WHERE TO LOOK?
The internet wasn’t really a thing in the mid-1990s, and social media was unheard of, so I wrote a letter to The Yorkshire Post asking for information and received back some good leads. Especially useful was information about a 1977 private publication called From Cabbages to Caramels, by G. F. Tinsley. Only 750 copies of this book were published and it took a long while to track down my own copy.
A visit to Leeds revealed that the Thorne’s factory site on Lady Lane had been a car park since 1972:
Coun. Woolmer said it would be 2-3 years before the planned shoppers’ car parks were built in the central area, so the toffee works site would be valuable for providing spaces for shopping motorists.
Evening Post, 25 July 1972
Shoppers are still parking in this temporary car park today!
Enquiries found that West Yorkshire Archives had no Thorne’s material. Leeds Libraries, though, had a few indexed references to Thorne’s. This included The Yorkshire Post Leeds Tercentenary Supplement of 1926 – a flowery advertising feature for Thorne’s, including a photo of “The Founder : Henry Thorne”, as well as a mention of Edward Woodhead. This article says the company dates back to around 1834.
Another article from Leeds Libraries, published in the Yorkshire Evening News in 1961, suggests that Thorne’s started in 1837 and states that the firm was currently employing nearly 1,000 people and “turning out 2 million wrapped pieces of confectionery in an 8½ hour day”.
Chesterfield Library hold the 1937 Woodhead’s Price List which has an eight-page full-colour insert of Thorne’s products – perhaps suggesting that the link between Woodhead’s and Thorne’s was viable? Of course, the catalogue also raised many more questions.
Henry Thorne & Co. Ltd., Leeds, England 