Advertising Materials

 

The tool collections are complemented by a range of advertising and promotional material which helps to show how products were packed in the factory and marketed to customers in this country and abroad. It includes examples of packaging and labels, merchandising items such as showcards and product dispensers, and a selection promotional giftware and souvenirs ranging from miniature tools to model cars and mugs. Some companies also issued educational material such as the How to … posters produced by Stanley.

 

Above left: George Butler & Co. Ltd.  One of Butler's warehouses - wrapping up finished goods. Taken from Sheffield & Rotherham up-to-date. [1897].

Above right: Factory wrapped cutlery and flatware.(T.7014)

Ken Hawley wrote the following notes to accompany these items:

In the days before plastic bags and wrappings all finished cutlery, flatware and holloware was wrapped carefully and rapidly in tissue paper. This was acid free and would help to stop the articles from becoming rusty or tarnished.

The warehouse girls doing this job did it like lightening but if the wrapping is carefully examined, it will be seen that much thought has gone into its method – all the ends of the paper are tucked in and provide a cushion between it and its neighbours and at the same time all the ends are kept neat, tidy and so placed that they will not come undone.

My mother, Isabella Hawley, used to do the job for a while at Cooper Brothers, Arundel Street, sometime in the early 1920s. Sometimes in her later life she would wrap up cutlery at home to put it away safely, the process was done like lightening and every one was the same. She took delight in showing me how it was done but, 70 years on, it is mostly forgotten. KWH. February 2002.

 

Hanging showcard for Geo. Platts & Son Ltd. (AD.PO.167)
Letterhead and transit labels from W.H. Parkin & Sons (AD.PO.355-357)

 

 

Boxed model Stanley van by made by Oxford Die-Cast Ltd. (AD.PO.1074)