The top printed invitation card says: “The curators of the Bodleian Library request the honour of the company of a representative of Messrs Archer Cowley & Co in the reading room of the New Library on the occasion of the opening of the New Building by Their Majesties the King and Queen on the afernoon of Thursday 24th October 1946. Limited accommodation makes it necessary to restrict the invitiation to the person(s) named on this paper. Oxford, May 1946.”
The resulting actual invitation card below shows that it was WGRA (of course) who attended, age 68, even though his sons were aged 43 and 41 and by then were actually running the business, and probably had been doing so for quite some time. Incidentally it appears that Queen Elizabeth (wife of George VI) did not attend the opening, which was perfomed by the King himself.
The handwritten card (in WGRA’s very legible script) says: “Mr Dubber at Bodleian Library said that he estimated that at least 1,500,00 (one and a half million) books were moved by us to the New Bodleian in 1946”. And WGRA appears to have dated the card “November 3rd 1958”.
So this page of the scrapbook conveys the news to me that AC&Co did a second very significant removal job for the Bodleian in 1946 as well as the 1934 task. And the 1946 job was much bigger than the earlier one, by a factor of 15/2 = 7.5 times larger. This is an astonishing record. Thank goodness it has come to light and can be published! (14.4.2017).