6. William White Co. - Later Years

 

The company of William White continued to produce new editions of the directories, i.e. brought up to date and reissued, with the last issues appearing during the 1890s. The later directories were published in Sheffield under the William White name at Hoole´s Chambers, Bank Street (originally 10, then 18 & 20) but also by Simpkin, Marshall & Co. in London. The Preface now usually ends with a printed signature of W White, and from the 1880s there was a distinctive trade mark logo. The company advertised a new work in 1892: White´s Hardware Trade Marks. This contained all the registered marks in use in the hardware trades in the UK, with the main text edited by Herbert Hughes of Sheffield Chamber of Commerce.[1] It is about this time that White´s adopted a more systematic alphabetic approach: they were one of the last directory publishers to abandon the Hundred system of organisation.

 

William White´s Trade Mark Index (White´s is bottom right) from circa 1878[2].

 The company also began to incorporate more advertisements into the county directories. William White and his son do not seem to have seen this as a major source of income, or their customers preferred to advertise more locally, hence the city directories contained more advertising. Fourteen county directories were published post-1870, the vast majority of which (11) included some advertising. This might range from five pages (Suffolk 1890) to eighty pages (Lincoln 1872). Sometimes this was added at the back with a separate section title: White´s Professional and Commercial Directory. There are no adverts recorded in the 1890 Devonshire.

In directories published throughout this time, the company were claiming (in advertisements) that the company was Established 1822, i.e. the year of the Yorkshire directory and the title pages often refer to previous directories published. Up until the end of the century seven counties were completely revised under the White company successors, some more than once, e.g. Devon in 1878 and 1890, or Suffolk three times in 1874, 1885 and 1891. The last county directory was the 1892 fifth edition of Lincoln. Some city directories appeared until 1895 (Leeds 1894 15^th ed., and Grimsby 1895 8^th ed.).

The run of directories for Sheffield held at the Sheffield Central Library and Sheffield Archives shows that that city was reissued almost every two or three years[3]. The final edition under the name William White was published in 1896. The subsequent directories are listed as White´s (Kelly´s) Directory, hence, in 1901 when the 23^rd edition of the Sheffield directory was published, this was being printed and published by Kelly´s Directories Limited. At some time between 1885 and 1890 the company became William White Limited, and the address changed to 9, St. James Row.

White’s Directories, following the example set by Edward Baines, included a considerable amount of information, collected and brought together from a wide range of sources. It was so thorough in its content, and professionally presented, that many of the later directories followed the design and layout of White´s. His title and style of directory became popular and were copied from as early as 1845 by imitators; including some who did not scruple from piracy![4] As it was put in his obituary: ‘his works went far beyond a mere catalogue of names. He made them histories and gazetteers and in terms of style and condensation he was unequalled[5]’.

As William White pointed out in his numerous prefaces, the content was compiled from the many existing secondary sources: ‘Guidebooks and Local Histories’ of the largest towns and ‘other places and districts’; ‘personal visits’; and Parliamentary Reports of Public Charities, Population, Church Benefices, &c. In the Preface to the 1850 Directory of Devonshire, for example, he (the author) ‘has to tender his grateful acknowledgements to many literary and official Gentlemen for the valuable Communications, with which they have furnished him, in answer to his multifarious enquiries.’ This was a time-honoured statement; nevertheless, the directories had absorbed more and more information.

Whereas the first edition of Norfolk, for example, had 806 pages, this had grown to 1226 by the fifth and final edition in 1890. The directory of Devonshire in the same year stretched to 1303 pages (only 804 in 1850). Compare this to Kelly´s directory of Cambridgeshire, Norfolk (pages 209 to 775) and Suffolk of 1883 with just 1212 pages. Kelly´s Devonshire of 1893 was some 300 pages shorter than White´s. But Norfolk and Devonshire both cost 30 shillings if bought from William White; Kelly was charging subscribers the same for both directories but Norfolk came with two added counties and Devonshire was (often) sold with Cornwall together. Economies of scale were beginning to see Kelly dominate the directory market.

