committees on any matters relating to the management of and services provided by the authority'.

   A major development made by the ILEA during Newsam's period of office was a shift in policy regarding ethnic minorities, from a non-discriminatory approach, which did not deal with the needs and interests of ethnic minority children, to an approach which intended to achieve integration by paying attention to their needs and interests. In Newsam's report to the Schools Sub-Committee on 'Multi-ethnic education' in October 1977, he announced that the ILEA was going to undertake a 'radical reappraisal' of previous policies, stating 'that disproportionate numbers of people from ethnic minority groups have low expectations and aspirations and lack of confidence in the education system which itself appears not fully to take advantage of the vitality and richness to be derived from a multi-cultural society'. The ILEA became the first Local Education Authority in Britain to introduce policies on multi-ethnic education in schools.

   Other significant contributions made by Newsam included the introduction of large structural changes in the Schools Inspectorate following the blame raised by inquiries into the management of Risinghill and William Tyndale Schools; and the progress he made in reforming the management structure in the ILEA according to his vision of providing a more local, parent-friendly administrative base to London's education authority. He replicated the management functions at the divisional level, which operated at his central office at County Hall. He also helped challenge traditional thinking in education provision by organising the ILEA's response to the Scarman Report on the Brixton riots.

   The Leader of the ILEA during Newsam's period of office was Sir Ernest Ashley Bramall, 1916-1999, politician and educationalist. Bramall had been Labour MP for Bexley (1946-1950) and Westminster Councillor (1959-1968) before he became Leader in 1970. Bramall was knighted in 1975 and ceased to be the Leader of the ILEA in 1981.

   Newsam left the ILEA in August 1982, remarking that 'ten years' service in the ILEA was equivalent to working twenty elsewhere'. He was succeeded by William Stubbs. Newsam continued his interest in furthering equal opportunities across racial groups, and became chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (1982-1987), Secretary of the Association of County Councils from 1987 to 1989, Director of the Institute of Education (1989-1994), and Deputy Vice-Chancellor of University of London (1992-1994). He became Chief Adjudicator of School Organisation and Admissions in 1999 and was a member of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain.

   Newsam married twice and had six children.

The Aged Poor Society was established in 1708 as a benevolent Catholic charity to give permanent relief to poor Catholics of 'good character', at a time when it was a capital offence for a priest to say Mass. The Annual Report for 1820 reminded its supporters that 'The Aged Poor Society has met with the approbation and support of many persons equally distinguished for piety and learning, among whom our venerable and illustrous prelates have held first rank'. Other Catholic societies were also established in London during the 18th century which provided pensions and other support to aged poor, for example the Benevolent Society for the Aged and Infirm Poor, founded in 1761.

In 1851, the Aged Poor Society founded Saint Joseph's Alms Houses on the same plot as the new Catholic church at Brook Green, Hammersmith. The first foundation stones were laid by the Countess of Arundel and Surrey. In 1852 Miss J Molineux, of Curzon Street, Mayfair left a bequest of £1,740 to the Society, setting up the Molineux Trust and Pension Funds, which was used to complete building work at Brook Green, and later donations from the family were distributed as pensions among aged poor cared for by the Society. Donations also came from anonymous donors and T J Eyre.

Relief of the poor was achieved by:
a) the payment of pensions or making of allowances,
b) the provision of almshouses or other accommodation,
c) the maintenance and support of beneficiaries,
d) other charitable means.

In 1915 the Society reported that 130 weekly pensioners were receiving payments of £4 for men and £3 for women, and that 'among other benevolent works, the society grants pensions of £26 per annum to 40 aged and necessitous Catholics who must be persons "reduced from a superior station of society." The same condition applies to those who are admitted to almshouses conducted by the society at Hammersmith, some of whom are also eligible for an endowment of £20 a year'.

The Society was run by the following:
Governors: persons who have given not less than £20 in one payment to the Society, or an annual subscription payment
Officers: the President, not more than five Vice Presidents, and the Treasurer (all appointed by the Governors)
Directors: the President, Vice President, and Treasurer and five other members elected by the Governors Secretary (appointed by the Directors).

The Duke of Norfolk became President of the Society from 1874 and Patrons included the Archbishop of Westminster (1916), the Bishop of Southwark (1916), and the Bishop of Brentwood (1930).

During the 19th and 20th centuries, the Society had offices at the following premises:
37 Gerrard Street (1861)
Room 18, 82 Victoria Street (1916-1920)
60 Victoria Street (1930)
38 Eccleston Square (1931-1936)
39 Eccleston Square (1937-1956).

In circa 1980, the name of the Society was changed, and the organisation began work in Liverpool.

In 2002 London Catholic charities were running homes for the aged poor at Nazareth House, Hammersmith, and the convent of the Little Sisters of the Poor at Notting Hill and almshouses at Brook Green, Chelsea, and Ingatestone.

Bernard Susser was born in 1930 in London. He was educated in Islington, at Jews College (now the London School of Jewish Studies) and at Exeter University where he wrote a PhD thesis on the Jewish communities of South-West England. Rabbi Susser worked as a minister in England, Israel and South Africa. His interest in Anglo-Jewish history lasted his whole life and he published many articles and edited several books: his book Jews of South-West England was much acclaimed. Rabbi Susser died in London, his last home, in 1997.

In 1993 the Working Party on Jewish Monuments in the UK and Ireland started a survey of the Alderney Road Cemetery in Stepney with Rabbi Susser as one of the supervisors. Rabbi Susser's last published work Alderney Road Jewish Cemetery, London E1 1697-1853 reported on this survey as well as marking the tercentenary of what is the oldest Ashkenazi cemetery in England. Following the resettlement of Jews in 1656 Ashkenazi Jews at first used the Sephardi cemetery in Mile End (opened 1657). The Alderney Road (previously known as Colt Yard and Three Colt Yard) site was acquired in 1696/97 by a prominent Jewish broker Benjamin Levy. Famous members of the Jewish community who were buried here include: the first Chief Rabbi of Great Britain, Aaron Hart; the Baal Shem of London, Rabbi Hayim Samuel Jacob de Falk; and Judith Levy, sometimes known as the "Duchess of Richmond Green".

