Showing 38 results

Agreement, 1903, of the Argentine Railway Construction Company Ltd with Messrs Thomas Skinner & Co.

Letter from Robert Bald of Edinburgh to Joseph Hume MP, 27 Apr 1826. Excusing his silence 'but ... I have been uncommonly pressed with mineral surveying and reporting thereon arising in a great degree from the conflicting elements which arise betwixt master and servant. Coals rise in price to an exorbitant rate, and the great manufacturing interests of Glasgow & chief consumers of coal there agreed to have the districts surveyed as to the means of supplying the City with abundance of coal at a moderate rate, and to lay rail ways into the coals fields which were the best'. He encloses "two copies of the treatise I wrote regarding the coal trade of Scotland and the slavish system of bearing coals by women. I have been attacked and run down for doing so: this I care nothing about ...'. Autograph, with signature.

The collection comprises copies of printed material, 1907-1984, including history of Perry and Co, builders and contractors, with list of completed building projects, photographs of founders, and notes on the company's projects including St Thomas's Hospital, London, Tower Bridge and numerous Underground railway stations including Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus, [1907]; copy of article on the Perry & Co employee, Sir Herbert Henry Bartlett, by Sir Basil Bartlett, printed in David Jeremy ed., Dictionary of business biography (London, 1984); manuscript pedigree describing the relationship between the Robinson and Bartlett families, to whom the donor was related, [2000].

Letterbook, May-October 1888, of John Joseph Bithell concerning South American railway construction.

Plan by James Brindley, civil engineer, of a proposed canal between Monkey Island and Isleworth.

Papers and maps of George James Brown, land agent and surveyor, relating to premises in Ealing, Hanworth, Hampton and South Mimms, 1894-1900; including report, with plan, presenting case for damages to value of Mr. Wood's estate east of Hangar Lane, Ealing, caused by construction of Ealing and South Harrow Railway, 1899; papers relating to a dispute between The New River Company and The Gye Process Fresh Foods Co. Ltd over the purchase of land in Hanworth, with plan of the disputed premises, 1899-1900; particulars, plan and illustrations of building land for sale on the Marling Park Estate, Hampton, 1900; and Ordnance Survey maps, with annotations.

Soil surveys for a number of buildings and sites in London, 1971-1984; project files, 1987-1988, containing plans, drawings, site surveys, elevations, tenders, contracts and notes for a number of buildings including Kilmonie School, Settle Street School, Raines Tertiary College, Eliot Bank School, Fairlawn School, Tewkesbury Estate School, Jewish Free School, Camden, Templars School, County Hall boiler-house and calorifiers, Durrington Road and Courage Industrial Site; remedial works and conditions surveys for sites including Yeading Green Estate, Pilgrim Estate, Copley Close Estate, Hanwell Estate, Islip Manor Estate, Northolt Park Estate and Ruislip Gardens Estate, 1970-1988; electrical and mechanical condition surveys for various locations, 1970-1988.

Letter from Michel Chevalier of Lodeve Herault to Sir Edward Watkin MP [railway promoter], 7 Aug 1876. Concerning a project to construct the metropolitan railway in Paris after the International Exhibition [Exposition Universelle] has been held there [i.e. after Nov 1878]. 'Mr. Fenton, the general manager of the Metropolitan of London, has forwarded me a set of documents and notes which are of great interest. I will make use of them for some communications to the press'.

Autograph, with signature.

Records, 1926-1951, of the Chinese Government Purchasing Commission (CGPC), including information on the state of Chinese communications; the workings of the Chinese Ministries of Communications, Railways and Industries; Chinese banking; construction and engineering technology and the work of British manufacturers; and some information on Chinese educational and cultural institutions in receipt of subsidies from the Board of Trustees for the Administration of the Indemnity Funds Remitted by the British Government.

