May is Local and Community History Month

May is Local and Community History Month so why not become a local history detective and discover the many online indexes and research guides from Surrey History Centre to help you uncover fascinating local facts and stories. There are guides for everything from family history and house history, to military records, newspapers, maps and much more! The work of our wonderful volunteers means that more indexes are added on a regular basis and you can view the full list of our Archives and History Research Guides online. And don’t forget our Exploring Surrey’s Past website which is crammed with information. There’s never been a better time to explore local and community history!

Discover Dennis

Dennis Brothers Ltd is known as one of Surrey’s most famous firms and what started out as a little cycle shop in Guildford High Street in 1895 soon grew into the world-famous specialist vehicle manufacturer. Buses, fire engines and other vehicles were exported as far as Singapore, Athens, Brisbane, Barbados and Cairo! During their history you could have been brought home from hospital by a Dennis ambulance as a baby; cycled to school on one of their bikes; gone to work on a Dennis bus or in a Dennis car, where you may have driven one of their lorries, fire engines or municipal vehicles; if you went on holiday, then it might be in a Dennis Charabanc, or your aeroplane might have been towed to the runway by a Dennis Mercury tractor; if you had a garden, you may have cut your lawn with a Dennis lawn mower and finally, when you died you might have been carried to your last resting place in one of their hearses!

Dennis closed its Guildford factory during 2021 ending its long history of vehicle manufacture in the town. Their records form one of the largest collections we hold here at Surrey History Centre, and each year we receive dozens of enquiries from around the globe, especially from people renovating a prized vehicle. The collections here include around 12,000 engineering drawings, 14,000 photographs, cine films, and a fairly comprehensive set of company records, including royal warrants, patents and trademarks, as well as personnel records, sales records, customer order books, vehicle production registers, chassis books, vehicle handbooks and brochures. Former Managing Director of the company, John Smith and the late Bob Bryson spent months volunteering with us to identify some of the material, and our resident expert, Laurence Spring, has spent over 30 years working with the collection and helping researchers from around the world.

Our Dennis Specialist Vehicles online guide is a great place to start discovering more about the company and its records. Here you will find incredibly useful indexes to the Dennis drawings arranged in alphabetical order by product type and photographs arranged in alphabetical order by customer name. You’ll also find a Dennis section on the Surrey Heritage online shop with a range of Dennis postcards, pamphlets and some vehicle handbooks for sale.

The Dennis Collection at the Rural Life Living Museum

Dennis researchers and enthusiasts can also benefit from a trip to the Rural Life Living Museum (RLLM) at Tilford, which is now home to a heritage collection of Dennis Brothers vehicles and material. Andy Goundry, former Dennis employee, author and trustee of the RLLM, reveals more: “Our Dennis collection began when the Guildford factory closed, and their small heritage fleet of four vehicles was passed to the Museum on long-term loan. Since then, our Dennis fleet has increased with an additional two vehicles on long-term loan from private owners, and another vehicle is in the process of being rescued for restoration. We have a small team, including current and retired Dennis employees looking after the vehicles, with the objective of returning them all to operational condition and accessible to our visitors”.

No stranger to using Surrey History Centre’s Dennis archive collections, Andy continues: “As well as the vehicles, the company passed the remaining historic material into our hands for safekeeping. As news of our collection has spread, we have been donated other Dennis material, including the entire collection of the Dennis Society. This collected material includes drawings, brochures, press material, manuals, photographs and a range of artefacts - in all some 2,500 physical items as well as around 3,000 digital files! All material has now been positively identified, thanks to the efforts and knowledge of the Dennis team, supported by John Dennis, the grandson of one of the two brothers who founded the company 130 years ago. We hope to soon be loading the records to the Museum EHive account for public viewing”. For details of the Dennis Collection at RLLM see their website.

Images:

• Dennis Fire engine delivered to West Ham Corporation, November 1930 (Surrey History Centre reference 1463/PHTALB/1/6/P3432)
• Dennis Collection at the Rural Life Living Museum (courtesy of Andy Goundry)