William White´s trade mark logo from circa 1878

It must also be mentioned that canvassers also played an important part in information gathering. In the Preface to Leicestershire with Rutland (1846) White states: Authenticity being the grand requisite of topography, all possible care has been taken to avoid errors in the following pages; every Parish, and almost every House in both Counties, has been visited, and the information either collected or verified on the spot.

We know that White had problems with his own father and brother who had been employed as canvassers or travellers as early as 1844. He also took another of his street workers to court in 1862, Drake had been collecting information from 1856 to 1860 for White´s. In addition, in many newspapers throughout the 1860s and 1870s White´s appealed for information concerning changes to addresses or businesses in order to bring the directories up to date[6]. The announcement in the Ilfracombe Gazette of Saturday 14^th April, 1877 was probably typical. Under the heading Parracombe, it announces A NEW DIRECTORY and reports that "A representative of the publishing house of Mr William White, Sheffield, has been staying here during the last three weeks collecting information for a Directory of Devonshire to be shortly published" (this would be the second edition of 1878).

The Preface always included an exhaustive list of sources used for the historical section. William also referred to the number of subscribers to the work (nearly 3000 in 1850 for the Devon volume). For historians of the present day the various directories and gazetteers serve as sources of local information which is difficult, if not impossible, to obtain from one single source. Care must still be taken, however: Gareth Shaw calculated that while Baines's 1823 Lancashire directory has 70 per cent of the households in very large towns, only six per cent of those in small villages are recorded. Even White's directory of Exeter of 1890 includes only 65 per cent of the households[7].

Although absorbed into the Kelly empire, the name of White´s continued to be used until 1930, a testimony to the regard shown for these directories, despite the fact that they were far from national.[8] The Sheffield directory maintained its old spine title (and colour) until 1919.  

 

Spine title of White´s Sheffield Directory 1915 but published by Kelly & Co.

Image courtesy of William Whiteley & Sons Ltd. Unit 1 Lakeside, Rother Valley Way, Sheffield, S20 3RW and taken from their website, November 2025.

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William White´s Directories:

Click the entry below to access relevant page.

1. Early Years - William White and Edward Baines
2. William White & Co.
3. Rivalry and Family Feud
4. Francis White & Co.
5. The County Maps of William White
6. William White Co. - Later Years

Appendix 1 - The County Directories of Edward Baines
1.1. Yorkshire
1.2. Lancashire
Appendix 2 - The County Directories of William White
2.1. Durham and Northumberland
2.2 - Cumberland & Westmorland
2.3 - Nottinghamshire
2.4 - Staffordshire
2.5 - Norfolk
2.6 - Yorkshire (later edition)
2.7 - Lincoln
2.8 - Suffolk
2.9 - Leicestershire with Rutland
2.10 - Essex
2.11 - Devonshire
2.12 - Hampshire with Isle of Wight

 

NOTES:

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[1] Advertised in the Lincoln directory of that year (page 18) but no copy is listed in JISC Discover.
[2] Taken from page 7 of Hampshire Directory (2nd edition, 1878).
[3] Copies for the years 1864 (10^th edition), 1868, 1871, 1876, 1884, 1889, 1891, 1893, 1896 are held. The 1879, 14^th, edition is on-line at University of Leicester.
[4] Norton, Jane E; 1984 (p.14).
[5] Sheffield and Rotherham Independent, 4 September 1868, p.3. and 24 January, 1870, p.3.
[6] The Sheffield Daily Telegraph of Tuesday 12 January 1864 actually carried such appeals for a new Sheffield directory for both William White and Francis White & Co.
[7] Camp, Anthony; 2002.
[8] Norton, Jane E; 1984 (p.64). Norton lists these directories under Local rather than National.