Crabtree and Horsfield
1895 Company founded by Richard Wadsworth Crabtree and Alfred Horsfield with an endeavour to build machinery for the waste silk industry, and as general engineers. They had a capital of £200, and started business by the purchase of the contents of a small workshop, consisting of two lathes and a drilling machine.[1]
The business struggled for the next decade until 1905 when an entry was made in the newspaper printing business, following the production of an improved Late News device which was patented and introduced to the leading newspapers of the Country. [2]
1907 Partnership dissolved. '... the Partnership heretofore subsisting between us the undersigned, Richard Wadsworth Crabtree and Alfred Horsfield, both of the city of Leeds, carrying on business as Newspaper Engineers and Silk Machinists, at Victoria Iron Works, Victoria-road, Leeds, under the style or firm of "CRABTREE AND HORSFIELD," was, on the 10th day of April, 1907, dissolved by mutual consent. All debts due to and owing by the late firm will be received and paid by the undersigned, Richard Wadsworth Crabtree, by whom the business will in future be carried on...'[3]