Rabbi Susser's "Alderney Road" was published in the summer of 1997, just after his death in April 1997. As he had planned a tercentenary service was held at the Cemetery in the June; the ceremony was conducted by the Chief Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks and the book was launched as part of the day's events.

The London Liberal Party (LLP) was formed in October 1943, having been established in 1903 as the London Liberal Federation. It originally served as the coordinating body for Liberal Associations within the County of London and now fulfills the same function across Greater London. An annual subscription fee is paid by each member association, with further income generated by a range of fund raising activities. This revenue supports the LLP's various tasks, which include the selection of candidates and all other aspects of election campaigning.

On 17 February 1824 the founding members of the Oriental Club met for the first time at the Royal Asiatic Society with the purpose of drawing up a prospectus for the creation of a club which would meet their specific needs. Their rational for doing so was recorded in the prospectus:

"The British Empire in the East is now so extensive, and the persons connected with it so numerous, that the establishment of an institution where they may meet on a footing of social intercourse seems particularly desirable".

The club was designed to attract persons who had resided or travelled in the East. Membership was initially almost exclusively reserved for servants of the East India Company, both civil and military, who, finding themselves in London after service abroad, sought the company of like minded gentlemen with whom they could share experiences of their travels.

In many respects the club was also a necessity. Many Company men found it difficult to gain membership to the numerous gentlemen's clubs in nineteenth century London. This was partly a reflection of London society's general prejudice towards returning Company men; but it was also a consequence of the fact that Company soldiers were often not eligible for membership at many of the clubs due to the fact that they were forced to relinquish their rank on returning from service in India (unlike King's officers serving abroad).

On 24 February 1824 the Oriental Club was officially formed. It was resolved to elect a committee and to offer the presidency of the club to the Duke of Wellington. Founding members included Sir John Malcolm (1769-1833 first chairman), Admiral Sir Pulteney Malcolm (1768-1838), Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm (1782-1851), Major James Rivett Carnac (1785-1846), Major Robert Haldane, Sir George Staunton, Thomas Snodgrass, William Bentinck, John Elphinstone (1779-1859), Charles William Wynn, and Vice-Admiral Sir Henry Blackwood.

Legend has it that the Duke of Wellington's advice to John Malcolm on setting up the Oriental was: 'Have your own club. Own your own property'. Whether or not this is true, the founding members of the Oriental were certainly keen to find a suitable property they could buy, deciding to rent a building at 16 Lower Grosvenor Street only until a suitable property became available for purchase.

On 2 March 1826 the committee offered £14,000 to JD Alexander for the freehold to his house at 18 Hanover Square, which included the use of a stable yard held under lease to City of London. Benjamin Wyatt was appointed architect charged with turning the townhouse into a clubhouse. He opted to pull down the existing house and build another at a cost of £17,000. The purchase of the Hanover Square property was financed partly by loans raised from members on the security of any property the Oriental would eventually own, with Some 100 signatories agreeing to loan £160 each in 1825. The new clubhouse was ready in 1828 and the Oriental remained there until 30 November 1961.

By 1850s the Oriental Club was well established. In 1851 and 1854 a possible amalgamation with the new East India United Services Club was suggested but on both occasions the two clubs were unable to agree on terms. In 1854, however, it was agreed that the Alfred Club, founded in 1808 in Albemarle Street, should merge with the Oriental and thereafter the club admitted Alfred members.

The amalgamation necessitated changes in membership qualifications as it brought members to the club who had no overseas connections. This trend was extended beyond Alfred members in the 1870s. Despite this, however, the identity of the club always remained centred on the experiences of the majority of its members in the East. Membership rules were further relaxed with regard to honorary members. Non-British subjects could be granted honorary member status from 1831. Throughout the nineteenth century they included the likes of Oman Effendi (1831), The Prince of Oudh (1839), Dwarkanath Tagore and Mohun Lal (1842), HH Maharajah Duleep Singh, son of Ranjit Singh, ruler of Punjab (1854), Sir Cursetjee Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy (1860), HE Nazim Bey, Prime Minister of Turkey (1862), and Nawab Nazim of Bengal (1869).

The question of whether to admit women to the club was one repeatedly posed throughout the twentieth century. Initially women were tolerated only as guests, but the 1950s saw a change in policy. Wives and daughters of members were offered associate membership in an attempt to reverse the trend of falling subscriptions, and by 1953 some 270 had joined.

By the late 1950s the Oriental was again in financial difficulty. The club was fast outgrowing the clubhouse at Hanover Square and only very expensive building work could hope to convert it to the club's changing needs. At the same time income from subscriptions began to fall in the second half of the decade and the future of the Oriental suddenly seemed unsure.

The club was saved due to the work of Sir Arthur Bruce, chairman, and Sir Aynsley Bridgland, a property magnate. They both looked into the possibility of allowing a property developer to exploit the land at Hanover Square and came to the conclusion that the value of land in central London had risen to such an extent that the freehold to the Hanover Square site might provide the club with enough income to resurrect its finances.

It was decided that the club should not sell the freehold but rather that it should move to new premises and then develop the Hanover Square site itself. The plan required perfect co-ordination. The head lease at Hanover Square was taken on by the Legal and General Assurance Society for a building to be erected on site, and a sub-tenant was found in the Courtauld Group to occupy the building. Meanwhile an alternative clubhouse was found in the splendid Stratford House. By raising the cash to purchase the house through a fixed mortgage, the Club was then able to use the rent from the Hanover Square site both to repay the mortgage and generate a healthy excess. Thanks to this shrewd economic foresight, the club was able to guarantee its future, and by 1974, the 150th anniversary of the club, the Oriental was one of the most secure clubs in London.

