Zoology Jottings: Flatters and Garnett Ltd. Microscopy and Biological Suppliers 1901-1967

I was surprised when I was looking up what had happened to Flatters & Garnett, the Manchester biological supplies firm that equipped school and elementary laboratories, as well as amateur microscopists, entomologists and botanists, in the first seven decades of the 20th century. I thought they must have been taken over as laboratory supply companies consolidated by mergers and takeovers. I was wrong. Flatters & Garnett went into liquidation in 1967 after what the Science Museum website described as ‘financial problems’.

Abraham Flatters (see my previous article here) was joined by Charles Garnett to form their partnership in 1901. The Garnett family after ‘a serious rift’ bought out Flatters in 1909 so Flatters & Garnett while retaining the name continued without Flatters.

Unfortunately, the Science Museum’s website does not state the sources of its information on Flatters & Garnett. Therefore I will try to flesh out some of the information provided.

Charles Garnett was born on 30 May 1842 at Latchford near Warrington, Cheshire, the son of a blacksmith. According to the Science Museum he became apprenticed to a grocer ‘but, at the age of 21, emigrated to New Zealand. There, he became interested in natural history and made a collection of the ferns found on South Island. In 1873, he returned to Manchester and opened a restaurant in Cateaton Street’. However, in the 1881 Census he is shown as a confectioner employing 3 girls and 1 boy. The same occupation is shown in 1891. Only in 1901 is he shown as ‘confectioner and restaurant keeper’. He had married in January 1876 in Manchester; his wife was born in Adelaide, South Australia. By 1911 he is just ‘confectioner’; there is no mention of his involvement with Flatters & Garnett. Also present were his wife, a son (a jeweller), his brother (retired blacksmith) and two servants. Charles Garnett died on 12 January 1921. He left £12,042 His executor was his son, John Benbow Garnett who was closely involved in Flatters & Garnett from the start.

John Benbow Garnett was born on 4 February 1877. He was educated at Ackworth, a Quaker school. In the 1901 Census he was living at home with his occupation shown as ‘pharmaceutical chemist’. He then joined Flatters in Flatters & Garnett and my guess is that his father provided the money while John worked with Flatters in the business. In the 1911 Census, John described himself as a ‘preparer of natural history objects and lantern slides’ work that was also being done by Flatters. Was it a clash between John and Abraham Flatters that led to the latter’s departure.

Advertisements from Flatters & Garnett in its first ten years show an emphasis first on the pharmacy and photographic activities. An advertisement ran in the Manchester City News (this one is from 1902) soon after Flatters & Garnett was founded:

Flatters & Garnett Ltd. Dispensing & Photographic Chemists, make a speciality of dispensing physicians’ prescriptions. “Neroline,” an emollient cream for chapped hands, 1s. and 1s.9Id. per bottle.-.48, Deansgate (one door from Blackfriars-st.).

By 1910, advertisements were appearing which emphasised a particular aspect of the business but by this time the pharmacy was not being mentioned.

Flatters & Garnett Ltd. Specialists in Photographic Work. 32 Dover Street (close to the University) Manchester S.E. Send for revised Price List, just issued. Developing Printing Enlarging. N.B.-No connection with any other firm.

This was in Manchester City News of 28 May 1910. The no connection with any other firm was of course to Abraham Flatters’s breakaway company that was subject to successful legal action by Flatters & Garnett in the same year.

The wording on 31 December 1910 was:

Lantern Slides. Large stock for sale or hire, or made to order from negatives, prints, drawings &c by experts.

For microscopy, this one appeared on 22 October 1910:

Microscopes, slides and accessories, for textile and other fibre examination, for serious work or recreation

By the time of the 1921 Census, John Benbow Garnett described himself as a pharmacist and Managing Director of Flatters & Garnett Ltd, scientific instrument makers. He led the expansion of the company and its establishment as a leading player in biological supplies.

