Here is some text, drafted for “My UDL Story” (an account of part of PBA’s working life) which tells a little more about the characters in this story.
"Yes, but who are these people?
Before I get into details about Bill Dykes, William Fairburn Hart, George Gatton Melhuish Hardingham et al, not to mention “PBA”, and the ‘Archers’ ): a word or two about what and who UDL and PBA actually were/are, in case this book is ever looked at other than by family members.
So, UDL or UD&L is the acronym for Urquhart-Dykes & Lord, a firm of patent agents or (to use the more modern term) attorneys, for whom PBA worked first as an employee and then as a partner, from 1980 to 2002. The firm was originally based in London and Leeds, and later had offices in many other locations. The firm grew to be quite large in the 1990s, as this story will tell.
As for PBA/Phil Archer, he is aged 70 as he types this on 11.7.2012, the son of Frederick George Blake Archer, Furniture Remover and Storer, of Oxford, and of Gwendolen Mary Penfold, Musician, of Surrey and Sussex and London. These Archers had lived in Oxford since well before the 19th century, being “Common Brewers” before they became involved in the Furniture Removals business. As for known names connected with the family, there are three which are reasonably easy to investigate: Gwenda Morgan, George Jackson Churchward and William Wells. Gwenda Morgan was a well-known wood engraver, being Gwen Penfold’s cousin (the daughter of Gwen’s mother’s sister May Wells and William Morgan), and whose characteristic engravings are widely available on the internet. G.J. Churchward was the very well known Chief Engineer and Locomotive Designer of the Great Western Railway from 1902 to 1920, successor to William Dean and predecessor of Collett, and whose designs included the Great Western ‘Stars’, ‘Saints’, and indeed the ‘City of Truro’ class which included the first locomotive (and perhaps the first powered machine ever) to exceed 100 mph. PBA’s connection with ‘GJC’ is sadly not a blood-relation atall, being only ‘by marriage’. He was PBA’s (paternal) great grandmother (Olive Emma Reed)’s cousin (by marriage) - but nevertheless a connection ‘treasured’ by PBA, and which it would have been so nice to have known about in the ‘railway mania’ days of PBA’s youth. And William Wells was Gwen Penfold’s maternal grandfather and became a well known horticulturalist who established the firm “Wells of Merstham” and won many prizes in UK and abroad for his Chrysanthemums, and wrote a text book on their culture, which is still available. And I now (6.9.2012) include Olive Emma Reed’s brother, Albert Edwin Reed who founded the Reed Paper Empire, being one of several entrepreneurial brothers in that family."