['Ticker' Riley]

Hi Keith

I haven’t been looking at Jennens myself, but fellow Forum member and researcher btns recently kindly pointed me to an interesting note that appeared in the December 2008 edition of Button Lines about this very subject. The short piece is by Peter B. Boyden, and he quotes from a Board of Trade file at the United Kingdom’s National Archives (ref. BT 31/20678/122097). The basics are that Jennens & Co. Ltd came to an end in 1925 with the compulsory liquidation of the Firm, upon a petition made by Firmin & Sons, one of their creditors. According to Mr Boyden’s research Jennens was purchased by J. R. Gaunt & Son for £4,500, with the final balance of this sum being paid to the Receiver on 8 July 1925. No mentioned here of any kind of amalgamation three years earlier, so it would appear pretty conclusive Gaunts did buy Jennens, and that it was in 1925 that they ceased to be an independent company – all interesting stuff!

Best regards

Martin

P.S. Just checked the entry for Jennens in The Directory of Gold & Silversmiths, Jewellers & Allied Traders 1838-1914: From the London Assay Office Registers, Volume I, and it says that it was Jennens who by 1917 had moved “to 2 New Burlington Place, W1”; so Gaunt must have taken over this premises with the buyout in 1925. I’d be interested to see what’s there now, if you do take happen to take a photo sometime.