This is from the Science Museum’s website:

Flatters and Garnett Ltd moved in 1913 to larger premises at 309 Oxford Road, opposite the University. About a year later, the company developed Mersol, an immersion oil for use with high power microscope objectives which became very popular and sold well for many years.
Flatters & Garnett Ltd expanded its business steadily during the 1920s. The company increased the range of instruments it produced, including dissecting microscopes and the Precision microprojector. The company won a reputation for producing well-designed, reliable instruments and sold its products all over the world. In 1932, the firm acquired a large Victorian house on Wynnstay Grove in Fallowfield where it moved the microslide, specimen, photographic and chemical departments. Here the staff could have more space and less disturbance from noise and dirt than on Oxford Road. In 1950, the company introduced the Mikrops industrial projector. This replaced the microscope for routine examination in many laboratories.

On 1 January 1938, Nature contained the following report:

A serious fire occurred on Sunday morning, December 19, at the laboratories of Messrs. Flatters and Garnett, Ltd., the well-known Manchester firm of microscopists. The chemical and microscopical laboratories were completely burnt out, but a considerable number of mounted slides were saved. The photographic and lantern slide department was only slightly involved and the new instrument workshop, for manufacturing microscopes, micro-projectors, etc., escaped entirely. All the staff is being retained, and work has already been resumed in temporary laboratories. Stocks of most of the firm's chemical specialities are held at the head office, 309 Oxford Road, Manchester, 13, which is two miles from the laboratories.

Microscope Slide Label

The company continued to exhibit at the Manchester Microscopical Society. In 1949, for example, they demonstrated the ‘latest advances in microscopy’ at the annual public exhibition.

It seems likely that at some time John Benbow Garnett handed over the reins to his son, Wilfred John. On a sea trip to Australia in 1958-59 John Benbow is described as ‘microscopist’ which gives no real indication of whether he had retired or not.

John Benbow Garnett died on 10 January 1973, leaving £26,600. He had been living near Coleraine in Northern Ireland.

Wilfred John Garnett was born on 16 July 1914. In the 1939 Register, the emergency census, he was living at home and described as ‘Degree Biologist, Director of Laboratory’. It was Wilfred John who signed on 22 June the formal notice to wind up the company and to appoint liquidators:

…on Wednesday, the 14th day of June 1967, the following Extraordinary Resolution was duly passed: "That it has been proved to the satisfaction of this Meeting that the Company cannot by reason of its liabilities, continue its business, and that it is advisable to wind up the same and that the Company be wound up voluntarily…”

I wonder what had gone wrong.

But that was not quite the end of the products. ‘A 1970 report of the Scottish Education Department on the school biology curriculum, stated: The transparencies of Marine Life taken by Dr. D.P. Wilson which were obtainable from Flatters and Garnett can now be purchased through W.J. Garnett, Breezemount, Ringrash, Macosquin, Coleraine, N.Ireland’. The address given was that occupied by Wilfred’s father at the time of his death.

Wilfred John Garnett died on 13 June 1988 in Bristol.

Flatters & Garnett Ltd produced a large number of catalogues throughout its existence. A number covered specific products, like stains or prepared microscope slides. The extent of their lantern slides stocks can be found in the catalogue which can be seen online here. The Second World War obviously left the company in some difficulty. Well into the 1950s the main catalogues had not been reprinted and an Interim Price List was published in 1951 and reprinted in 1954. Even then prices were not given; an accompanying leaflet did that.

As well selling as their own products, F&G were agents for Baker, Beck, Prior, Swift and Watson microscopes, for example.

The Science Museum in London contains a number of items made by Flatters & Garnett; see here.

Does any of the equipment and specimens supplied by Flatters & Garnett still survive in British schools? Microscope slides should have but I doubt they have. Do amateur entomologists still have F&G items still in use? Items do find their way onto eBay and into auction houses where the descriptions can provide great amusement. For example, a dissection kit is described as a ‘field surgical kit’ or a vasculum for botanists as a ‘metal satchel’. Amongst a number of cut-throat razors is one purportedly by Flatters & Garnett. I itch to tell the vendor that the F&G version was indeed a cut throat razor but only one side of the blade was hollow-ground (i.e. concave). Try shaving with a razor designed to cut sections of plant stems and the like by hand.

Flatters & Garnett Projection Microscope
From Micscape Magazine June 2002
see Microscopy-UK website
I have seen one of these lying around but
I cannot remember where