This page is compiled by the Library Service to provide complete coverage of historical sources. It is not intened to replace the more detailed information available from the Devon Record Office

Records of individual businesses only survive rarely and those deposited in record offices must serve as examples of a much wider mass of documentation. Some records survive in estate papers, for example the Iddesleigh papers contain records of the Manganese mine at Upton Pyne (51/24/129). The Devon Record Office has a number of farm account books and solicitors' collections sometimes have material of relevance. Other individual collections include that of Ellis, the Exeter watchmaker and shipping records in the Holman bequest. The Devon Record Office has a special listing of business records

Insurance records contain details of many thousands of individual businesses but normally the policy number must be known to locate the relevant entry in the register. Extensive collections of insurance registers are held at Guildhall Library, London and an index on microfiche to Sun and Royal Exchange policies between 1775 and 1787 is available in the

Westcountry Studies Library. DRO has the registers of the West of England Insurance Company.

Trade guilds are also an important source of information for budiness and economic history, but the guild system was not widely developed in Devon and few records have survived. The most significant records are for the Worshipful Company of Weavers, Fullers and Shearmen of Exeter and the Devon Record Office has produced a calendar of its documents (ref: 58/7). These were used by Joyce Youings for her work Tuckers' Hall, Exeter: the history of a provincial city company through five centuries (1968).