Records, 1926-1951, relating to the foundation and constitution of the CGPC comprise printed report of the Anglo-Chinese Advisory Committee (China Indemnity Advisory Committee), 1926; correspondence, largely letters from the Board of Trustees to the CPGC, 1931-1950, concerning the constitution of the Commission, procedural issues, personnel and financial matters; file on procedure on appointment of a new member of the Commission, 1947-1948; correspondence concerning events preceding the winding-up of the Commission, 1951.

Financial records, 1931-1951, comprise papers on the Board Account, 1937-1950; papers on the Chin Fund (apparently a grant paid to Constance Chin, a patient of the Bethlem Royal Hospital), 1945-1951; summaries of expenses relating to purchase orders made by Chinese ministries, 1931-1951; Indemnity Fund cash books, 1937-1950; invoices and receipts relating to CGPC business, 1937-1951; financial statements and correspondence relating to banking matters with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank, 1931-1951, the subjects including investments and tax.

Operational records, c1928-1951, relating to the administration of purchase orders, comprise register of tenders/purchase orders, 1942-1946; contract registers (not comprehensive), 1931-1949, recording the management of contracts for the supply and delivery in China of plant, machinery and other materials manufactured in the UK for the Chinese government, and over 1,000 related contract files for engineering companies and manufacturers for industrial, construction, railway and other projects; tender forms, 1934, issued to contractors by the CGPC; specifications and standards, c1928-1937 and undated, largely for the construction of railways and carriages; correspondence concerning administration of purchase orders, 1932-1951, relating especially to delivery of locomotive spare parts and related materials; registers of export licences issue to British manufacturers under wartime regulations, 1941-1946; applications for export licences, 1939-1945; registers of shipments, insurance, freight and inspection fees, 1931-1951; shipping letters, 1937-1950, issued for CGPC shipments; general correspondence concerning the administration of the CGPC, 1931-1951, including correspondence with solicitors and correspondence concerning the CGPC premises in Tothill Street, London.

Annual reports and accounts, 1931-1950, comprise typescript accounts and reports, 1931-1950, of the CGPC and published annual reports, 1931-1950, including summaries of receipts and payments; and annual reports of the Board of Trustees, 1931-1938.

Miscellaneous records, c1932-1950, comprise one file including papers on subjects including railways, training Chinese students, Japanese imperialism, and CGPC records, a photograph of ships in harbour, and maps of China and the Far East.

Records, 1939-1943, of the China Purchasing Agency Ltd comprise standing regulations of the Board of Directors, undated; correspondence, 1939-1943, concerning various purchase orders; miscellaneous items, c1939-1940, including list of tenders passed for acceptance, 1939, and an undated schedule of materials shipped.

Personal property records of Sir William Clay, including conveyance to Thames Valley Railway Company of land in Teddington, 1865; conveyances to South Western Railway, 1868 and 1929; conveyance by Merritts Contractors Ltd to Metropolitan Housing Corporation Ltd, 1929; and deeds of covenant for houses in Wellington Gardens, Teddington, 1951.

Records of Douglas Ritchie Limited, construction company, including papers relating to the acquisition of the Company by Flowers Brewery, accounts and annual returns, and correspondence relating to planning and building.

Letter from Edward Backhouse Eastwick of 38 Thurloe Square, London to J Kempson Esq, May 1871. 'Mr. Lopez tells me that you know all about the once proposed railway from Exeter through Launceston to Truro and Falmouth. As I wish much to revive that project perhaps you would kindly give me an interview'. Written on House of Commons writing paper.

Autograph, with signature.

Records of J W Falkner and Sons Limited, 1893-1982. This collection consists of administrative material including office files and correspondence (1902-1963); financial records including ledgers, cash books and accounts (1893-1964); and plans and files relating to the various commissions the company undertook (1893-1968).

Share certificates in the Grand Surrey Canal (numbers 1513-1522), belonging to Daniel Birkett, Hatton Garden, 1813.

Records of Harry Neal Limited, building and engineering contractor, 1937-1957, including files relating to building projects worked on by the company including:

• 1/3 Princes Gate

  • 160 Shaftsbury Avenue
  • 5 Portland Place
  • 16 Berkeley Square
  • Grosvenor Square
  • Saint Pancras Way Housing Scheme
  • Oxford Street
  • 117 Baker Street
  • 31 Montagu Square
  • Brompton Road
  • BBC building at 1 Portland Place
  • BBC telephones
  • 11 and 12 Mount Street
  • Dunster House.

