RA Collection: People and Organisations
Hudson, Buckler and Webb
"The Hudson Group traces its roots back to 1821, when Benjamin Hudson set up as a printer in Birmingham. The company specialised in letterpress, but like many city-centre printers, also moved into the stationery market, opening a stationers' shop on Edmund Street, Birmingham, in 1899, stocking office supplies and offering a service making rubber stamps.
Hudson acquired the business of W. Rickman King and this boosted the premises to 40,000 square feet, housing some 200 employees. More acquisitions followed. In 1954 the printer Buckler and Webb in Church Street was acquired, and in 1969 Burman Cooper, which occupied a site on Bromford Lane, was bought. Hudson sold the Edmund Street print works to a developer and henceforth Burman Cooper became the print shop for the firm. In 1996 Hudson consolidated the two remaining parts of the business onto the Bromford Lane site, with space for both office supplies and printing. The Hudson Group changed ownership due to a management buyout in 1998, and
during 2003 Mervyn Wood purchased shares and relocated the business to the current Gravelly Park site, where the company is enjoying a period of sustained growth." From: Printing History News. The Newsletter of the National Printing Heritage Trust, Printing Historical Society & Friends of St Bride Library. No. 23. Summer 2009. p. 3