Samuel Whitbread (1720-96) of Cardington, Bedfordshre, was apprenticed in 1736 to John Wightman, a leading London brewer. In 1742 he entered into partnership with Godfrey Shewell and Thomas Shewell and acquired the Goat Brewhouse on the corner of Whitecross Street and Upper Old Street in the City of London about a quarter of a mile north of where the main brewery was to become established in Chiswell Street. They traded as Godfrey Shewell and Company and by 1749 were producing 18,000 barrels of beer a year and owned 14 public houses. As well as beer, the brewery also sold its surplus yeast and spent grains from which most of the Capital's bread was made along with much of the gin. This was in addition to almost of London's livestock that were feed on brewer's grain.

Godfrey Shewell left the partnership upon his marriage in 1748. Thomas Shewell and Whitbread acquired the Chiswell Street site, known as the King's Head Brewhouse (previously The Eagle and Child, in 1750 with the acquisition of a leasehold interest on the south side of Chiswell Street extending from Whitecross Street to the Brewery gate. He built a large porter brewery (porter being strong, black beer, made from coarse barley and scorched malt). The Goat Brewhouse, Old Street, was retained to brew pale and amber beer (pale ale is brewed with lightly roasted malt, compared to the highly roasted malts used to brew porters). Thomas Shewell retired in 1761 when Whitbread bought him out for £30,000.

Additions were made to the Chiswell Street Brewery in 1758 with the cooperage, a house for the head cooper, stables and a retail beer shop being built. The Porter Tun Room was constructed in 1760 along with a new storehouse and in 1790 land was bought on the north side of the street back to Cherry Tree Alley extending in some places to Whitecross Street.

Production at the Brewery was greatly enhanced by the introduction of steam power when Whitbread purchased a Boulton and Watt steam engine in 1785 to grind malt and pump water to the boilers. This enabled the Brewery to increase production and by 1787 the output reached 150,280 barrels. Samuel Whitbread died in 1796 by which time the Brewery was producing 200,000 barrels of beer a year and was described as the best in London. Although the introduction of steam power at Whitbread's saved much labour, the brewery still employed around 200 men and 80 horses.

Brewing required a huge amount of money and the market of hops was volatile. The time delay between the buying of hops and the selling of the beer also imposed severe restrictions on the cash flow of the business. This situation was further exacerbated by the need for the Brewery to support publicans. The Company established its own maltings located in Dereham, Whittington and King's Lynn in the county of Norfolk and also grew their own hops in the Weald of Kent at Beltring and Stilstead farms and Paddock Wood with a growing area of over four hundred acres.

After the death of Samuel Whitbread I the Brewery was run by Samuel Whitbread II (1758-1815) and his father's executors until 1799 when a partnership made up of Samuel Whitbread II, Richard Sangster, clerk, Joseph Yallowley, clerk, (both executors of Samuel Whitbread I's Will) and Timothy Brown, banker, was formed. The terms of the partnership freed Whitbread from attending personally to any business. They were joined by Joseph Goodman, Jacob Whitbread (Samuel's cousin) and Sir Benjamin Hobhouse, banker in 1800. Timothy Brown left the partnership in 1810 after an accounting dispute.

At the start of the eighteenth century the majority of the Brewery's trade was with free houses with 392 licensed victuallers in London and two hundred spread throughout the rest of the country. Along with these freehouses there were also twenty-nine leaseholds. In 1812 the business amalgamated with that of Martineau and Bland of the Lambeth Brewery, King's Arms Stairs, Lambeth, adding a further 38 leaseholds to the list bringing the total number to 91. The Lambeth Brewery closed down and the stock of beer, horses and the larger part of the machinery and utensils were transferred to the Chiswell Street Brewery. The managing partners at this time were Robert Sangster, Michael Bland, John Martineau and Joseph Martineau. By 1889, when the Company was formed from the partnership, the number of licensed houses controlled and served by the Brewery totalled many hundreds.

After Samuel Whitbread II's death in 1815 (he committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor), a new partnership was formed comprising two new partners, William Wilshere and John Farquhar. John Martineau, Joseph Martineau and Michael Bland were the managing partners. William Henry Whitbread (1796-1879), the second son of Samuel Whitbread II, joined the partnership in 1819, along with Samuel Charles Whitbread (1796-1879), his younger brother. Richard Martineau joined the partnership in 1828 as a junior partner and John Cam Hobhouse (later Lord Broughton, son of Sir Benjamin Hobhouse) became a partner in 1831.

John Martineau died in 1834 "being seized with apoplexy {he} had fallen in to the vat" in the Porter Tun Room. The jury returned a verdict of "death by the visitation of God". Charles Shaw Lefevre (MP 1830-57, later Viscount Eversley, son-in-law of Samuel Whitbread II) joined the partnership in 1840. This partnership ran for twenty years. William Whitbread (d 1879), the second son of Samuel Charles Whitbread, and John Martineau became partners in 1860, followed by F Lubbock in 1875, Samuel Whitbread III (1830-1915) in 1879, and W H Whitbread, second son of Samuel Whitbread III, in 1885.

After Viscount Eversley died in July 1889 the business was registered as a limited liability company, Whitbread and Company Limited, with Samuel Whitbread III as chairman. Brewery business had been conducted by partnerships for ninety years, the total number of partners during this period being thirty, seven of whom were members of the Whitbread family.

Throughout the latter part of the nineteenth century the Brewery expanded purchasing additional land and buildings on the north side of Chiswell Street. A tunnel under the road connected the cellars on both side of the street that occupied around five acres of space underground and the total length of the beer mains in the Brewery stretched from between two and a half to three miles. Along with the rooms normally associated with a brewery, research and control laboratories had also been built following inspiration by Louis Pasteur who undertook research at the Brewery in 1871. By 1905, at the height of production when the brewery was at its fullest extent, the freehold area of Chiswell Street was over five acres.

