Grace's Guide
British Industrial History
Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 148,141 pages of information and 233,681 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.
Reed and Smith
From Graces Guide
Reed and Smith, paper makers of Exeter
1870s Brothers William Henry Reed and Albert E. Reed worked together in a Cardiff paper mill. After marrying two sisters, they both went into the paper trade - Albert in Kent and William in the West Country[1]
c.1880 William Reed started a business in the West Country (Devon).
1952 Public company; shares floated on the stock exchange; owned 4 paper mills in Devon[2]
1962 In face of poor trading in the existing business, was developing new uses for traditional products and new products but this was taking time[3]
1965 Easton and Johnson of Taunton was the engineering subsidiary of the company; it had increased exports of alluvial pump liners, doors and engines to Nigeria, Pakistan and India[4]
1973 Acquired Partridge and Love (Holdings), printers[5]
1973 Sold a further 50 percent interest in Easton and Johnson to Tozer, Kemsley and Millbourn (Holdings)[6]
1976 National Enterprise Board invested to modernise a paper mill in Somerset
1977 Acquired by the UK arm of St Regis Paper[7]
1985 After the US parent of St Regis was taken over, most of the UK operations were sold to management - this included Tillotsons, Reed and Smith, and the corrugated packaging part of Mardon Packaging[8]