WASTE RECYCLING
WASTE RECYCLING COMPANY PROFILE
A turn up for the books
Seaforde Metals’ paper trail is a historical treasure trove
Company Profile: Seaforde Metals
“FIRST deal, April 4th, 1920” wrote Peter Killen in his first entry in his crisp new ledger entitled ‘Scrap Book’.
Scrawled in pencil, the looping letters noted the tons of scrap metal collected down the left side of the ledger, the names of his customers – Mr Dickson, Mr Savage, Mr Carr, and others - in the middle and the price carefully listed on the right.
Most importantly, at the bottom Mr Killen noted: “Received first money for scrap. Tuesday, 15 June, 1920. Profit £14.09. Well satisfied.”
As years passed, the yellowing paperwork could easily have ended up in the bin.
Instead, along with dozens of other documents, receipts and countless photographs, it survived to be years later
uploaded to Seaforde Metals’ website.
That alone would surely would have boggled the mind of Peter Killen.
However, the County Down firm’s extensive archive not only shines a light on the birth, growth and ups and downs of a 100-year-old firm, it also offers a glimpse into a unique period of Irish history spanning partition, and the family that pushed through hardship and health troubles to keep Seaforde Metals going.
According to John Killen, Peter’s grandson, the digitised archive is a reminder that the only certainty in business is that nothing is certain.
“In 1920, my grandfather’s profit was £14.09. But a few pages along in 1922, it was down to £3.50,” he points out.
By SANDRA DICK
“Over 100 years there have been good times and bad times, just as there are now. You only have to look at those two entries to see how things can change.”
That first ledger, however, tells just part of the story. The business’s roots stretch even further, to the Irish potato famine.
A fungal disease ripped through Ireland’s potato crops in 1845, leaving many already desperately poor families so starved that the only option for survival was to seek work elsewhere.
For John’s ancestors, that meant leaving Farranfad, 25 miles south of Belfast, in 1850 and crossing the Irish Sea for Cumbria.
There his great grandfather Hugh established a coal delivery business and built houses, raising a family with wife Annie and suffering the loss of several children.
The family returned to Farranfad in the early 1900s. Aged 22 and with his father’s eye for business, Hugh’s son, Peter, made those first transactions against a backdrop of the Irish War of Independence which would eventually lead to the partition of Ireland.
One of the key documents conserved in the archive is a General Dealer’s licence dated 30 April 1920, issued by the Irish law courts almost exactly a year before
36 36
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56
