Cataloguing and preservation of the Boots archive

This collection is around 5,000 boxes of material charting the history of the UK’s largest retail pharmacy. Most of it relates to Boots and dates back to the company’s beginnings in the mid-19th century. It covers the company’s move into large-scale manufacturing, product development, research and healthcare, and beauty retailing. The collection includes business papers and formulas for all Boots’ products. Other significant holdings in the collection include Dolland and Aitchison (1750s onwards), Optrex Ltd (1930s-1990s), Timothy Whites and Taylors Ltd (1880s-1980s) and E Moss Ltd (1915-1990s). There are also around 1,000 boxes of mainly modern material that has yet to be examined. This five-year grant is to catalogue and preserve the entire collection.