Business records

The Public Record Office of Northern Ireland has probably the largest collections of business records in the British Isles. Among them can be found the names of the records that have made Ulster famous throughout the world for linen, ships and engineering. The records themselves represent a wide cross-section of the business life of the province ranging from the records of Harland & Wolff to the local corner shop.

The most extensive holdings of business records relate to the linen industry: more than 250 companies are represented. These date from the eighteenth century, when spinning and weaving were domestic in character and new methods of bleaching were being devised by the Ulster bleachers. They cover the whole range of business activity, from technical production and employment aspects to marketing on a world wide scale.

Notable individuals are also represented including material relating to Harry Ferguson who, as a result of his involvement as a wartime organiser in the scheme to increase food production through farm mechanisation, developed the Ferguson tractor which, with mounted ploughs, made his fortune. Business records can be studied along side related classes of records deposited by employers, trade unions, public utilities, solicitors, banks and government departments.