Leicestershire has won a bidding process to care for the treasure trove of social history collected by Thomas Cook over its 178 year history.
The collection recording the earliest days of package travel right up to the modern day will have a permanent home at the county’s record office in Wigston.
The archive includes 60,000 photos and souvenirs including glass and china, uniforms through the ages and even a model of a Nile steamer.
The holiday firm, founded by Leicester travel pioneer Thomas Cook, which went bust in the summer had amassed an internationally important collection including minute books and staff records, posters, travel guides and timetables.
It had been kept privately at the company’s Peterborough headquarters and many historians feared it would be lost after the firm folded.
However, the records office will now take responsibility for preserving the items which are being transferred there.
The Thomas Cook archive will be the single largest collection there.
It will be thoroughly catalogued by record office staff, before being made available to the public.
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County Hall’s senior archivist Robin Jenkins, said: “This is an internationally significant archive relating to a company which began in Leicester and was operated from there in its formative years.
“We already house an important Thomas Cook collection relating to both the man and his business.
“We see the collection as ‘coming home’ to Leicestershire and we will be delighted to look after it here and promote its use.
“The collection also fits closely with other local businesses which often originated during the 19th century and have an international reputation – such as Wolsey, Symington and Ladybird Books.”
A history of Thomas Cook
Thomas Cook founded his travel company in Leicester and ran his first excursion from there to Loughborough in 1841.
The company grew rapidly and by 1855 was running continental tours, opening a London office in 1865.
Thomas Cook is credited with inventing the package tour and bringing affordable travel to ordinary people.
In 1878, Cook himself retired to Leicester, where he died in 1892.
The company he founded became a household name with global reach. It finally ceased trading in September 2019 and a permanent home was sought for its archive.
The bidding for the Thomas Cook archive was supported by Leicestershire County, Leicester City and Rutland County Councils, Leicester and De Montfort Universities, the East Midlands Oral History Archive and the Media Archive for Central England.
Leicestershire County Council Leader Nick Rushton said: “I am delighted that the record office has been chosen as the permanent home for this important collection.
“The bid was a success because of the strong local links with Thomas Cook, as well as because the record office has an excellent reputation for innovative outreach work and the promotion of its collections.
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“The fact that the Thomas Cook archive will be housed at the Record Office will preserve it for future generations, as well as providing a valuable resource to the people of Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland.”
Leicester City Mayor Peter Soulsby added: “Thomas Cook is one of Leicester’s best-known sons, and his pioneering work, which essentially invented the package holiday, means his name became known worldwide.
“It’s very fitting that this fascinating archive of the company’s history is housed in Leicestershire, so close to where his ground-breaking work in the holiday industry took place.”
Vice President of the Business Archives Council, Alison Turton, said: “‘The deposit of the Thomas Cook archive with the Record Office for Leicestershire, Leicester and Rutland is a landmark achievement.
“It demonstrates the vital importance of archivists and academics working together with insolvency practitioners to ensure the survival and accessibility of business archives of national importance.”