Production at Chiswell Street rose rapidly again with the success of bottled beer which began in 1868 following a reduction on the duty on glass. The new bottling stores were located in Worship Street, Finsbury but bottled beer proved so popular that the bottling stores had to move to larger premises at 277 Gray's Inn Road in 1869. By the middle of 1889 the Brewery was producing 336,000 barrels up to nearly 700,000 barrels by mid-1900 with profits equalling £205,000. To meet the demand for bottled beers depots were opened in Lewisham, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Weston Rise, Cardiff, Manchester, Totteham, Newcastle, Poole, Hull, Leicester, Nottingham and Kingston and a new headquarters office was opened at 27 Britannia Street, London, in 1900. The first overseas depot in Brussels established in 1904, expanding to include Antwerp in 1906 followed by Liege in 1910, Paris in 1912 and Ghent in 1913. By the time the depot in Ghent was in operation more than half of the brewery's output of close to one million barrels was being bottled.

Circumstance and legislation brought in during the Great War saw production limited to 18 million barrels at the start of 1917 and then halved by March to less than a third of pre-war output. By 1918 production had fallen to 400,000 barrels and was only 100,000 barrels higher eighteen years later. Over 1000 Whitbread employees had enlisted in the War and 95 were killed either in action or from wounds sustained.

Following the purchase of the Forest Hill brewery in the early 1920s, Whitbread began experimenting with brewing 'bright' beer where the beer was matured and filtered before bottling to prevent sedimentation. The technique was a success and rolled out to the whole Whitbread brand. In the 1920s Whitbread also introduced the Double Brown which was designed to rival Guinness and was almost a recreation of Whitbread's original porter.

In the mid-1920s Whitbread was experiencing a slump in trade. Sales were down overall by an average of 34%, twice that experienced by the trade as a whole. In response Sydney Nevile, the managing director, decided upon an avid advertising campaign using popular celebrities such as Gertie Lawrence and Ronald Squire and hired a publicity manager in the form of Hal Douglas Thomson, a newspaper advertising executive. He also attempted to widen the range of products available with additions such as cider and to develop exports to the colonies although the latter was not particularly successful. However it was the popularity of Mackeson's milk stout which buoyed sales in the the late 1930s and although still a long way off their 1913 peak they were a third higher than in 1932.

Unlike the Great War of 1914-18, general beer production across the country rose rapidly during the Second World War with Whitbread's production up 50% to 914,000 barrels by 1945 - almost beating the 1912 record of 989,000. Despite mass devastation of buildings in the surrounding area due to fire raids, Whitbread's own fire brigade was able to protect the Chiswell premises. Even after the great raid on 29th December 1940, production at the plant restarted after only four days. Between 1939-1945, 565 (90%) of Whitbread's licensed public houses in London were damaged by the Blitz, with 29 completely destroyed and an additional 49 so badly damaged that they had to close.

By 1948, the Company was employing 5,000 people. In addition to Brewery workers, by the 1950s over 5000 people were employed in the cultivation and harvesting of the hop bines that were grown by the Company in Kent. New breweries were built at Luton, in 1969, Samlesbury, Lancashire, in 1972 and Magor, Gwent in 1978. The Chiswell Street Brewery ceased brewing in 1976. In 1989 the Company operated 6 breweries at Castle Eden, Durham; Magor, Gwent; Exchange Brewery, Bridge Street, Sheffield; Court Street, Faversham, Kent; Monson Avenue, Cheltenham, Gloucestershire; and Cuerdale Lane, Samlesbury, Preston, Lancashire.

During the final decades of the 20th Century, Whitbread seriously invested in the food and lodgings sectors. The Beefeater brand was launched in 1974 and Brewers Fayre followed five years later. Whitbread introduced Pizza Hut and TGI Friday's to Britain in the 1980s and adding continental-style high street brands like Costa, Cafe Rouge and Bella Pasta in the nineties. During that time Whitbread Hotel Company developed from a small number of three and four-star coaching inns and country houses, establishing Travel Inn in 1987 and securing the UK rights to the Marriott brand in 1995.

The Whitbread Beer Company was sold to Belgian brewer Interbrew in May 2000. First Quench (off-licences business) was sold in September 2000 to the Japanese investment bank Nomura (then jointly owned with Punch Group). Whitbread continues as a company with interests in hotels, restaurants and health and fitness clubs.

The site of no.1 St Martin le Grand was purchased by Nomura International Plc from the General Post Office in 1986. It had been the main General Post Office building for the City of London. The site was previously owned by Christ's Hospital, which sold it in various lots to the General Post Office in the 19th century (the main site was sold in the late 1880s). The site included the Queen's Hotel (formerly known as the Bull and Mouth Inn), the former Angel Inn, and houses in Bull and Mouth Street and Magpie Court.

The Pandan Tea Company (1933) was established in March 1933 as a reconstruction of the Pandan Tea Company. The latter had been established in January 1923 and acquired all the shares in Tjisadea Tea Company, Tjdadap (Java) Plantation Company and Pandan Aroem Syndicate which held estates in Java.

After the Japanese occupation during World War Two the business did not recover, and the company sustained large losses and was wound down. The company's offices were at 22 Fenchurch St 1933-34; and 58 Mark Lane 1934-57.

Phoenix Oil and Transport Company Limited was registered on 24 June 1920 to acquire various interests in Roumanian oil undertakings. In 1922 it acquired control of Roumanian Consolidated Oilfields Limited and in 1926 Phoenix Oil Products Ltd.

In 1926 Phoenix Oil and Transport also acquired Orion S.A.R. de Petrol, which owned oilfields in Roumania. Orion, although a Roumanian registered company, was a Dutch undertaking, formed in 1910. Unirea S.A.R. de Petrol, a wholly owned subsidiary of Phoenix Oil and Transport, was registered in Bucharest in 1920. Into it went the assets of several small English companies partially destroyed during the First World War.

Arbanash (Roumania) Oil Company Limited, incorporated in the United Kingdom in 1912, was the nominee through which Phoenix Oil and Transport held the whole of the issued capital of Unirea. In 1935 Unirea amalgamated with Orion and in 1938 with Roumanian Consolidated Oilfields Limited, so that by this date all of Phoenix Oil and Transport's Roumanian interests were consolidated in Unirea and its subsidiaries.

