Cooper McDougall & Robertson: Subsidiary Companies, Related Companies

Records of the subsidiary and related companies of Cooper McDougall & Robertson Limited, as well as companies acquired by Cooper McDougall & Robertson Ltd. Mostly comprised of minutes of meetings of the boards of directors, AGMs and EGMs for the companies listed, but also includes some statutory books, some accounts, and a few other related records. The quantity of material that has survived varies between each company. Companies included in this series are from both the UK and abroad.

The start date for series of records relating to companies in this series does not necessarily equate with the date at which the company concerned was established. Record survival has been patchy, and companies were often re-constituted or amalgamated, which may have caused a break in records series. More information on the history of the Coopers company can be found in the appropriate parts of this catalogue, and in the Business Archives Council / Wellcome Trust Survey of the Historical Records of Veterinary Medicine in the United Kingdom (available at the Wellcome Library and elsewhere). The existence of the business can be traced back to 1843.

An impression is sometimes given that the subsidiary company board minutes and papers were written in a certain way for the benefit of the parent company. Copies were sent to the parent company for information. It is a possibility that the documentation was prepared in such a way as to satisfy particular requirements of the parent company, or to justify actions taken or results achieved by the subsidiary concerned. Sometimes information is recorded in board minutes or papers that it could be assumed all present at meetings would already have known - this was almost certainly recorded for the benefit of the parent company, as well as for legal or operational reasons.

Throughout this section of the catalogue, annual meetings of shareholders under whatever guise are referred to as AGMs, whether or not that was their actual legal status. Different company laws applied in the countries where the various subsidiaries were registered, and this has been allowed for as far as possible in the cataloguing of this section. Some subsidiary companies were based overseas, some in the UK but this is not necessarily indicated by the name of the company given.

[WC&N = William Cooper & Nephews]

[CMR = Cooper McDougall & Robertson]

[PLA = Profit & Loss Accounts]

1877 - 1975

67 boxes, plus 1 o/s box

Please see main WF collection description (ref. 'WF').

Copyright assigned to the Wellcome Trust unless otherwise stated