Catalogue description C.A., later G.J. JAQUIN, BUTTON MANUFACTURER

BUSINESS AND FAMILY RECORDS

The papers arrived in bundles, but these were not cohesive groups and so they have been sorted into groups based on the successive individuals. The correspondence and accounts are so mixed that a complete separation between business and family matters was not practical. Specifically business matters have been listed together.

Jaquin, Cornelius Alfred, 1838-1862, button maker of Hackney

Jaquin, George John, d1898, button maker of Hackney

Jaquin, William, fl1898, button maker of Hackney

Open

Date of deposit: February 1988

Deposited by Richard Ford, bookseller

Condition of deposit: Purchase by Friends of Hackney Archives after the Council found itself unable to confirm the initial order. Subsequently purchased from the Friends by Hackney Council

Acc 1988/35

The business of button making was founded by Cornelius Alfred Jaquin in 1838. Prior to that date he would appear to have been a warehouseman. Listed at 10 Half Moon Alley in 1844, by 1846 Jaquin had moved to 24 New Union Street, Little Moorfield. (Earlier addresses include 3 St Albans Court, Wood Street in 1831 and Huggin Lane, Wood Street in 1841). In 1861 G.J. Jaquin took a lease on part of 24 Castle Street, Finsbury, moving from an address at 3 City Terrace, Old Street. By 1872 the firm was established at 45 Paul Street, moving to 106 Leonard Street, Shoreditch in 1893. It was still trading from there in 1930 but had gone by 1934.

C.A. Jaquin exhibited at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Correspondence suggests links with John and William Aston of Birmingham, and Jaquin licenced them to make buttons under a patent which he held the sole licence to. C.A. Jaquin died at his Hoxton house in 1862, to be succeeded by his son George John Jaquin. An undated newspaper report describes the factory at 45 Paul Street as it was sometime in the 1870s. George Jaquin moved out from the City area to Walthamstow, purchasing a plot of land fronting Higham Hill Common Road in 1868. On his death in 1898 he was living at 31 Downs Park Road, Hackney, though it is probable that the management of the business had passed to his son William Jaquin prior to that date. William seems to have been in need of money, but there is nothing in the later papers as to the fate of the business.

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