The company's assets were in enemy hands from 1941 until early in 1945, although the Roumanian subsidiaries continued operating, despite aerial bombardment which caused serious damage to refineries, tankage and loading stations. Production in Roumania declined sharply from about a million tons in 1936 to 396,000 tons in 1945. Unirea was taken into Roumanian state ownership in 1948.

Until 1946, a substantial interest in Phoenix Oil and Transport was held by General Mining and Finance Corporation Limited, which was represented on the board. Its interests were purchased in 1946 by Alpha Petrol Company of South Africa, and in 1948 the head office of Phoenix Oil and Transport moved to South Africa. On 27 February 1950 the company went into compulsory liquidation.

Phoenix Oil and Transport Company Limited had registered offices at 308 Winchester House, Old Broad Street, until 1923, then 6 Princes Street (1923-1926), 9-13 Fenchurch Buildings, Fenchurch Street (1926-49) and 33 King William Street from 1949.

Richards and Rooke were Spanish merchants. Richards was active from 1716 until his death in 1736 and the two were in partnership from 1728 to 1736; Rooke carried on the business after Richards' death. They had premises in Packer's Court, Coleman Street (1716-66) and 14 Angel Court (1767-72). Richards died on 9 August 1736 at Edmonton (Gentleman's Magazine) and was buried at St Stephen Coleman Street on 20 August 1736. Coleman Street Ward land tax records indicate that his partnership with Rooke started in 1728 (Ms 11316). Rooke died 27 January 1771 (Gentleman's Magazine): evidently the last 22 months of his accounts were entered by an interested party.

Robert Howden Limited, pharmacist, traded at 78 Gracechurch Street until 1898, then at 28 Gracechurch Street (1898-1918), and 11 Fenchurch Street (1918-67), and from 1967 as Robert Howden (Southend) Limited at 17-19 Southchurch Road, Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

The history below relates to Sun Insurance Office Limited only. For the histories of subsidiary companies and companies which merged with Sun Insurance please see their sub-fonds entries (CLC/B/192-02 to -37).

In 1708 Charles Povey founded the Exchange House Fire Office. In the next year, a Company of London Insurers was formed, consisting of 24 members. In 1710 Povey transferred his right in the Exchange House, also known as the Sun Fire Office, to the Company of London Insurers. The business of the Sun Fire Office was henceforth conducted in Causey's Coffee House near St Paul's Cathedral. In March 1711 it moved to a house in Sweeting's Rents. The Company was governed by two bodies: the General Court which was a meeting of all the managers, and the Committee of Management (consisting of 7 members) which met weekly.

A branch office, known as the Charing Cross office (or Westminster House), was opened in Craig's Court in 1726. The office was moved to 60 and 61 Charing Cross in 1866.

Business in Germany was established during the first half of the 19th century, and during the second half of the century the Sun Insurance Office began to operate in rest of Europe, the Near East, the Far East, the USA, Canada, South America, Australasia, China and Africa.

The Accident Department and the Marine Department were established in 1907 and 1921 respectively.

The name of the company was changed to the Sun Insurance Office in 1891. It became a public limited liability company in 1926. In 1959 it merged with Alliance to form Sun Alliance Insurance Limited, and in 1996 Sun Alliance merged with Royal Insurance to form the Royal and Sun Alliance Insurance Group.

The Sun Life Assurance Society was established in 1810 to take over the life insurance business of the Sun Fire Office. The membership of each company's board of managers was identical. Sun Life was based in Bank Buildings, then at Threadneedle Street, and later at Cheapside. The collection includes very few records of Sun Life Assurance Society.

The Sun Insurance Office archive includes records relating to the Sun Indemnity Company of New York. In 1822 the Sun Fire Office took over the Watertown Insurance Company and a US manager was appointed. By the end of 1886 the company was represented in 20 states. The following year the head office of the US branch was moved to New York. The Sun Insurance Office floated the Sun Indemnity Company of New York and the Patriotic Insurance Company of America in 1922. In 1929 the Sun Underwriters Insurance Company of New York was formed. In 1955 these companies were reorganized into two firms: the Sun branch, and the Sun Insurance Company of New York (incorporating Sun Indemnity, Patriotic, and Sun Underwriters).

The Sun Insurance Office had a number of UK subsidiary companies, including: Bath Sun Fire Office (from 1838, see CLC/B/192-06); Patriotic Assurance Company of Dublin (from 1906, see CLC/B/192-30); Alliance Assurance Company (from 1959, see CLC/B/192-02); London Assurance (from 1965, see CLC/B/192-26); and Planet Assurance Company (from 1968, see CLC/B/192-32).

The company was based at Causey's Coffee House in St Paul's Church Yard (1710-11), Sweeting's Rents (1711-27), Threadneedle Street (1727-63), Bank Buildings in Cornhill (1763-1843), and Threadneedle Street (1843-).

The Alliance Assurance Company, of 1 and 2 Bartholomew Lane, was established in 1824. Until 1886 the company was known as the Alliance British and Foreign Life and Fire Assurance Company. In the 19th century, its business was extended to Europe, USA, the West Indies and India. It was acquired by the Sun Insurance Office in 1959.

In 1902 the income from the life and annuity policies of the Imperial Life Insurance Company, the Argus Life Assurance Company and the England Assurance Institution was amalgamated to form the Imperial Life Assurance Fund (see Ms 38911-15).

The Bath Sun Fire Office was established in 1776 and acquired by the Sun Insurance Office in 1838.

This company was established in 1888. The head office was at 5 Lothbury. It was acquired in 1918 by the London Assurance and later by Sun Alliance. Its name was changed to British Law Insurance Company, and it was henceforth based at 31 and 32 King Street. The company undertook all classes of business except life assurance.

The fund was established in 1866 under the control of the trustees who were incorporated in 1899 and took over the business of the fund as the Colonial and Foreign Banks Guarantee Corporation. The business of the Corporation was transferred to the Alliance Assurance Company in 1920, which merged with the Sun Insurance Office to form Sun Alliance. The fund was based at 86 King William Street (1866-1900), 94 Gracechurch Street (1900-8) and 16 St Helen's Place (1908-20).

