How to find it
Joseph Huntley opened his bakery at 72 (now 121) London Street, Reading.
Note the wrong date on the plaque itself, it should read 1822!
Background
The name Huntley and Palmers Biscuits is well known throughout world.
Yet it is now over 200 years since Joseph Huntley opened a biscuit and confectionery shop, with his son Thomas, in this building, though at the time there were two bay windows. After Thomas died, in 1857, his business partner George Palmer changed the name to Huntley and Palmers and took the business forward. It became one of Reading’s most celebrated and famous biscuit companies, bringing world fame to the town. Reading became known as Biscuit Town and the football club as the “Biscuit Men”.
So how did it all start?
Joseph Huntley opened his bakery in 72 (now 121) London Street, Reading in 1822. His son, Thomas, made the biscuits. His 2 daughters served at the counter and Joseph stood at the door greeting famous customers such as the local author Mary Russell Mitford. In 1829 Thomas became a partner in his father’s firm.
At this time London Street was the main stagecoach route from London to Bristol, Bath, and the West Country. Soon baskets of biscuits were sent to every stagecoach that stopped at the Crown Inn, at the corner of Crown St and London Street.
Because the biscuits were vulnerable to breakage on the coach journey, they started putting them in metal tins. Out of this innovation grew another business, that of Huntley, Boorne, and Stevens, a firm of biscuit tin manufacturers founded by Joseph’s younger son, also called Joseph. This was sited in a now lost building directly opposite to the biscuit shop.
When Joseph retired in 1838 due to ill health Thomas needed a new partner. His wife’s young cousin, George Palmer, showed interest in joining him as he had some training as a baker. Thomas took George on as a partner in 1841, George bought a half share for £550. Though Thomas was the senior partner from the start George Palmer had effective control of the business. He moved into the flat above the shop with his mother and sister whilst Thomas Huntley rented a house nearby.
In 1857, on Thomas’s death, the name was changed to Huntley and Palmers. Thomas’ own son Henry lacked the ability and interest to take over from his father and was bought out for £34,000, thereafter receiving a Christmas cake every year till his death.
The company soon outgrew its original shop and moved to a factory on King’s Road in 1846, near the Great Western Railway. It had an internal railway system with its own steam locomotives
At their height, they employed over 5,000 people and became the world’s largest biscuit firm in 1900. The origins of the firm’s success lay in a number of areas. They provided a wide variety of popular products, producing 400 different varieties by 1903, and mass production enabled them to price their products keenly.
The Reading factory closed in 1976.
The HQ of the business remained in Reading until 1970.
Credits
- Reading Museum Website: https://www.readingmuseum.org.uk/online-exhibitions/history-huntley-palmers