  Also office files, financial accounts and file relating to builders accidents.

Records of Heseltine, Powell and Company, stockbrokers, including a register of clients, clients stock ledgers, correspondence, diaries and financial material. Some of the records relate to the mining industry, and to the funding and development of railroads in America. There are also papers regarding the loss of stock certificates on the S.S. Titanic.

Records of Higgs and Hill Limited, builders, and of subsidiary or merged companies, 1868-1978. The records are largely of financial nature, but do include other administrative material and contract information. There is a particularly good run of tender books for the period 1906-1965, detailing all the jobs for which Higgs and Hill tendered, regardless of whether or not they won the contract.

Records of Holliday and Greenwood Limited, building contractors, 1903-1909, comprising three items relating to the construction and opening of the Victoria and Albert Museum, including a framed print of the building.

Records of Holliday and Greenwood Limited, building contractors, 1901-1978. This collection consists of a general file compiled by G Holliday to record contracts, a paper by G Holliday entitled "The Apprentice Master Scheme in the Borough of Brentford and Chiswick, 1947-1950" and a series of photographs recording various buildings worked on by the company.

Records of John Mowlem and Company Ltd, and subsidiary companies, 1830-1985; including articles of association; minutes; reports; prospectuses; financial ledgers and accounts; records of work done; works order books; inventories; letter books; staff records including wage books; property registers; photographs; awards; shareholder registers and seal registers. Also copy of The History of John Mowlem and Company, volumes 1 and 2, by F Baines.

Subsidiary companies whose records are found in this collection:
John Mowlem and Company Limited U.K. Construction Division
John Mowlem and Company Limited, Guernsey
John Mowlem and Company Limited, Southampton
Mowlem (Africa) Limited
Mowlem (Building) Limited
Mowlem (Scotland) Limited
Mowlem Computer Grid Limited
Mowlem International Division
The Artistic Blind Company Limited
The Cement Supply Company Limited (later called Constructional Services Limited)
Glasgow Stockholders Trust Limited
Grosvenor Engineering Services Limited
Edmund Nuttall, Sons And Company and John Mowlem And Company (Joint) Limited
Nuttall Mowlem Brand and Abboud (Near East) Limited
E. Thomas and Company Limited
Webber and Corben Limited
Improved Wood Pavement and Company Limited (now called Mowlem Construction (Plant Hire) Limited)
Alfred Booth and Co Limited
Booth Concrete Limited
C Evans and Sons Limited
Dixon Building Equipment Limited
Eatons Ladders Limited
Edendal Properties Limited
Ellis Richards Limited
F Parker and Co Limited
Freehold Improvements Limited
Glasgow Stockholders Trust Plc
Gravity Ladders and Randall Limited
Grosvenor Structures Limited
Hire Shops Limited
Johnsons Ladders (Woodworks) Limited
Lomount Construction Limited
Mining and Geophysical Limited
Parcar Utilities Limited
Pierhead Limited
Property Investments Cambridge Limited
Redhill Bodybuilding Industries Limited
Scaffolding (Great Britain) Limited
Sgb Building Equipment Limited
Sgb Canada Limited
Sgb Group Limited
Showex Limited
Soil Mechanics Foundations Limited
Tickner and Emmerton Limited
Thrasyllus Unit Construction Company Limited
Wc Youngman Limited
Welham Plant Limited
Youngman Forktrucks Limited

Letter from S C Lakeman of 25 Place Vendôme, Paris to Monsieur Legrand, Sous Secretaire d'État aux Travaux Publics à Paris, 12 Jan 1847. Wishing to submit observations on the floating breakwater to La Ciotat, [Bouches-du-Rhône] and requests an audience for this purpose.

Autograph, with signature. An additional note gives the time and date of the audience as 11 am, Saturday 16 Jan [1847].