This company was established in 1840. By 1852 it had changed its name to Royal Farmers and General Fire and Life Insurance Loan and Annuity Company and had its office in the Strand.

The company's name changed several times. In 1855 it advertised itself in Kelly's Post Office Directory as Royal Farmers and General Fire Life and Hail Insurance Company. By 1859 the company called itself Royal Farmers Agricultural and Commercial Insurance Company and by 1884 this had been changed to Royal Farmers and General Insurance Company. During this period the office remained at 3 Norfolk Street, Strand.

In 1888, the company was taken over by the Alliance British and Foreign Fire and Life Assurance Company (renamed Alliance Assurance Company in 1905). Alliance Assurance merged with Sun Insurance in 1959 to form Sun Alliance and London Assurance Group.

This company was established in 1839 as London, Edinburgh and Dublin Guaranteed Mutual and Proprietary Life Assurance Company, but was known as London, Edinburgh and Dublin Life Assurance Company by 1845. Its offices were at 3 Charlotte Row, Mansion House. In 1846 it merged with Liverpool Fire and Life Insurance Company. This company eventually became part of Royal Insurance.

This company, established as the Licensed Victuallers and General Fire and Life Assurance Company in 1835 and renamed Monarch Fire and Life Assurance Company in 1836, provided insurance both in the United Kingdom and overseas.

It was acquired by Liverpool and London Fire and Life Insurance in 1857, at which time its address was 4 Adelaide Place. This company became a subsidiary of Royal Insurance Company in 1919.

This company was established in Nottingham in 1832. In 1869 its life business was acquired by Norwich Union and its fire business by Imperial Insurance Company which then changed its name to Imperial Fire Insurance Company. In turn, Imperial Fire became part of Alliance Assurance and then Sun Alliance.

The Patriotic Assurance Company of Dublin was established in circa 1824. It merged with the Sun Insurance Office in 1906.

This company was established in 1920 for all insurance business except life insurance. In 1927 the Sun Insurance Office took over underwriting and management of the company. Planet Assurance Company Limited became a subsidiary of Sun Alliance in 1968.

From 1920 until at least 1925, Planet Assurance Company Limited had a registered office at 118 Fenchurch Street. From ca. 1928 it shared premises with the Sun Insurance Office and traded from the following offices: 63 Threadneedle Street, 1928-65; 45 Cornhill, 1928-40 and 1949-ca. 1957; 3 Lime Street, 1929-38; 37 Lime Street, 1939-40 and 1952-c 1971; Lloyds Building, Lime Street, 1940-51 and 183 Rushey Green (a branch office of Sun Life Assurance), 1965-c 1969.

The company was established in 1896. Later, it changed its name to Great Western and General Insurance Company and also became a subsidiary of Sun Insurance Office. Sun Insurance merged with Alliance Assurance Company to form Sun Alliance Insurance in 1959.

The Rubber Growers' Association was established on 24 June 1907 with the aim of providing a central place where those interested in the production of rubber might meet and discuss matters connected with the industry. Members were to be drawn from any individual or company interested in or connected with the rubber industry (initial members being invited via a circular letter). In July 1912 the Association was incorporated as a limited company; by this time, its work had outgrown all previous expectations. The Association was active in the industry internationally, and this included research projects and examinations into the state of the industry as a whole.

In 1987, the title of the Rubber Growers' Association changed to the Tropical Growers' Association in order to reflect wider representation of plantation crops. Meetings of the Rubber Growers' Association were held in various places through the years:
1907-1914, Chamber of Commerce Building, Oxford Court, Cannon Street;
1914-1922, 38 Eastcheap;
1922-1935, 2-4 Idol Lane, Eastcheap;
1935-1962, 19 Fenchurch Street;
1962-1973, Plantation House, 10-15 Mincing Lane;
1973-1975, Unilever House, Blackfriars;
1975-1980, Dunlop House, Ryder Street, SW17.

Searle and Company Limited, jewellers and silversmiths, were established in the City of London in 1893. They have specialised in antique and modern jewellery and silverware, handling corporate commissions, heraldic engraving, repairs and restorations, and making hand and machine-made wares. The company originally had premises at 80 Cornhill, moving to 78 Lombard Street in 1896, and 1 Royal Exchange in 1933 where they remain as of 2008.

The Society of Public Notaries of London was formed in 1823 as a society to represent the profession of notaries public within London. The Society is now known as the Society of Scrivener Notaries (a term first used in 1978), in recognition of the sole entitlement ot its members, until 1998, by virtue of their being members of the Scriveners' Company, to practise within London and a three mile radius thereof. A notary public is a member of the legal profession who can administer oaths and statutory declarations, and witness and authenticate documents and legal instruments. In London, as the majority of these instruments were of an international nature, and were usually required for international exchanges, notaries public (now scrivener notaries) were also the translators of such documents. All notaries public in London had to be members of the Scriveners' Company, having served an apprenticeship, and then undergo additional examinations set by the Company (in conjunction with the Society and the Faculty Office). Notary appointments are then made by the Faculty Office of the Archbishop of Canterbury. There are currently only four City firms who are members of the Society of Scrivener Notaries.

The Society's affairs are managed by a Committee of no less than 9 members, including a Secretary and Treasurer. Meetings were held at offices of members, usually the Secretary (and, occasionally in the early 1880s in the London Tavern). But from 1885 they were often held in the Society's library, variously sited at Martin's Bank, 68 Lombard Street (1885-1901); 96 Bishopsgate St (1901-28), the Institute of Chartered Secretaries, 6 London Wall (1928-36), 8 Whittington Avenue (1936-40), 9 Bishopsgate (1940-60), 120 Moorgate (1960-75) and Stone House, Bishopsgate (1975-7).

This was a chartered accountancy partnership established in 1902 between E.E. Spicer and E.C. Pegler. Their address was 60 Watling Street. The firm became influential in the training of young accountants and published many standard textbooks. Following amalgamations with other firms in the 1970s and 1980s, Spicer and Oppenheim (as the firm was then known) amalgamated with Touche Ross and Company in 1990. Touche Ross and Company became Deloitte and Touche in 1996.

