1919.07.22.De Worms et Cie Cardiff

Double de courrier

NB : La copie image de ce document, de mauvaise qualité, n'a pas été conservée.

Cardiff, 22nd July 1919
Mrs Worms & Cie
Paris

Dear Sirs,
We duly received your special to the undersigned, dated the 15th inst. and we promptly advised Mrs Burness that the genesis of your firm in this country was the arrival in Hull about 1848 of the late the late Mr Henry Josse; the establishment there and at Newcastle of branch agencies for your account, we do not know in what sequence, followed later by one here in the early fifties, and as a matter of fact we carefully preserve the original brass door' plate which according to old inhabitants, was affixed to the door of our late offices, 10, .Bute Crescent for over 60 years. It bears the laconic inscription "H. Worms", to which in later days must have been added, when the accommodation therein was increased, the word "entrance next door".
We never held any definite standing as British Admiralty agents but until 1869, they invariably sent us, like Mrs Cory Bros. & C° and one or two other firms requests to tender for certain of their depots notably Halifax, Nova, Scotia, Bermuda, Esquimalt, Ascension, Sierra Leone, etc, the bulk of which business we captured for very many years. Then these orders were executed by Mrs Harrison, Moore & C° whom the Admiralty appointed their regular agents to effect shipments to these ports as well as the home dockyards, which latter held until the dissolution of that firm in December 1910, when Mr Wm Mathwin & Sons, the Newcastle agents, opened an office here as their successors, which appointment they still hold.
All we think you would be justified in stating would be that you were for many years contractors to H. M. Admiralty until their foreign dockyards were supplied direct.
Yours very truly.

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