Papers collated by Charles Lawrence relating to his interests in the Liverpool and Manchester Railway and the Grand Junction Railway, 1826-1845, comprising the following:
Papers relating to the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 1826-1842, including four letters from Thomas Brand, 20th Baron Dacre, to Charles Lawrence, Chairman of the Railway, 1826-30, concerning the Company's Bill in the House of Lords; a summons to Lawrence to give evidence before Parliamentary Committee of 1826 on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway Bill; material relating to William Huskisson, such as a printed notice regarding his election (1830), a printed copy of the inscription on Huskisson's memorial tablet and a letter to Lawrence regarding the monument erected to Huskisson's memory (1836), as well as letters from C.Heming, Emma Stanley, Countess of Derby (1830), George Granville Leveson-Gower, 2nd Duke of Sutherland (1835) and Robert Benson Dockray (1835) regarding his death; names and numbers of all locomotive engines on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway to 1 Mar 1836; statistics of tonnage carried, arranged by subjects, 1830-1836, probably prepared for the Board of Trade; names and numbers of locomotive engines on the Railway to 18 Jan 1837; an abstract of locomotive expenses, 1841; a letter from Edward Woods to Lawrence giving the state of the company's stock of locomotive engines to 31 Dec 1842.
Papers relating to the Grand Junction Railway, 1840-1845, including a report by John Moss, Chairman of the Board of the Grand Junction Railway Company, on the creation of shares, adopted 20 May 1840; a draft agreement in the hand of George Carr Glynn for the amalgamation of the London and Birmingham and Grand Junction Railway Companies, 1845.

Letter from John Lee of the Traffic Manager's Office, Leeds and Liverpool Canal Company, Old Hall Street, Liverpool to E Hailstone of the Leeds and Liverpool Canal Office, Leeds, 17 Jan 1877. Thanking him for the loan of the Bridgewater Canal Acts 'which I have perused in conjunction with our Leigh Branch Act'. Discusses the matter of tolls leviable by the Bridgewater Canal Company: 'In the case of one of our boats they have charge a much higher rate of toll than I feel disposed to pay, and before settling with them I am desirous to know what their powers really are'.

Written in another hand and signed by Lee.

Drawing of Tring cutting in Hertfordshire, 1836, which was built as part of the London and Birmingham Railway.

Papers of the Manchester Ship Canal Co, comprising mainly of printed papers, some with marginalia, as in the report of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce on the 'excessive charges' of that port, 1879. Other material includes a detailed analysis of the cost of transit within the region, with a projected estimate of the gains a ship canal would bring, 1885; a copy of the initial bill to authorise the building of the canal, with promoters' case and petitions against, of the same date, as well as maps and plans of the line to be taken by the proposed cut. Copies of numerous bills presented before Parliament on behalf of the company, 1907 to 1956, some with petitions and evidence, are also to be found, together with a copy of the Act authorizing the Manchester City Corporation to lend the company money, 1891, and a report of the special committee appointed by the city to examine the affairs of the company, 1893. There are also some loose papers, including deeds of sale and conveyance, contracts, grants of easement; a register of mortgages, 1885; a shareholders' address book, 1915; a shareholders' prospectus, 1885; and arising out of litigation concerning the company, a number of reports of proceedings in the courts, 1891 to 1927. A collection of pamphlets, 1882, one or two items pertaining to the Bridgewater estates, a user's handbook of instructions, 1894, and a rule book, 1894, have also survived.

Records of the Metropolitan Railway Company, including minutes of Board meetings; General meetings; Finance Committee meetings; Electric Traction Committee meetings; Law and Lands Committee; Parliamentary, Law and Lands Committee meetings; Stores Committee meetings; Traffic Committee meetings; Officer's Monthly Conferences; reports; agreements; registers of accidents and special occurrences; guard books of circulars; books of diagrams; instructions to signalmen; petitions from users of the line; papers of the General Manager relating to various matters including construction of stations and line improvements, daily operations and personnel management; and publications.