F F Chrestien and Company Limited, Domchanch, Northern India was one of the oldest and largest mica producers in the world. In 1920/21, Chartered Bank suggested Wallace Brothers should take over from the financing, production and shipment of mica by F F Chrestien and Company Limited. Wallace and Company became managers of F F Chrestien and Company. The Company did not return much income until after World War Two when demand for mica increased world wide. In 1948 the Company became the Associated Insulation Products Limited.

Sumatra Petroleum Company was formed under the auspices of the Sumatra branch of Wallace and Company to work the oil resources of the Dutch East Indies. The venture failed and the Company was closed in 1905.

The Eastern Bank Limited was founded in London as a limited company at the end of 1909 as a new Eastern 'exchange' bank, to help finance trade with the East. As well as the Head Office in London, which exercised close day-to-day control, it had two overseas branches, established in 1910 in Bombay and Calcutta. From the start the Bank had a number of powerful institutional shareholders, including the Eastern trading house, E D Sassoon.

A Baghdad branch opened in 1912, but was closed by the Turks at the start of the First World War. However, as British power increased in the region, the Bank profited greatly from British official support, and from the Banking business of the Government of India. The Baghdad branch was reopened, and further branches in Iraq were opened at Basra (1915), Amarah (1916), Mosul (1919) and Kirkuk (1926). There was also a branch at Hillah from ca.1919 to ca.1925.

Further branches in the Indian sub-continent opened at Colombo, Sri Lanka (1920), Madras (1922) and Karachi (1923). A branch in Singapore opened in 1928.

After the First World War the Bank faced stiff competition in India from older-established British banks, and needed to diversify. It thus became the pioneer of modern banking in the small sheikhdoms on the Arab side of the Gulf, British protectorates which lacked modern financial institutions. The first such branch opened on the island of Bahrain in 1920. This was a logical development because of the Bank's existing strength in Bombay, which had close trading links with Bahrain. The British authorities welcomed this initiative, and the Bank remained the only bank on the island until 1944.

The economy in Bahrain, based on pearl diving, was virtually destroyed in the late 1920s when the Japanese discovered how to make artificial pearls, but was saved in the early 1930s by the discovery of oil in the Gulf. By the late 1930s the Bank was very profitable from meeting the needs of the oil industry.

However the vigour of the 1920s was not followed through, and between 1928 (Singapore) and 1947 no new branches were opened. The effects of this inaction were particularly serious in the Arab Gulf, where the Imperial Bank of Persia (later the British Bank of the Middle East) secured monopoly agreements during the 1940s with the rulers of several important sheikhdoms, in particular Kuwait. Eastern Bank's room for expansion among the Gulf states was thereafter severely limited.

Piecemeal expansion after the Second World War, in areas of South East Asia and the Indian sub-continent in which the Bank already had a presence, led to new branches in Penang, (Malaysia) (1947, closed 1958), with a sub-branch at Butterworth (1948, closed 1957); Kuala Lumpur (1948), Chittagong (East Pakistan, now Bangladesh) (1948, closed 1958); and Cochin (India) (1953, closed 1958). New branches were also opened at Aden (1951), with a sub-branch at Steamer Point (1953, closed 1958), and further branches or sub-branches in the hinterland of Aden at Ma'alla (1963, closed 1968) and Sheikh Othman (1964), and in Yemen at Mukalla (1955) and Seiyun (1962).

A branch was also opened in Beirut (1956), as were sub-branches in Baghdad: at Southgate, also known as Rashid Street (1955); and Alwiyah (1962). Otherwise expansion up to the mid 1960s was confined to the Arab Gulf, including Doha (Qatar) (1950); Sharjah (1958); Abu Dhabi (1961); Al Ain (Buraimi, Abu Dhabi) (1962); and a sub-branch at Muharraq (Bahrain) (1964).

During the 1960s the Bank suffered from political changes in several Arab countries. For example on 14 July 1964 all the branches in Iraq were nationalised, and those at Aden, Mukalla and Sheikh Othman were nationalised on 28 November 1969. At the end of the 1960s, therefore, there was a further spate of branch openings, especially in the Gulf states, which were seen as offering greater political stability: Abu Dhabi (Sheikh Hamdan Avenue sub-branch, 1970); Bahrain (sub-branches at Umm al Hassam, 1967 and East Rifa'a, 1970); Dubai (1967), with a second branch in Dubai at Deira (1968); and Muscat (1968), with a sub-branch at Muttrah (1970). A sub-branch was also opened at Bowbazar in Calcutta (1969).

During the 1930s and 1940s Barclays Bank (DCO) had built up an interest in Eastern Bank's shares. It appears that it did this both as an investment, and to facilitate business with Arab customers, in which Barclays had been handicapped because of its strong Jewish customer base in Palestine. In 1939 the Chairman of Barclays (DCO) joined the Eastern Bank board, and by 1957 Barclays Bank and the Sassoon family between them held 65% of the shares and effectively owned the bank

In 1957 Eastern Bank was seriously weakened by heavy losses in Bombay and Calcutta, much of it the result of business dealings of a single customer, Haridas Mundhra. In the same year Barclays and the Sassoon family sold their controlling interest in the bank to Eastern Bank's old rival, Chartered Bank. Chartered Bank at that time faced increasing difficulties with national governments in its traditional areas of China, India, Burma and Ceylon, and was looking for new areas of business. Eastern Bank's Gulf business was immensely attractive.

Eastern Bank remained a wholly-owned subsidiary of Chartered Bank, but with autonomy, from 1957 until 1971. In that year it was absorbed by Chartered Bank and its name disappeared.

Eastern Bank's sole London branch, and Head Office, was at 9 Fenchurch Avene, 1910; 4 Crosby Square, 1911-24; and at 2-3 Crosby Square, 1925-71.

