Cavaghan and Gray
Cavaghan & Gray is a food manufacturing business based in Carlisle, England, which is now owned by Northern Foods. Up until 2004, when the London Road factory closed, it was the largest employer in Carlisle. The firm still has sites at Eastern Way and Durranhill Riverside. At one time the company traded under the brand name of Cavray and the firm is known to locals as Cavvies
The company was founded by Thomas Ray Cavaghan, Jonathan Gray and William Charles Greenhill Collin, under the name of Cavaghan, Collin and Gray. The business started out as a butchery, with a modest staff of 8 and small profits.
1915 Partnership dissolved. '...the PARTNERSHIP heretofore subsisting between TOM RAY CAVAGHAN; WILLIAM CHARLES GREENHILL COLLIN, and JONATHAN GRAY, carrying on business at Harraby, near the City of Carlisle, as Bacon Curers and Cheese Factors, has been dissolved by mutual consent as from the 8th day of March 1914, and that the Business will in future be carried on by the said Tom Ray Cavaghan and Jonathan Gray under the style of "CAVAGHAN & GRAY", who now undertake all responsibilities which may still attach to the now dissolved Firm...'[1]
1916 Cavaghan and Gray, bacon curers. Carlisle.[2]
1918 Messrs. Cavaghan and Gray's ham and bacon curing factory at Harraby, Carlisle.[3]
1919 'CAVAGHAN AND GRAY, LTD. Private company. Registered September 29. Capital, £60,000, in £1 shares. To take over the business carried on by T. R. Cavaghan and J. Gray, at Carlisle, as Cavaghan and Gray, to carry on the business of ham and bacon curers and pork butchers, general provision merchants, cold storage proprietors, ice merchants, etc. T. R. Cavaghan and J. Gray are permanent governing directors. Qualification, £250. Secretary: J. McArthur. Registered office: Harraby Grange, Harraby, Carlisle.'[4]
By the mid-1920s Mr. Gray and Mr. Collins had left and the company traded under the name of Cavaghan and Gray. By this time Thomas Cavaghan Jr. had also entered the company.
The company later incurred difficulties through the depression of the 1930s, resulting in the sale of land and property.
1937 Thomas Ray Cavaghan died and the running of the company was left to his three sons, George, Henry and Thomas Jr.
WW2 The company prospered during the Second World War, with a number of new farms and sites being purchased and improvements made to the factories.
1957 There was once again a reshuffle after the death of Thomas Cavaghan Jr. George had also died during the war and so Henry Cavaghan took up the position of chairman with Alec Crawford, Brian Seery and Margaret Cavaghan on the board of directors.
By the 1960s and 1970s the company was producing food for Marks & Spencer and Heinz, enabling the company to build itself into the prospering business that it is today.
1995 Acquired Dalepak Foods
1998 The company by then called Cavaghan & Gray Group plc was sold to Northern Foods for around £79 million.