Henry Thorne & Co. Ltd., Leeds, England

Across The Years

BEFORE 1889

Almost all sources telling Thorne’s early history are written after the Limited Company was established. Articles written in the 1890s to 1910s give the foundation date as 1832. Articles after the First War World give the foundation date as 1837. And Thorne’s 1937 Century Assortment commemorated the later date.

Thorne’s started off grinding mustard, chicory and arrowroot, and soon moved into cocoa production, first at Little Neville Street, then at Lady Lane from around 1842.

Henry Thorne & Co. were initially at 6 Little Neville Street in the School Close area of Leeds.1 Much of the area is now Leeds Station. Can you help identify which building they used?

Thanks to internet innovations, notably Ancestry and British Newspaper Archive, I found sources for both the 1832 and 1837 dates. All refer to “Messrs. Thorne”, but don’t clearly specify if they refer to Henry Thorne.

One of my research outputs is a huge family tree. The family, who were Quakers, were also closely linked to the Linsley family, also grocers. This genealogical research has established that there were seven Thorne and Linsley family businesses in Leeds in the mid-1800s, all but Henry’s being grocers. The 1832 and 1837 dates come from references to various Thorne’s businesses being interchanged. Eventually, documentary evidence confirmed 1832.

Leeds Mercury, 28 November 1840.2 Cocoa joined mustard, chicory and arrowroot early in the Thorne’s story.

Slowly things piece together, and the list of questions gradually gets shorter.

AFTER WORLD WAR ONE

The book Cabbages to Caramels is a great source of information for 1920 to 1960 and in it I found that second and third generations of the Woodhead family became Chairman of Thorne’s and that the factory was bombed in World War Two.

What exactly happened to the company at its end in the 1970s is still a challenge to figure out.

National Union of Retail Confectioners News Letter, June 1949.3

ANOTHER SIGNIFICANT FIND

In 2021, I visited The Mitchell Library in Glasgow to enquire about a depot that Thorne’s had in the city around 1933. I also asked if they held any information on the confectionery industry and found that The Mitchell have an archive of Confectioners’ Union magazines, stretching over 70 years. This archive has become a significant source of new material on Thorne’s and the contemporary confectionery industry. There are around 850 magazines to work through. There are also Confectioners’ Union Year Books and further magazines to view in other libraries too. 

THORNE’S on the big screen

The distinctive Extra Super Crême Toffee tin and the slogan “It’s too good for you Spot” has been loved by many since around 1924 when the design was registered as a trade mark. An old tin got a new life in the 2000 animated film, Chicken Run.

Nick and Fetcher in Chicken Run, 2000.4
  1. National Library of Scotland, OS Map 218 published 1852 ↩︎
  2. Image © The British Library Board. All rights reserved. ↩︎
  3. Private collection ↩︎
  4. © 2000 Dream Works, Pathe and Aardman. Usage rights granted ↩︎