Oldest name tape firm falls into administration

Around 50 jobs are thought to have been lost after Cash’s, based in Coventry, shut its doors.

The company is believed to have been suffering cash-flow problems for a number of years.

Cash’s was set up by two Quaker brothers, John and Joseph Cash, in 1846 and is nowadays best-known for manufacturing name labels, name tags, clothing labels, personalised luggage straps, travel socks, and badges for retailers.

In January 1964 the company was appointed “Manufacturers of Woven Name Tapes to Her Majesty the Queen”.

Cash’s began after the two Cash brothers outgrew their positions as silk merchants and became factory masters.

They were among the first in Coventry, pioneers of a more enlightened approach to employment.

Soon, they planned to build a “halfway house” which would allow their workers the independence of the old outworker methods while they controlled output themselves. In 1857, work began on a site at Kingfield Road, which Cash’s was to occupy for the next 138 years.

It was in the 1870s that the first Cash’s woven nametape rattled off the jacquard looms.

Since then, successive generations of schoolchildren have come to rely on this method of identification for their uniforms.

A statement from the company said: “William James Wright and Mark Jeremy Orton were appointed joint administrators of Cash’s (UK) Limited on January 29 2014.

“The affairs, business and property of the company are being managed by the joint administrators, who contract without personal liability.

“William James Wright is authorised to act as an insolvency practitioner by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. Mark Jeremy Orton is authorised to act as an insolvency practitioner by the Insolvency Practitioners Association.”