Bennett's of Ballinacurra Descriptive List (Ref. B609)

B609/

management of the company for much of the period up to 1951, when the Board and Management Committee were first created, is documented in correspondence, mainly B609/1/A & B. Management records are followed by records of employees, section B609/5 covering farm employees as well as workers for the firm. Records include workers’ agreements, records of service, union correspondence, wages and salaries information, and other items such as an account book of the Ballinacurra Workmen’s Club, 1912-26 (B609/5/E/2). Wages books cover most of the years from 1868 to 2000. Some of the firm’s longest serving employees are recorded as receiving assistance from Mr Bennett’s Workmen’s Trust Fund (B609/5/E/1). Section B609/6 covers the management of the physical property and premises of the firm, owned by the Bennett family, and of the farm. As noted, farm records occur elsewhere in the collection (for instance, farm accounts occur in financial ledgers). B609/6/D consists of records relating solely to the farm. These include correspondence with the Department of Agriculture regarding livestock and non-cereal crops, although there is some overlap between these letters and those in B609/7/A. This section also includes inventory, valuation, and insurance records (B609/6/A), architectural drawings of premises and fittings (B609/6/B), and some legal correspondence regarding property matters (B609/6/C). Records relating to the Cereal Station, as noted, occur throughout the collection, and B609/7 is given over only to records specifically relating to the Station and its work. A distinction is made between letters from the firm to the Department of Agriculture, and letters received from the Department, which were filed in a ‘Letters Received’ series containing letters from other sources (B609/7/A & B). Records of a more purely scientific nature also seem to have been filed separately, and are given their own sub- section here (B609/7/D). Administrative records are placed in sub-section B609/7/C. B609/8 consists of photographs and images of company premises, officers, and staff. This section contains all photographs not specifically identifiable as personal records. They include many images of Ballinacurra and the firm’s malt houses, portraits of John H Bennett and pictures of Dorothy West, and group photographs of management and employees, and of malt house men. The final section, B609/9, is comprised of personal records, although, as has been stressed throughout, simple distinctions between personal and business realms may not always be made. The diaries of John H Bennett and Dorothy West contain much additional and supplemental information on the business, as well as recording their familial, social, sporting, and cultural activities. The records of John H Bennett’s children and of Bennett antecedents provide family context and colour (B609/9/C), while the few distinct records present of Esther Bennett, second wife of John H Bennett and mother of Dorothy McNeill, serve to underline her important role in the business, and her friendly relations with leading Guinness officers (B609/9/D). This richly-documented personal