Why We Built This Archive, And What We Hope It Becomes

Vintage Vickers Oils trade booklets, adverts and technical brochures, part of the Mary Randall Vickers Archive collection

Peter Vickers spent 42 years with Vickers Oils. As he began stepping back toward retirement in spring of 2025, it became clear that there was an opportunity to spend time in the archive .

Additionally, that instinct met a deadline. Vickers Oils is approaching its 200th anniversary in 2028. This story needed telling again.

It isn't the first attempt. At the 125-year anniversary "This Family Business" was written by Randall Vickers. And at the 150-year mark, “Spin A Good Yarn”, the story of William Farrar Vickers, was written by Ginny Vickers. And at other moments along the way, family members and people in the business have told bits and pieces of the story of the family and the business. This archive is the contemporary version of that, built in a few distinct layers.

First, digitising the collection so nothing gets lost. Then, bringing in a professional archivist to make sense of two hundred years of material. And now, figuring out how to actually tell the story and giving it a narrative.

We hope that the result will be more than a family or business record, but a resource for researchers, historians, former employees, descendants, and anyone in the wider Leeds community who wants to dig into it.

Digitising, first

The starting point was practical. Vickers Oils came across Microform, a family-run business based in Wakefield, Yorkshire, that has been digitising archival material since 1956, back when it began as a microfilming service for academic institutions. It seemed like the right fit: a Yorkshire company with decades of experience handling exactly this kind of heritage material.

The first job was simple, in principle. Get everything secure: letters, ledgers, photographs, trade cards, etc. The aim was to get all of it scanned and stored so that nothing could be lost to time, damage, or go missing.

But seven generations of material adds up, and what started as a straightforward security exercise revealed just how much there actually was to work through. There was a surprising breadth to the material as well. This brought us to the decision to bring in an expert.

Bringing in an archivist

Making sense of what had been digitised was another matter entirely, and that's where Robert Curphey came in. Robert is the archive's lead archivist, with a background at places like the Thackray Museum of Medicine in Leeds and the Marylebone Cricket Club, institutions that know exactly what it takes to catalogue, conserve, and interpret a collection properly.

"I'd always wanted to work with company archives," he says. "I find aspects of them fascinating, particularly internal communications, photographs, branding and social activities. What struck me about this collection was that it has been incredibly well maintained, and that there are effectively two strands to it: the family and business records. I hadn't anticipated there would be recipe books, or books of mathematical exercises, which give the archive a much broader appeal. There is a passion and ambition for this archive, which is exciting to be part of."

Robert's job is to take everything Microform secured, and to catalogue and categorise the material. He is forming the essential building blocks that the archive will sit upon for years to come. New materials are added on a regular basis so in a way this work will always be in process.

Where the storytelling comes in

Alongside Robert's work, Peter is acting as the archive's historian. His job is to dig into the individual pieces and shape the context around it: what was happening in Leeds, in Britain, and in the world while this story was unfolding. His work requires research, visiting other archives, and utilizing his wealth of industry knowledge.

Alongside the essays and writings from Peter, I, Lilliana am working on ways to bring some of this material to life through film and media. It's a joy to engage with story in this way. The hope is to breathe new life into the material and also bring it to audiences who might not have come across it otherwise.

Why, in the end

We are building this archive because we think this archive can be something bigger than one family's history.

We hope it can function as a window into the history of the UK and of Yorkshire, manufacturing businesses, and what it actually takes for a business to survive for 200 years.

But at the heart of it is Mary. Her story is the one that started everything and we hope her spirit comes through. Everything we're building, the digitising, the cataloguing, the essays, the films, is really in service of making sure her memory is told the way it deserves to be.

If you are a researcher, a historian, a former employee, a customer, a descendant, or simply someone who finds this story as compelling as we do please get in touch

Explore the collections here.

Lilliana Rose Lyons is a filmmaker and the creative consultant for the Mary Randall Vickers Archive and Vickers Oils, helping bring its stories to new audiences ahead of the 2028 bicentenary.