Up: Hayward
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bedrock. Still, we are endeavouring to arrange a working basis for
better prices with our competitors."
The Manchester branch was now firmly established
and in 1904 J. G. Willmore, who had spent the last four years in that
city, returned to take up the management of the pavement light business.
This year, the West End showrooms were given up as the business accruing
from them did not justify their retention.
Advertisements and catalogues of this period are
not without interest. A list of stables kept by distinguished personages
and fitted with Cottam's stable furniture includes members of many defunct,
as well as living, dynasties, among them the late Emperor Napoleon III,
the Empress of Austria, and the Princes Menchikoff, Batthyany and Esterhazy.
Her Majesty's stables at Buckingham Palace, Balmoral and Aldershot were
supplied from the same source as were those of the Prince of Wales (Edward
VII) at Sandringham House. Thirteen dukes, three marquesses and twenty
earls are placed in strict precedence in the impressive list in which such
diverse names as Baroness Burdett-Coutts and the London County Council
appear. No fewer than 160 classifications or headings appear in the
catalogue with up to a score of different designs under most of them.
Reproduced testimonials, which had been a feature
of catalogues half a century earlier, were also used liberally in the
newer publications. Mr. Peter Robinson's testimonial of 1882, shown on
the opposite page, was still being quoted and a later
letter from Messrs. Marshall and Snelgrove, also of Oxford Street and in
the same line of business, stated: "Our basement is lighted by Haywards'
Patent Pavement Lights, the daylight being thrown 30 feet back, enabling
the space to be utilised as a counting house."
Leading hotels, newspapers clubs and railway
companies all testified to the excellence of the pavement lights. In
Bond Street alone, over a hundred different premises had been supplied
with them. An amusing illustration of their use at the Army and Navy
Toilet Club in Queen Victoria Street appears on
another page.
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