Wathes

Number of items in the collection: 10
Venues where the material can be listened to: Record Office, EMOHA
Media available on: CD

Collection History

The Wathes Collection comprises 10 interviews. The interviews were commissioned by Wathes to celebrate the centenary of the founding of the company T. H. Wathes and Co Ltd in 1903. The interviews were conducted by the East Midlands Oral History Archive and a booklet was produced entitled 'A Century of Service'. The collection was deposited with the EMOHA in March 2004.

TH Wathes was an electrical engineering company at its inception in 1903, branched into refrigeration in the 1920s, although probably best remembered as a High Street retailer of electrical goods. The interviews in this collection were conducted with current and former employees of the company and mainly cover the period 1935 to 1972, with two interviews focusing on recent developments. Subjects include: apprenticeship with the company; work in electrical engineering and refrigeration; the company and its ownership during this period, T.H. and H.S. Wathes; changes in work culture after World War II.