Robert Money's papers on the Mesopotamia Railway project including journals in Mesopotamia, 1910 and 1912; two typed volumes of notes and a collection of maps and plans on the Mesopotamia Railway Project, 1910 and miscellaneous notes and official documents referring to the Baghdad railway.

Contract between the North Midland Railway Company and Joel Buxton for the building of Masborough station in Yorkshire, 16 Dec 1839. Includes specification and prices for materials.

Records relating to the Paddington to Wapping Canal, comprising letters applying for stock, 1802; 27 sheets recording a canvass of persons affected asking them whether they were for or against a canal or a canal and railway; and bills of expenses in connexion with the above.

Archives of the Peruvian Corporation, 1849-1967, comprising the surviving records accumulated at the London Office of the Peruvian Corporation. The bulk of the collection is an accumulation of files, most of which are dated after 1930, with a large proportion dating from the last ten years of the Corporation's history. Of more special note is the unusual series of photograph albums, with photographs of railways, scenery, locomotives and rolling stock dating from the early years of the 20th century. It is clear that the Corporation regularly destroyed groups of non-current records, and further papers were destroyed just before the collection reached the Library, so many expected series do not appear (for example, there are very few financial records). Apart from a full series of Annual Reports and some legal documents, there is very little material relating to the Peruvian Bondholders' Committee or to the early days of the Corporation.

Records of the London Passenger Transport Board, 1867-1919, comprising annotated plans and Ordnance Survey maps of railway lines. Stations, railway lines and certain other buildings have been coloured.

Plans for the Northern and Southern Railway from Staines to Uxbridge and Harefield, 1845; plans for a projected railway through Acton, Old Brentford, Hounslow, Bedfont, Stanwell and Staines, Isleworth and Twickenham; book of reference of the Windsor, Staines and South Western Railway, 1847. Also assorted sales catalogues for live and dead stock, farm stock, growing crops, corn, furniture, bricks, 1850-1908.

Records of Reader Brothers, builders, 1895-1980. The collection consists of three main types of record: There is administrative material which includes both the 'formal' records of Reader Brothers (Builders) Limited, such as the Memorandum and Articles of Association, Minutes of meetings, Registers of Members and records relating to shares; as well as various accounts ledgers, cash, petty cash and wages books, diaries and notebooks.

Secondly there are files, planning applications and other legal documents - some with plans attached.

Then there are books and other printed material related to the building trade and lastly there are plans and drawing of housing projects undertaken by the company.

Letter from Mr Rowcroft of Broad Street Buildings, [London] to Mr Tyrrell, Esq, Remembrancer, Guildhall, 4 Dec 1805. Stating that he will try to meet the Port Committee at the opening of the Blackwall Canal on the next Monday.

Autograph, unsigned.

Records of the Spencer-Philip family; primarily papers relating to property transactions, including extracts from court rolls, abstracts of title, leases, plans and rents, for premises in the Manor of Stepney (Whitechapel, Stepney and Mile End) and in Essex. Also building leases and agreements relating to the King David's Fort Estate, St George's in the East, and papers and plans concerning construction of London and Blackwall railway through that estate; an Act of Parliament relating to roads in St Leonard Shoreditch; and family certificates (baptisms, marriages, burials). The collection includes a manorial custumal for the Manor of Stepney, 1587.

Two way bills of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, 1862, one dated 10 Feb from Adelaide Colliery, Bishop Auckland; the other dated 13 Feb from North Bitchburn Colliery, Witton-le-Wear, Durham.

A collection of letters, printed circulars, etc, mainly addressed to William Blackwood, of Messrs Stuart and Blackwood, Peebles, Scotland, 1859-1901. The topics covered reflect the firm's business activities: requests for legal advice or legal action; requests to act as agents or trustees; and legal advice or legal action on insurance, assurance and debts. A signficant proportion of the letters concern the Symington extension of the Caledonian Railway Company (1861).

Railway plans, consisting of two plans of Waterloo Station, the exterior and defaults of a window, and a plan of the proposed widening of Charing Cross Bridge.