One of the oldest manufactories in Reading is that of Cocks' Reading Sauce, which boasts of being, with one exception, the oldest factory, of sauce. Charles Cocks, the late popular owner, has been dead some years; but the business is carried on by his son-in-law. Passers-by are continually reminded of the wholesome decoction on brewing days; and the pickling of onions and walnuts is no small part of the business. Second only to Huntly and Palmer's is the firm of Messrs. Sutton and Sons, the Royal Berkshire Seed Establishment, grown up during the memory of many of the inhabitants of Reading. The number of prizes they have carried off testifies as to their success. Their Market-place frontage and entrance to the offices and store-rooms is one of the chief ornaments to the town. In their flower garden great attention is paid to hybridisation, and new forms of begonia, primula, gloxinia, cineraria, and calceolaria are continually raised. Special attention is also paid by them to the blending of grass seeds for permanent pasture land. Owing to the low price of corn during the past inclement seasons, Messrs. Sutton and Sons' energies have been strained to supply seed for this purpose. They have issued several thousand invitations to their customers to attend the Royal Agricultural Show which will be opened at Reading this day. Several hotels have been wholly engaged by Messrs. Sutton and Sons for the purpose of providing hospitality for their guests. The Reading Ironworks, too, which formerly traded as Barret, Exall, and Andrews, are busy making new engines of all descriptions for the show; and Messrs. J. and J. Mackie, the patentees of a spring pulley or strap wheel, will doubtless be represented. This pulley opens in the middle, and thus obviates the necessity of taking off a number of wheels to replace a broken one in the centre, and this fact, together with improvements in the wheel itself, has secured its almost universal adoption in factories and works where time lost often means a stoppage of the whole machinery. Another large firm in the town is that of Messrs. Huntly, Boorne, and Stevens, the factory where the tin boxes are manufactured for the packing of Messrs. Huntly and Palmer's biscuits, and this factory has of late largely increased its operations. It is here that Messrs. Bryant and May's match-boxes are manufactured, and several machines have been patented by this firm for the manufacture of tin wares. One of these machines bids fair to rival the spinning jenny of the cotton factories, for it is fed with a piece of wire at one end and turns out a perfect match-box at the other end. Strangers are not allowed to see these works or to inspect the machinery.
Source: The Illustrated London News, July 8, 1882, p.45