This timeline provides key dates in the history of Huntley & Palmers.
It starts in 1822 with the founding of the company by Joseph Huntley and runs to the creation of these webpages in 2023.
1822 J. Huntley & Son biscuit bakery opens in London Street
1832 Joseph Huntley junior opens tin making and ironmongery shop (later Huntley, Boorne & Stevens) opposite the bakery
1841 George Palmer becomes Thomas Huntley's partner. He was a distant cousin and a fellow Quaker. The business is renamed Huntley & Palmer
1842 Eight agents are appointed across the country to sell Huntley & Palmer biscuits. George was ambitious and wanted to rapidly expand the business
1846 A new factory opens in a former silk works on Kings Road employing 41 men and boys
1847 London office opens
1857 Thomas Huntley dies
1857 William Isaac and Samuel Palmer join George as partners. Business renamed Huntley & Palmers
1861 The original London Street shop closes
1865 Joseph Leete becomes continental representative
1867 H&P receives Royal Warrants from Leopold II of Belgium and Napoleon III of France
1878 H&P awarded a first prize at Paris Exhibition
1898 Becomes a private limited company and renamed Huntley & Palmers Ltd
1900 Awarded two first prizes at Paris Exhibition
1911 Huntley & Palmers provided ordinary and specially made emergency biscuits to the ill-fated British Antarctic Expedition to the South Pole, led by Captain Scott
1914-18 H&P makes army biscuits and artillery shell cases during World War I
1918 H&P buys Huntley, Boorne & Stevens, tin box makers
1918 King George V visits factory
1921 H&P forms Associated Biscuit Manufacturers Ltd with Peek Frean of London
1923 Huntley & Palmers opens a new factory at La Courneuve, near Paris
1924-5 The company exhibits at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, in London
1926 Edward, Prince of Wales, visits the H&P factory in Reading
1937 A new office building opens in Kings Road, Reading
1939-45 H&P makes army biscuits during the Second World War
1948 The Empire Windrush arrived at Tilbury with 500 passengers from the Caribbean who came to work and settle in the UK. From the 1950s, thousands of workers came to Reading including H&P, especially from the Caribbean, Indian, Ireland and Pakistan. These people have had a lasting contribution to Reading’s social, economic, and cultural life.
1955 A new branch factory opens at Huyton, Liverpool
1960 W. R. Jacob of Liverpool joins Associated Biscuit Manufacturers Ltd
1969 Biscuit production of Huntley & Palmers, Peek Frean and Jacobs reorganised as Associated Biscuits Ltd
1975 The Reading factory used as a location for the film Bugsy Malone
1976 Biscuit production ends at Reading
1982 Nabisco, North American based multinational, acquires Associated Biscuits Ltd
1983 Huyton factory in Liverpool closes
1989 Nabisco sells its UK biscuit companies including Huntley & Palmers, Peak Frean and Jacobs to BSN/Danone, a French food group
1991 The head office of the Jacob's Bakery move from King's Road to premises in Suttons Business Park. Jacob's stops producing biscuits under the Huntley & Palmers brand.
1996 Jacob's head office moves from Reading to Liverpool. But while H&P is no longer a Reading company
2000 Huntley & Palmers Gallery opens at Reading Museum
2003 Huntley & Palmers Collection website created after a lottery funded project to digitise the collection at Reading Museum
2004 The H&P brand is relaunched after being sold by Danone to a new company
2022 Reading celebrates the 200th anniversary of the opening of Joseph Huntley's first shop
2023 The content of the standalone Huntley & Palmers Collection website is integrated onto this website
