LCN interview

Neville Wells

3 December 2010



Neville Wells, a founder member of the Worshipful Company of Launderers, talks to Janet Taylor


The Wells family’s place in the history of the laundry industry has two sides.

First, Major Stanley Wells owned two laundries and then, just as importantly, both father and son have been influential in the formation and progress of the Worshipful Company of Launderers from the time of its inaugural meeting.

Neville Wells recalls that his father was essentially a businessman who was highly active in the City of London and the two laundries were part of his business concerns.

Major Wells had acquired the Westerham Laundry in 1920 and then in 1927 he bought the old laundry on the Wildernesse estate in North Kent with the aim of turning it into a modern high-class service for the wealthy residents around the Sevenoaks area.

To do this the laundry needed more spacious premises and so it was moved to the estate’s coach house and clock tower. The Seal Laundry started and soon became very successful.

Neville Wells joined the family business in 1947. Initially the two laundries ran in tandem and he worked between the two. He recalls the spirit of the business.

Laundry work was not particularly well paid but the staff were dedicated. During the harsh winter of 1947 the snows made transport difficult but many staff walked three or four miles to get to work.

Some years later he took charge of the business and faced the prospect of making substantial changes to the business.

The original equipment was now around twenty years old and in addition the nature of the work was changing.

Domestic laundry, which had accounted for the main proportion of the business, was in decline as a result of various factors including the introduction of selective employment tax and the introduction of the domestic washer and of easy-care fabrics.

By now the Westerham laundry had been sold so Wells was faced with rebuilding one laundry so that it could absorb another and extending the type of work to allow the laundry to continue to flourish.

He replaced all the old machinery and this alone required extensive research but he was successful in both parts of the task to such an extent that he was able to sell the laundry to the Sellick family (Diploma Investments) in 1972.

Neville Wells’ connection with the Worshipful Company of Launderers has been significant and again owes much to his father.

“The City was my father’s life. He was a Liveryman of the Tallow Chandlers Company, which had held a Royal Charter since the 1462.” Wells explains that his father was well known both as a City man and in the laundry industry. When Ancliffe Prince, the editor of Power Laundry and Cleaning News, and Dorrell Rollit, general secretary of the Institute of British Launderers, had the idea of forming a City Company they turned to Major Wells for advice.

An inaugural dinner was held on 23 February 1960. Neville Wells and Arthur Kennedy became founder members and Major Stanley Wells was the first Master, holding this honour from 1960 – 1962.

Both Neville Wells and his father played a valuable role. As Liverymen of the Tallow Chandlers Company they were knowledgeable about the etiquette that forming a City Company involves.

Neville Wells had become a Freeman of The Tallow Chandlers Company in 1946 aged 21. Younger men were encouraged to apply after the depletions of the War.”You can become a Liveryman in five different ways,” he says and unusually his candidacy was suitable on two counts: first by patrimony as his father had been a Liveryman at the time of Neville’s birth and also, as he had been apprenticed to his father, by servitude.

Looking back on the foundation of the Launderers Company, Neville Wells says that starting a new Company was an uphill struggle. The Court of Aldermen was reticent about admitting new Companies because they had to guarantee each entrant and needed to be sure that it would last.

It was during Neville Wells’ year as Master that the petition to become a Company without Livery was made and granted. This meant that the Launderers Company was a Guild and members were allowed to attend the Annual United Guild service at St Paul’s Cathedral.

“We convinced them [the Court of Aldermen]” because of the way we had conducted ourselves and because we had built up a benevolent fund.

Since its foundation the Launderers Company has been active in the City. It regularly took part in the Lady Mayoress’s Red Cross market in Guildhall, held every two years.

A further significant stage for the Launderers Company came when it acquired its own City home. During Bill Marle’s year as Master negotiations for a share in Glaziers Hall were successfully completed in 1981 and the Launderers Hall was officially laundche at a luncheon attended by Princess Anne. In November 2010 the Company was presented with the Royal Charter in the presence of the Queen’s Sheriffs. Wells says that was due to the efforts of the current court, clerk Jacqueline Polek, assistant clerk, Past Master Terry Winter and Martin Lewis, the current Master.

Neville Wells remains active in the Worshipful Company and has several personal achievements having been a founder member, a Master and now Senior Past Master.

At the 50th anniversary banquet, Senior Past Master Neville Wells and Past Master Arthur Kennedy, both founder members, were presented with commemorative scrolls.




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