The Menu of the 1957 Centenary Dinner for Archer Cowley & Co Ltd's employees, at The Cadena Cafe Regency Rooms, Cornmarket Street, Saturday March 16th 1957:

Phil’s History:

A ‘work in progress’ family history website starting from an Archer family of South Oxford, who were freemen, brewers, haulage contractors, and first ‘Archer & Co’ then ‘Archer Cowley & Co’ furniture removers in the 19th and 20th Centuries, inter alia, to whom are linked by marriage the Penfolds and Wells of Southwark and Surrey, the Reeds of Devon, the Gilders of Oxford and Hinckley, the Morgans of Petworth, Sussex, the Garners of Middleton, Lancs and many others. There are connections via Phil and the present generation (born 1930s/40s) with a patent law firm known as "UD&L" with motor-racing and Scottish antecedents.

This dinner appears to have been the principal and perhaps only event in celebration of the centenary.

Note the NAFWR logo at the bottom LHS and the (I think) Freemen of Oxford, or Oxford City logo at the bottom RHS. The NAFWR was the trade body to which Archer Cowley belonged (roughly: the National Association of Furniture and Warehousemen and Removers. The membership was quite widely displayed at the offices and on the vans.

The Cadena Cafe was part of a chain of such venues, and sold coffee, cake etc for consumption in comfortable surroundings, as I remember it. This was in the days (in my 1950s youth) of Cornmarked Street being 'the rubber road', because it was surfaced with rubber bricks to reduce vibration by vehicles.

The camera shot of this page of the album is very imperfectly focused and really needs to be re-taken. (4.4.18).

Phil’s History:

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The Menu of the 1957 Centenary Dinner for Archer Cowley & Co Ltd's employees, at The Cadena Cafe Regency Rooms, Cornmarket Street, Saturday March 16th 1957: