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Jerome Limited
and the use of
Paper Negatives |
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Question |
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Jeromes used
paper negatives.
Were they supplied by Gratispool? |
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Answer 1 |
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Both
Gratispool and Jerome used paper negative film, but I have found no
evidence that Gratispool supplied Jerome.
I found two
interesting pages on the internet, while searching for the answer to this
question. See below. |
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Jerome
This web page gives a brief history of
Jerome 's business.
The site includes:
- a photo of the outside of Jerome's Studio in Liverpool
(early-1950s)
- a photo of the inside of Jerome's Studio in Liverpool
(1960)
- a brief account by Geoff Welding telling of his
experience working for Jerome in the early-1960s, and the equipment in use
there, then.
(Incidentally, Geoff, aged 17, appears in the 'Jerome
interior' picture above)
- photos of packets of film, 'The Jerome Spool ', 1/6
each.
- the comment: "'Jerome'
high street studios used a similar type of paper negative film to that
used by Gratispool. It seems probable that Geoffrey Stead 'borrowed' this
cost saving idea when he began his Gratispool company."
- reference to the cost of Jerome studio portraits:
- 10d (4p) each for a postcard portrait in the
mid-1930s
- 12/6d (62.5p) for an enlarged colour print in the early-1960s.
- mention of Jerome studios in Belfast, Birmingham, Bradford, Derby,
Edinburgh, Manchester, Liverpool, Newcastle, Southend-on-Sea and
Wolverhampton. There is speculation that Jerome's first studio
may have been in Wolverhampton. That's where the Jerome Head Office
in 1960. |
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Gratispool
This web
page gives a brief history of the
Gratispool business.
The site includes:
- illustrations from a large collection of packaging and
film cartons used by Gratispool from the 1930s onwards.
- reference to Geoffrey Stead. He lived in Bradford, Yorkshire,
and met his wife, Edrei Frances, when she was Manager of the Jerome studio
in Leeds. They married in 1931. Geoffrey carried out his own
photographic processing business in Leeds, then went on to found the
Gratispool business around 1934. ***
- comments on Gratispool becoming established in Glasgow as well
as Leeds in the 1930s, and moving their operation entirely to Glasgow
following a fire in their Leeds premises in the late-1940s.
Gratispool had kiosks at the British Empire Exhibition in Glasgow in
1938, offering "Development 6d (2.5p), Postcard Prints 2d (1p) each."
***
There is also a photograph of Gratispool's film processing laboratory
in Glasgow (1970s).
- a history of the company's development until it was
eventually sold to 3M's Photographic Division in 1981, then sold off in
parts in 1986. ***
*** This is a very brief summary. Please read the
Gratispool web page for a fuller story. |
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Answer 2 |
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Geoff Welding, who worked for the Jerome studio
in Liverpool in 1960, knows of no evidence to suggest that material might
have been supplied by Gratispool to Jerome.
Geoff writes:
"Gratispool was never mentioned at our branch
and I would have picked up on it if it had been because I used Gratispool
services years earlier in my school days.
The paper negatives for use in Jerome Studio's
were in fact supplied by Kodak. The Liverpool branch used the empty Kodak
boxes to keep the developed paper negatives in later. These went
back many years."
Geoff Welding: November 17, 2007 |
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Answer 3 |
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Ron Houslip (who was involved
with Gratispool from the early 1960s and later went on to become their
Sales Director) says in the 'Photographic Processor'
magazine, Dec 1979:
"In 1934, ... the old Criterion company were
supplying the bromide paper negative material (to Gratispool)."
"(After WW2) Kodak were
supplying the paper negative material for the roll films."
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Maurice Fisher writes:
"Brian Coe's book 'Cameras' has an indexed
item: 'Criterion (Plates, Papers & Films) Ltd'
It's strange that if Criterion were making
plates and films in the 1920s and 1930s, supplying Gratispool (and maybe
Jerome), they weren't absorbed into Ilford Ltd, as most other small
companies of this type seem to have been by 1930ish."
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Maurice concludes:
"I agree that there appears to be
no known tie-up between Jerome and Gratispool, apart from Edrei Stead (nee
Frances) working at Jerome, Leeds, prior to her husband Geoffrey Stead
setting up Gratispool.
The only other factor in common is that both
companies used paper film stock and so printed from paper negatives. But,
while I suspect their film suppliers may well have been the same
(Criterion then Kodak ??), I expect that Jerome & Gratispool operated
independently and neither supplied the other."
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Maurice Fisher: November 17, 2007 |
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