Catalogue description BUSINESS RECORDS OF MESSRS. VIPAN & HEADLY, Dairy Engineers, Abbey Gate, Leicester. c. 1862-1923

Vipan and Headly, dairy engineers, Leicester

• Manufacturing industry

Until 1935 the firm of Vipan and Headly were general ironmongers, specialising in dairy equipment and agricultural implements, with a shop at 14, Gallowtree Gate, and implement works in Church Gate, Leicester. Both these buildings had been used by firms of ironmongers since c.1840, and the Church Gate premises were a bar iron warehouse in 1827, when they were owned and ran by Mary Hunt, widow of William Hunt who died in 1820. In 1846 Mary Hunt and Son are listed as ironmongers and bar iron and steel merchants, but by 1854 the firm had become Hunt and Pickering of the Goulding Implement Works, and the earliest item among these records is a notebook from that firm. Vipan and Headly took over c.1870, and their firm is referred to as 'late Hunt and Pickering' in 1875; their premises were at Gallowtree Gate and Church Gate until c.1916 when the works were moved to Abbey Gate. About 1935 the firm divided into 2 branches: one of which, Vipans Ltd., implement agents, mill furnishers and iron and steel merchants is still in existence. The other branch, Vipan and Headly, dairy engineers, from whom these records came, stayed at the Abbey Gate premises until they closed down in 1964.

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