Bedfordshire Archives Service Catalogue
  • Reference
    X604/32-36
  • Title
    COPO - Cox's Orange Pippin Orchards
  • Date free text
    1932-1948
  • Production date
    From: 1932 To: 1948
  • Admin/biog history
    COPO was begun in 1932 by J A Whitehead, who had purchased the Cockayne Hatley estate in 1929. When the Memorandum and Articles of Association were drawn up they were in his wife's name. The orchards were established by a pyramid selling scheme where members bought apple trees to be tended by the COPO company on land held in trust at Cockayne Hatley and Buntingford. The members were then supposed to persuade other people to become apple tree owners. All members were to get interest on their investment and a share of profits from the sale of the apples. At first all went well but in the early 1940s the orchards made losses which Whitehead passed on to the apple tree owners. By 1942 the tree owners were rather unhappy, the 1940-41 accounts had not been produced and Whitehead frequently requested more money to enable him to plant other crops for food for the war effort. The Duke of Montrose and others started the Tree Owners Association and in 1944/5 a test case action was brought by Mr and Mrs Brown against Copo Limited. In 1945 permission was sought to sell the land that the trees grew on and although the Tree Owners Association were against this a court ruled that the land should be sold and in 1946 the land and the trees were sold to the Cooperative Wholesalers Society. The history of J A Whitehead and the COPO orchards is told in a pamphlet 'Apple Years At Cockayne Hatley' by Antony Crossley, 2nd ed. 1999
  • Archival history
    The documents held here came from a solicitors but it is unclear who the client was. From the annotations it seems likely that the client was either the Tree Owners Association or one of their members rather than Whitehead or someone at COPO.
  • System of arrangement
    Originally catalogued by bundle. In 2007 it was decided to catalogue them fully and they were slightly rearranged as the original bundles were extremely jumbled for example the cover of a booklet in one bundle and its contents in another. Within series items are roughly in date order.
  • Level of description
    sub-fonds
  • Apple Years at Cockayne Hatley
    Notes :  
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