For the Bacci & Bacci collection, click here
This was a British company with a registered address of 73, Camp Street, Salford 7, Lancashire for pieces registered after November 1955. Prior to this, their base was 59, Camp Street.
Bacci & Bacci was Felice Bacci, born 8th July 1888 in Bagni-Di-Lucca, Italy (see here for the history of European chalkware producers). He became a British subject on 9th June 1949 (Certificate R1/477) and Alfredo Bacci, an Italian subject who received a Naturalisation Certificate on 14th October 1957 (Certificate BNA48254). Alfredo’s residential address is listed as Salford (likely to be Camp Street)
Their agents’ service address was Marks & Clerk, 57/8 Lincoln Inn Fields, London E.C.2 when they had moved to 73, Camp Street which was also used by other designers, see the Marks page here for more info.
I have also discovered that in the 1950s, Felice’s grandson, Raffaello Bacci, left Tuscany at the age of 13 to join him. After finishing school at St Bonifaces in Salford, Raffaello helped out with making their statuettes. He then went on to create Salford Van Hire, a company still running today with a turnover of £45+ million. (Source: Salford at Work: People and Industries Through the Years)
Salford Van Hire’s own official company history (their “Our Story” page) independently confirms the pre-1955 address, 59 Camp Street, Broughton, Salford 7. Raffaello Bacci is confirmed to have moved to the UK and worked at what’s described as “his grandfather’s lampshade and specialist statuette manufacturing business” — this for me is great as it confirms the Bacci operation made lampshades in addition to figurines, not just standalone statuettes. We have seen some pieces my other designers with great lampshades, maybe Bacci sold them to the other designers? Salford Van Hire opened an Italian subsidiary in Florence in 1984 — a nice closing-the-loop detail: the grandson’s new business eventually expanded back into the same region the family came from.
Raffaello’s son Alessandro Bacci is now Managing Director of Salford Van Hire, and daughter Graziella Bacci has run vehicle finance/HR — the family is still active.
I have found a Domenico Bacci who died in 1978 from the Lancashire Birth, Deaths & Marriages site. Don’t know yet if there is a relation, but it is an unusual surname for the region.
CAUTION FOR RESEARCHERS
One necessary caution: a search for “Felice Bacci” surfaces an unrelated Italian politician of the same name (Felice Bacci, 1877-1937, Tuscan peasant-rights politician, born Bagno a Ripoli — a different place from Bagni di Lucca, easily confused).
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