So, here is the top table at the 1957 Centenary Dinner.
From left to right: (1) My brother, Michael James Archer, who, in 1957 was age 19; (2) Dr NER Archer (Michael’s aunt Nora), and daughter of WGRA, age 49; (3) Mr FGB Archer (“FGBA”), Michael’s and my father, age 52, Managing Director of Archer Cowley & Co; (4) Mrs GM Archer, age 48, wife of FGBA and my mother; (5) W. Isard, President of the NAFWR (invited guest); (6) William George Reed Archer (“WGRA”), (age 79), who was then almost certainly still “Governing Director” of AC & Co; (7) Mrs Mary Kate Archer (2nd) wife (of about 13 years) of WGRA; (8) Mr OBT Bennett, of Grant Thornton, accountants to AC & Co, and son-in-law of WGRA; (9) Mrs Olive Bennett, (twin) daughter of WGRA, his wife; (10) Mr Arthur William Archer, elder son of WGRA and Transport Director of AC & Co, age 54; and (11) Mrs Rosie Archer, wife of Arthur Archer, and mother of their six children, of whom, I think, only two are present: Brian and Anne.
There is much of interest in this photograph, including those present and those not present. I am in the latter category, and likewise my cousin Paul Bennett, eldest child of Oswald and Olive Bennett (see (8) and (9) above). And although we might be considered ‘too young’ for such an event at age 15/going-on-16 (me) and a year or two younger in Paul’s case, the omission of the invitation can be seen in retrospect as very significant.
Although there was talk in the speeches at this centenary dinner (as there would be) of the firm going on from strength to strength in its ‘second century’ etc etc, in fact, due to the absence of anyone within the family willing and able to take on the management of the firm from the directors seen in this photograph, the firm was in fact put on the market and sold to Cantays, not very much more than ten short years after the centenary. Members of the next generation were Arthur’s six children (Eileen, Pam, Brian and John, Roland and Anne), Fred’s three boys (Michael, me and our younger brother Edward), and Olive’s three children (Paul, Clive and Gillian Bennett). Of Arthur’s children, Eileen had married a US Soldier in 1946 and gone to live in South Carolina, USA; John had emigrated (or was shortly to do so) to Australia and married and settled-down there; Brian and possibly Roland too had worked for the firm for various periods, but on the vans as members of the removals staff who carried the furniture, rather than in a managerial or trainee-managerial capacity. And Anne had a young son to look after. Of Fred’s children, Michael was reading history at St Edmund Hall, Oxford, I was still at school at Magdalen College School, and likewise my younger brother Edward. Olive’s three children were likewise all still at school in 1957. I believe Paul did spend a significant period working for Harrods in their furniture repository in possible preparation for a career with AC & Co, but he eventually gave up the idea, he told me, on the strength of his father’s advice that in the family firm he would be working for the existing family directors (WGRA and his two sons and three daughters), and this is not much of a prospect.
Another interesting aspect of this picture concerns who is sitting where. Arthur is sitting about as far from his father and his brother Fred as he can. His daughter Anne is sitting just in front of him, and his son Brian and Brian’s wife Molly. Well someone had to sit at the end of the table didn’t they? Yes, they did. But that’s how it strikes me.