Here’s a rare, original postcard of Lancaster, “the North West trade centre”, issued before 1914 by the City’s Chamber of Commerce. The city is described as offering “sites for works and factories, by road, rail, river and canal.”
Lancaster & District Chamber of Commerce (trading as Lancaster District Chamber of Commerce, Trade & Industry) was established in 1897, but its origins of Lancaster & District Chamber of Commerce are firmly rooted in the City’s mercantile past dating back to the early 18th Century when Lancaster was a busy trading port. Ships’ Captains and merchants met to do business with America and the West Indies – sadly, some of that trade was slavery, alongside tobacco, cotton and timber. Much of the latter destined for the furniture factory which became Waring & Gillow.
In January 1897, the new Chamber of Commerce Committee met for the first time in public and was given the responsibility for setting up Lancaster & District Chamber of Commerce. Cards were circulated to traders to discover the degree of interest in joining Lancaster & District Chamber of Commerce at one guinea subscription. Within a month fifty had signed up as members.
From early on Lancaster & District Chamber of Commerce’s purposes was directed by its members who decided which issues Lancaster & District Chamber of Commerce should concern itself with, still a strong over-riding purpose of this Chamber to this day: representing the views and needs of its members promoting North Lancashire’s businesses to ensure the business community thrives.
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