The caption tothe photograph on this page of the Archer Cowley scrapbook reads: “Some of our staff and part of our fleet of vans taken for our Centenary Celebrations, March 16th 1957” I need to do a good-quality scanned copy of the photograph in order to do some identification of people there. I can certainly see my dad at the front of the group of staff, wearing his classic suit and waistcoat and tie. His brother Arthur seems not to be there, and neither is his father, William Archer. Where they had all gone with those six vans and the two cars, one being dad’s Saab 99, I do not know. Presumably they found that there was not enough room at the Park End Place warehouse site, in order to get all six vans and the staff in the shot, so they have found somewhere large enough, but it is pock-marked with puddles like the Somme battlefield. The Somme was 41 years before 1957, but 1957 (when I was 15 going-on 16) was 60 years ago as I type these notes.
The other item on the same page is a publicity document from James Archer’s early days in 1872, and has various items of text such as “Furniture van as in trransit on railway” and “Taking all risk - Fire-proof van” and “Stores and Warehouses New Road Oxford” and “Archer & Co” and “Estimates Free - Furniture Warehoused”. This historical item is marked: “See Over” and on the other side is (what I judge to be) THE KEY TO JAMES ARCHER’S SUCCESS IN THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE FIRM: It is shown in the next-following page in the scrapbook, and is a printed/simulated copperplate handwriting, a statement of the principles on which Archer & Co operated: as follows (with slight adjustment by pba of the syntax/punctuation):
"HOUSEHOLD REMOVALS IN CONNECTION WITH ALL RAILWAYS” (bearing in mind that in the 19th century there were many tens if not hundreds of independent railway companies, so this statement assured customers that there was no problem in transferring their valued possessions between two or more railway companies)
Household furniture packed and removed throughout to any part, on the same vans from House to House, by experienced men who go with the goods, taking charge of the whole as it stands in the House, taking down bookstacks, glasses etc, and ensuring safe delivery into the House of destination.
Oxford Offices: Archer & Co
New Road. Furniture Packing and Removals Department .
This publicity message seems to me to focus wonderfully innovatively on James Archer’s contribution to removals ‘logisitics’ (to quote the current vogue terminology for this area of business), namely PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR FAST SAFE TRANSIT FROM HOUSE TO HOUSE VIA THE NEW RAIL NETWORK. And it worked! James Archer succeeded and became a very wealthy businessman. And his firm had a record of hundreds of satisfired customers who, routinely, were asked to provide their views on whetherthe removal had been carried-out successfully, and apparently they always said it had. I will provide some representative samples as soon as I can.
(Afterthought): this removals van would arrive by train at a railway destination to be unloaded just like a then-current Royal Mail van, by bringing the railway truck carrying the 'to-be-horse-drawn' furniture van up to a specially-constructed platform, where horses could stand, and onto which the van could be manually-rolled so that the horses could then be connected to it (what is the term for that connection? ‘Coupled’? ‘Harnessed’? Yes, harnessed). And away it would go at horse-speed to its domestic destination.