Catalogue description WILDER (WALLINGFORD) PAPERS

This record is held by Royal Berkshire Archives

Details of D/EWR
Reference: D/EWR
Title: WILDER (WALLINGFORD) PAPERS
Description:

Business records of R.J. & H. Wilder (later John Wilder Ltd), agricultural engineers of Wallingford, 1859-1949, 1964

Date: 1859-1964
Related material:

Wilder documents held at Wallingford Museum

 

[These documents are available for consultation at Wallingford Museum if arrangment is made.]

 

Museum reference

 

81.25.2.1 Account book 1914-1918

 

81.25.10 Miscellaneous papers, mostly letters

 

81.25.14 Customers account book [sales ledger], 1900-1924

 

81.25.23 Quarterly accounts, 1883-1885.

Held by: Royal Berkshire Archives, not available at The National Archives
Language: English
Creator:

John Wilder Ltd, Reading

Physical description: 45 vols, 2 docs
Immediate source of acquisition:

Deposited in October 1965 (acc. 1169); October 1984 (acc. 3467).

 

Schedule of accessions

 

Acc. 1169:B1-12.

 

Acc. 3467:B13-45.

Subjects:
  • Reading, Berkshire
Administrative / biographical background:

Berkshire trade directories show Leonard Wilder established as an ironfounder and plough manufacturer at Mill bridge, Wallingford, by 1830. By 1847 he had been succeeded by Richard Wilder, ironfounder, in Fish Street, Wallingford, remaining under that name until 1868. In 1869 the firm is listed as Wilder Brothers. By 1876 considerable expansion had produced R.J. and H. Wilder [the partners being Richard, James and Henry Wilder] engineers, iron and brass founders, millwrights, and manufacturers of agricultural implements and machines, at Wallingford iron works. By 1883 they also had an office in St Mary's Street. In the 1890s expansion resulted in a firm which was described in 1895 as being "engineers, ironfounders, implement manufacturers, & steam plough & threshing machine proprietors. They had also become coke, coal and salt merchants, based at the St Mary's Street Office. Between 1903 and 1911 they dropped this last branch, and began to manufacture various types of wagon and carts, and in 1909 began as motor engineers. Between 1928 and 1931 the firm resumed activity as a coal merchant. Between 1935 and 1939 the firm was renamed John Wilder Ltd, and had also become electrical engineers, having merged with John Wilder of Reading.

 

(This firm is first recorded in 1869 as James Wilder & Sons, at the Yield Hall Foundry in Minster Street, although in the early 1930s it moved to The Cattle Market.)

Link to NRA Record:

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