Catalogue description Wallis and Steevens Ltd, Basingstoke

TR WAL AC1/1-57 Ledgers

TR WAL AC2/1 Cash books

TR WAL AC4/1-4 Journals

TR WAL AC6/1-19 Other accounts

TR WAL AC7/1-77 Financial statements

TR WAL AD1/1-6 Records of general meetings and board meetings

TR WAL AD2/1-11 General administrative and commercial records

TR WAL AD3/1-10 Employee records

TR WAL AD4/1 Premises records

TR WAL AD5/1-5 Materials records

TR WAL AD7/1-9 Commercial records

TR WAL CO1/1-4 Partnership records

TR WAL CO2/1-59 Limited company records

TR WAL CO4/1-2 Property records

TR WAL DO1/1-5 Engineering drawings and sketches

TR WAL DO2/1-2 Drawing registers

TR WAL MP1/1-23 Registers and lists of production

TR WAL MP2/1-524 Manufacturing working papers and details

TR WAL MP3/1 Outworks records

TR WAL P2/A/1-16 Advertising and servicing publications

TR WAL P2/B/1-2 Other firms' literature

TR WAL P8/1-16 Artworks

TR WAL P9/1-4 Other records

TR WAL PH3/1-45 Photographic prints

Wallis and Steevens Ltd, manufacturers and suppliers of agricultural and construction machinery

The records were deposited as a gift by Wallis and Steevens Ltd, in conjunction with AFW Wallis and PR Wallis in 1981 and 1983.

Accession numbers T81/9, T81/11, T81/12, and T83/3

• Agricultural engineering

Wallis and Steevens Ltd., agricultural implement makers and dealers, was founded by Arthur Wallis, grandson of Richard Wallis of Richard Wallis and Sons, a Basingstoke merchant company. Arthur Wallis opened his first ironworks at Station Hill, Basingstoke in 1847 and entered the steam engineering business, producing portable engines, small stationary engines and threshing machines. Subsequently the company specialised in self-moving engines: traction engines, steam tractors, steam wagons and road rollers. From the 1920s onwards the company increasingly concentrated on the manufacture of its Advance series of road rollers, and shifted away from steam to the production of diesel and petrol motor rollers. The company also acted as an agent for other agricultural manufacturers including David Brown Tractors until 1953 and Massey Ferguson until 1976 and had showrooms on Reading Road, Station Hill, Basingstoke where it displayed and sold a range of agricultural machinery. During 1966-1967 Wallis and Steevens Ltd. moved to a new works at the Daneshill Industrial Estate, Reading Road, Basingstoke. Although the mid 1970s saw a brief return to profit, the company ceased trading in 1981 after incurring considerable losses, compounded by a sharp decline in new orders. Its wholly-owned subsidiary AJB Engineers was sold in the same year to Belcher Brothers Investments Ltd and its road roller and sprayer business was taken over by BSP International Foundations Ltd., part of the Tex Holdings PLC group of companies.

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