Huntley & Palmers’ Reading factory was finally closed down in 1972. In the late 1960s, re-organisation took place, and from 1969, the three units disappeared as independent trading entities and were replaced by the division known as Associated Biscuits Ltd. In 1921, the company combined with the firm of Peek Frean, each becoming subsidiary units of the Associated Biscuit Manufacturers Ltd. In 1898, after George Palmer’s death, the private company Huntley & Palmers Ltd was established. Huntley and Palmers cakes and biscuits were a household name, and the distinctive tins, made by the firm Huntley, Boorne and Stevens (founded by another member of the Huntley family) were recognised worldwide.
Other members of the Palmer family became partners, and by the end of the nineteenth century, the firm, now called Huntley & Palmers, was the largest biscuit business in the world, employed more than 5,000 workers, and was among the forty most important industrial companies in Britain. In 1857, George Palmer and his brothers, William, Isaac and Samuel, bought out the Huntley interest but retained the company name. Palmer had begun to transform the business, developing the first continuously running machine for making fancy biscuits and setting up a properly organised factory. In 1846, the firm opened a large factory on Kings Road in Reading. On the retirement of his father in 1838, Thomas Huntley operated alone and under his own name, and then in 1841, went into partnership with fellow Quaker George Palmer, later MP for Reading, as Huntley & Palmer.
After 1829, his son Thomas became a partner, and the firm was known as Joseph Huntley & Son. Joseph Huntley, a Quaker schoolmaster from Oxfordshire, established his business on London Road. Huntley & Palmers started life in 1822 as a small bakery in Reading.
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