Eagle Pencil Company London

According to Grace’s Guide, the Eagle Pencil company, which had been founded in New York by German immigrant Heinrich Berolzheimer in 1859, opened its London office in 1864. In October 1894 a London office, Warehouse and Showroom, opened in the City of London at 14 Fore Street, where today stands the Barbican Centre, and the 1897 catalogue already referred to prize medals awarded to Eagle pencils. This is all according to Berol’s website where one learns that Eagle’s Turquoise (or “Turquois”) pencils were first produced in 1901 together with innumerable coloured pencils and “anti-nervous pen holders.”

The Eagle Pencil Co. started operating in Tottenham in north London in 1907. The History of the County of Middlesex, vol. 5 (1976) mentions that by 1920 “a few more firms, including the Eagle Pencil Co., had opened north of Ferry Lane, in wartime buildings along Ashley Road.”

In 1922 the Eagle Pencil Company advertises itself in the British Industries Fair as the largest manufacturer of its kind in the world producing black lead, copying ink, coloured, carpenters’ and diary pencils. They were also contractors to Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, Colonial, and Foreign Governments and Schools.

Pencil manufacture, which had stopped during the Second World War, resumed in 1946 first with plain unbranded pencils and later with the traditional pencil ranges of Turquoise, Verithin and Mirado. A presentation pencil set of coloured and lead pencils from the above ranges is included in the Exploring 20th Century London website. I’d love to find out more about the changing fortunes of this company and its pencils.

A selection of Eagle pencils from Australia, Canada, England, Mexico and the USA in Brand Name Pencils.

Object in the Inklinks shop today: Vintage Eagle pencil box set from Eagle Pencil Co. London. Includes a pen holder too (don’t know if it’s “anti-nervous”).