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Michelin Index, 1936 - 1961

Michelin UK staff magazine, formerly known as 'Bibendum'

Background

In 2014 Michelin UK, the famous tyre manufacturer, placed its archive of photographs, guides and records, previously held at its Stoke headquarters and factory in the care of Stoke-on-Trent City Archives. The social impact of the company on the City had been great and many people have family or friends who have some connection to the factory or its well-known sports and social club - the Michelin Athletics Club. The Archive service and Michelin are benefitting immensely from the help of a dedicated group of volunteers, all former employees, who have created this index and are helping us to create the Michelin Archive website.

Since 1936 the company has published a UK Group staff magazine which contains many thousands of names, stories and events relating to the local plant, its other group sites and the social life it generated. It is our intention to provide name indexes to all kinds of records in the archive: this first instalment covers the staff magazine for the years 1936 - 1961. It was originally called Bibendum Magazine after the name of the famous 'Michelin Man' figure that has been iconic for the global brand since 1898. The magazine has had a few title refreshes over the years but has always maintained a clear link to the unique tyre man created by the founder Michelin Brothers to advertise their innovative pneumatic tyres.

This index

This index currently contains c.14,800 entries.

The index contains the following fields:-

  • Surname
  • Forename or initials
  • Title The company's French management and connections make M. Monsieur, Mme, Madame, Mlle, and Mademoiselle frequent occurences.
  • Job Title or Department - For employees of the company this is often given. The factory designated the different buildings and section with short letter codes which may also be shown if indicated. Not all of these can be defined currently but they have been retained as they offer help in deciding whether people of the same name appearing in different editions are more or less likely to be the same person. We are working to identify all of these sections and the results will be placed on the Michelin Archive website in due course.
  • Record Type At the moment all the names in this index come from Bibendum Magazine. However this will vary over time as our work progresses.
  • Context This has been included to give some indication of where in the magazine and how informative that entry is:-
    • Appointment, Apprentice, Death, Family Event, Long Service, Marriage, Obituary, Retirement and Sickness are all self explanatory.
    • M.A.C. (Michelin Athletic Club) entries will often be just the results of a sport contest/event, but sometimes sport reports or play reviews will give more information. When its is known the sport or activity the person was engaged in is given.
    • Parent usually indicates that an employee has had a child (child not listed).
    • Representative indicates that the person was sent to represent the company or a section at some external event - whether funeral or trade fair.
    • Artist, Author, Cartoon, Drawing or Poem are used to indicate contributors (usually employees) to the magazine.
    • Article is used when a person is mentioned in the course of a piece of writing not falling into the standard categories above. It is often just a very brief mention. It is is not necessarily an article all about the person.
  • Photograph - whether a photo is included or not.
  • Repository - the records are held at Stoke on Trent City Archives.
  • DocRefNo - can be used to order the original document in the archive reading room.

Access

Access to the Michelin Archive is free if you make a personal visit to Stoke-on-Trent City Archives. You will need to join the Archive Service which requires a proof of ID. Full details of opening times, locations and acceptable proofs of ID can be found on the Stoke-on-Trent City Archives contact page.

Copies

A scan or photocopy of the page on which an index entry appears costs £ 5.00 and each additional request on the same order costs an additional £ 1.50.

Acknowledgements

We are pleased to acknowledge the work of the Michelin Volunteer Group of former employees without which this online index would not have been possible. You can see more of their work at http://archives.michelin.co.ukNote: Links to external sites will open in a new window.