Publications > Scream City > Scream City Issue #3 > Unknown Pleasures: What's in the Factory Archive at MoSI? by Jan Hargreaves

Unknown Pleasures: What's in the Factory Archive at MoSI?
by Jan Hargreaves, Senior Archivist, Museum of Science & Industry, Manchester
They made some pretty important records, but who would have thought that the 20th century's least organised organisation produced another type of record?
As a somewhat unique business, Factory Communications Limited did not keep many records in the traditional archival sense, but it kept enough for there to be around 30 linear metres of original company documents. Because of the nature of the company and how the records were kept, some series of business records transferred to the Museum in 1998 are seriously depleted if not missing altogether. This is due in part to the personal ownership of business records by individuals within the Company and a lack of central organisation for the running of the company. The Factory Archive held at the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester consists of records relating to Rob Gretton's involvement as a Director of the company. We can only assume that the absent records that give the rest of the company's history remain with Tony Wilson, Alan Erasmus, Peter Saville and the estate of Martin Hannett.
When Factory ceased to exist, Gainwest Limited took over responsibility for the running of the Haçienda and Dry. Gainwest was the company owned by Rob Gretton and New Order. It was through this company that Rob Gretton contacted the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester in 1998, when he was clearing out Gainwest's Knott Mill office near Deansgate. Part of the collection therefore relates to Rob's continued involvement with both the club and the bar after Factory's demise.
The material that the archive staff were invited to go and sort through at the Gainwest offices included files, posters, videos and piles of art work. This material forms the basis of the collection that Rob transferred over to the Museum in August 1998.
The Factory Archive at MoSI is, as Andrew James points out in his article, just one part of the story. It tells the tale of Rob's involvement in Factory Communications Limited, through minutes of meetings, financial documents and correspondence. More importantly, it helps to tell Rob's story as the brains behind the Haçienda and Dry, and the story of the development of both these iconic meeting places in Manchester's more recent cultural history.
As Andrew James discovered on his visit to the Museum last autumn, the archive includes copies of Ben Kelly's architectural plans for both the club and the bar, along with design proofs for cocktail menus for both Dry and the Gay Traitor, samples of wine bottle labels, designs for Dry sugar sachets, guest lists for the Haç and details of which records were played at various club nights. Other revelations come from the pages and pages of door takings for Haçienda nights like Nude, Temperance, Void and Wide. One Mr Sumner was a frequent borrower from the petty cash, judging by the scrawls of "Barney took £100 tonight" that regularly occur. The same sheets list the bands that played at Monday Club through the late 80s.
As a man renowned for his golden ears, Rob's other main input to the company was as an A&R man and band manager.
The archive includes around a hundred artwork boards for record sleeves and posters. The majority of these have now been listed and are available for researchers to look at in the Study Area at the Museum. As well as the artwork, there are examples of posters for Haçienda nights, album releases and gigs, and a collection of videos. The videos come in a number of formats, including 1" video and audio masters. Those which can be watched in the Study Area on VHS include promos for singles, live appearances and tv appearances by Joy Division, Happy Mondays, Kalima, Cath Carroll and Revenge, among others. The remaining material will need to be converted to digital format to make it accessible to researchers onsite. Digitisation is a costly process and involves more than just making a digital copy. Checking the copyright status of each item and obtaining clearances to make research copies, along with pulling together the funding necessary to complete the job, all takes time.
Cataloguing of the archive is a slow process. To date we have identified the following series that reflect the organisation of the business and into which the documents are arranged:
SERIES ONE Factory Communications Ltd
This series contains material relating to the running of the company, including management meetings and financial records, as well as promotional material, record sleeve artwork and master tapes.
SERIES TWO Fac 51 The Haçienda
Fac 51 was the company set up to manage and run the Haçienda, and this series includes the original plans, development plans and financial records of the sub- company, plus artwork, posters,merchandising and promotional materials.
SERIES THREE Fac 201 Dry
As with the Haçienda, a separate company was established to run Dry and the documentation includes plans, building records, financial records and merchandising.
SERIES FOUR Ikon
Ikon was the film-making wing of Factory, established in June 1981. Originally responsible for compilations and live videos of Factory artists, it later broadened its rosta to include non-Factory acts. Ikon separated from Factory 1989. Limited material relating to the company is included in the archive.
SERIES FIVE Factory Classical
The Factory Classical label was launched in October 1989 and was run by John Metcalfe. The idea came from John approaching Bruce Mitchell and coincided with a similar idea from Alan Erasmus. The aim of the label was to develop a handful of musicians and give them a say in their repertoire, the design process and the recording process. Limited material relating to the company is in the archive.
Although there are some catalogues available (so far the posters, videos and artwork have been item listed but not fully catalogued), researchers are welcome to visit the Museum to look through the archive. The
The Study Area is open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays by appointment only. Telephone 0161 606 0127 or email the Museum at collections@scienceandindustrymuseum.org.uk to make an appointment.
[2019 note: the above information has been updated for the digital archive but see also Science and Industry Museum website for more information.]
The Museum is keen to build on this important collection and has been working with the Manchester District Music Archive to help make sure that Manchester's music history is documented properly. It would be an achievement to bring together more strands of the Factory story, including archives from the people who worked there, from artists on the label, from the other Directors, and from the rest of Rob's own collection, which is currently on loan to MDMArchive from Lesley Gilbert.
Already, in response to the item we had on the Cerysmatic website in October 2006, we have had offers of Haçienda newsletters and Happy Mondays fanzines.
Although personal collections are useful in telling the wider story, our aim is to reunite as much of the original company records as we can and hopefully to work with MDMArchive to bring back together Rob's own archive in its entirety. The material that they are administering on Lesley's behalf includes Rob's Fac73 anvil (created to commemorate 500,000 sales of Blue Monday), Joy Division and New Order master tapes, financial and tour records relating to both bands and a 3D model of Dry Bar created by Ben Kelly.
On a related note, the Museum's recent work in collecting oral histories from people who have lived, worked and partied in East Manchester has brought in objects and archives from Sankeys Soap, including a sound can used at Sankeys that originally came from the Haçienda.
In May, we will be opening a small display of archives and objects relating to the Haçienda in the Collections Centre at the Museum, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the Club. More details will be made available nearer the time.
(P.S., in response to the comment made by Andrew James in his A Field Trip to the Factory Archives by Andrew James article, use of cotton or latex gloves is not standard practice in archives. Our staff assess the nature of the material being handled and issue gloves as necessary, according to the medium of the document being consulted. Cotton gloves can cause damage, especially through loss of dexterity and through the transfer of contaminants picked up on the fibres.)
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Jan Hicks is now the Archives Manager at the Science and Industry Museum in Manchester. The archive is fully catalogued now and there's a online top-level record available. Researchers can request a copy of the catalogue spreadsheet, or can ask staff to check the full catalogue on their behalf.
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