Granada Publishing Ltd was incorporated as a limited liability company in 1968 to acquire the business of the Hour Press Ltd , publishers, London, England.
The Hour Press Ltd was incorporated in 1956 by Howard Samuel and Jane Willington Samuel who were also its first directors. Reginald Gerard Davis-Poynter was appointed as a director in 1961 and was already a founding director of Arco publications Ltd, publishers, London, along with Howard Samuel. In 1962 , MacGibbon & Kee Ltd , publishers, London, acquired shares in The Hour Press Ltd. The company name was changed in 1966 to become Granada Publishing Ltd. This new company was a subsidiary of media and broadcasting company Granada Group Ltd who as a holding company aimed to develop the interests of its subsidiary companies through sharing resources and group development in a manner that the individual companies would be unable to achieve alone. The Granada Group published fiction, non-fiction, and educational books and had interests in New Zealand, the United States, South Africa, Middle East, Australia and Canada where further subsidiary companies managed the group's business.
By 1968, Granada Publishing Ltd was acting as distributors for a number of publishers and Granada Group Ltd had acquired a number of other publishers who became subsidiary companies of Granada Publishing Ltd when Granada Group Ltd transferred their shareholdings in those companies to Granada Publishing Ltd. These included Panther Books Ltd, MacGibbon & Kee Ltd, Rupert Hart-Davis Ltd, Arco Publications Ltd, Staples Press Ltd, Mayflower Books Ltd. In 1979 Paul Elek Ltd , London, along with its subsidiary companies, Elek Books Ltd and Paul Elek (Scientific Books) Ltd whose main interests lay in Germany, Holland and the United States. In 1983 , Granada sold the publishing side of its business to the Scottish publishers, William Collins, Sons & Co Ltd based in Glasgow. In 1988 , Granada Publishing Ltd became Collins Video Ltd , which became William Collins G(X) Ltd in 1991 . The company was finally dissolved in 1999 .
From the guide to the Records of Granada Publishing Ltd, publishers, St Albans, Hertfordshire, England, 1955-1982, (Glasgow University Archives Service)