The bank was established by Royal charter in 1860 as an overseas bank operating in the British colonies of the Cape of Good Hope and Natal. By a supplemental charter of 1864 it was empowered to operate in addition in other British colonies south of the 22nd degree of latitude. The bank also had the right from early on to issue its own bank notes. The bank was taken over by the Standard Bank of British South Africa in 1875.

The bank's head office was located as follows: 1860-1, 16 Gresham House, Old Broad Street; 1862-75, 10 King William Street.

Wallace Brothers was established in London in 1862, and remained in business until 1989. It maintained its London headquarters at 8 Austin Friars, 1862-1908; 4 Crosby Square, 1909-79; 33/6 Gracechurch Street, 1979-80; 123/7 Cannon Street, 1980-2; 33/6 Gracechurch Street (again), 1982-5; 38 Bishopsgate, 1986-9.

The company has a complex history. Its origins lay in Bombay, India, where the merchant company of Frith and Company was renamed Wallace and Company in 1848. The first partners in Wallace and Company were Lewis Alexander Wallace and Framji Patel. They were joined by George Wallace in 1850, Robert Wallace in 1857, Alexander Falconer Wallace in 1858 and Richard Wallace in 1860.

All the Wallace partners were brothers; there was a sixth brother William who was not a partner in Wallace and Company but traded in Burma in his own name from ca. 1856. Wallace and Company was reconstituted under the same name in 1862, and opened a branch in Karachi in 1883. In its early years the company acted as shipping agents and exporters and importers of a variety of goods. It remained in existence until the second half of the 20th century, but by 1966 it had become inactive.

William Wallace's business in Burma was bought out in 1863 when the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited was founded. Originally called the Burmah Trading Company Limited, its name was changed shortly after its foundation. From 1863 until the 1950s the senior resident partner of Wallace and Company was its chairman, and Wallace and Company largely directed its affairs. Its head office was in Bombay, but its initial operations were in Burma and branch offices were opened in Rangoon and Moulmein in the 1860s or 1870s.

It expanded its operations into Siam (Thailand) in 1884, Java in 1905-6, South India in 1913, North Borneo in the late 1940s and East Africa in 1955. Its trading interests (some operated directly, others through subsidiary or associated companies) were in teak (and later other timbers too), and in other commodities including rubber (from ca.1907), tea and coffee (from the 1930s) and tapioca (from 1954). The timber trade declined in the mid 20th century and by the late 20th century the company's business was mainly in manufacturing and Indian tea plantations.

All the business activities of Wallace and Company other than the supervision of Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited were transferred in 1886 to the newly founded Bombay Company Limited, in which the Wallace family also held a major interest. The main business of this company was the export of raw cotton and the import and sale of manufactured textiles from Lancashire. Its head office was in Bombay but it also took over the former Wallace and Company branch in Karachi. Further branches were opened in Delhi in 1893, Calcutta in 1903 and Madras in 1906. Bombay Company Limited ceased trading in 1969.

Each of these companies had close connections with London. In 1862 the London house of Frith, Sands and Company, which worked closely with Wallace and Company of Bombay, went into voluntary liquidation and was succeeded by Wallace Brothers, a partnership established on 31 December 1862. The first partners were George and Lewis Alexander Wallace. In 1911 the partnership was replaced by a private limited company and the London business became known as Wallace Brothers and Company Limited.

For tax purposes a new company, Wallace Brothers and Company (Holdings) Limited, was formed in 1954. Wallace Brothers and Company Limited then became its wholly owned subsidiary. In May 1970 Wallace Brothers and Company Limited was renamed Wallace Brothers Trading and Industrial Limited.

Following the renaming of the "original" Wallace Brothers and Company Limited, a new company was incorporated on 24 June 1970, also with the name Wallace Brothers and Company Limited. The intention was that this new company should take over the banking activities of the Wallace Brothers group, but the company remained within the group for only two years. It was sold to Drakes Limited in November 1972.

In March 1972 Wallace Brothers and Company (Holdings) Limited acquired E. D. Sassoon Banking Company Limited which then changed its name to Wallace Brothers Sassoon Bank Limited and took over the banking operations of the short-lived Wallace Brothers and Company Limited. Wallace Brothers Sassoon Bank Limited was renamed Wallace Brothers Bank Limited in 1974 and Wallace Brothers (London) Limited in 1981.

Wallace Brothers and Company (Holdings) Limited and its UK subsidiaries were taken over by Standard Bank Limited (later Standard Chartered Bank Limited) in 1977 and were wound up over the following twelve years. Wallace Brothers Trading and Industrial Limited was sold to OSE Holdings (HK) Limited in 1979. Other companies in the Wallace Brothers group were closed down during the 1980s. Wallace Brothers and Company (Holdings) Limited was liquidated in 1989.

In their early years Wallace Brothers described themselves as East India merchants, but they rarely dealt in merchandise. Most of the company's business in London was in undertaking commissions, chartering shipping, financing trade and banking operations,Its normal practice was to explore possible areas of new business and acquire concessions, but to assign trading ventures to associate or subsidiary companies when initial findings were favourable. Besides Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited and Bombay Company Limited, many smaller associate and subsidiary companies were established or acquired by the Wallace Brothers group between the late 19th century and ca. 1975.

A major part of Wallace Brothers' business was to act as the London agents of Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation Limited, developing markets in the United Kingdon and continental Europe for shipments of timber and providing finance to bring the cargoes from the Far East. A separate Teak Department was established within Wallace Brothers from 1905 to ca. 1955, with responsibility for arranging, overseeing and promoting sales of timber. Wallace Brothers also purchased machinery and equipment in London on Bombay Burmah's behalf. In practice, however, since the Wallace family were the senior partners in Wallace and Company of Bombay, who in turn were managers of Bombay Burmah, Wallace Brothers were more than Bombay Burmah's London agents. Until the 1950s, Wallace Brothers had the power to exercise control over Bombay Burmah's policy and operations. In the late 19th century Bombay Burmah's dividends and staff pay were decided in London, and until c 1960 its senior (European) staff were selected and appointed there.