Dyson and Horsfall were from Bradford. Cyril Buckley Dyson (1891-1964) was raised by his mother, Mary Emma (a weaver and later grocer and confectioner). Cyril may have been illegitimate (he did not enter a father’s name on his marriage certificate). Herbert Horsfall (1888-1954) was the son of Jay Horsfall, a commission weaver. In 1911, Herbert was working as a laundry manager – perhaps for his father, who now owned a laundry. In 1913 at Thornbury, Yorkshire, Herbert married Nellie nee Burton, the daughter of an innkeeper. Herbert, whose father had died, was now a laundry proprietor.

Cyril was working as a shorthand typist in 1911. During the War he served in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. In 1919, when he married Clarissa Burton (Nellie’s sister), he was a yarn merchant.  It seems that the brothers-in-law became linked in business in the early 1920s. Horsfalls was a mail order Chocolate and Christmas Club, which operated from a three-storey warehouse at St George’s Quay, Lancaster.  Dysons was at the same address, employing ‘respectable’ and ‘spare time’ agents to sell drapery, boots, and clothing.

In 1930, Aqueduct Mills, an old cotton mill building in Preston, fell vacant. By the start of 1932, Dyson & Horsfall Ltd had opened for business in the old mill premises.  However, Herbert Horsfall seems to have withdrawn from active involvement in the partnership. He lived in Morecambe and was enumerated in the Register (1939) as a ‘laundry managing director. Travelling’. Cyril was managing director of Dyson & Horsfall and its driving force.  He made it a prominent specialist in the Christmas club trade.  The gifts and products in its catalogues – drapery, furniture, silverware – would have been commissioned from outside suppliers. Its boxed stainless table knives and other cutlery items would have been made in Sheffield. A nine-minute company film in 1938 showed Cyril directing his workforce (mostly women and young girls) as they packed and despatched orders for Christmas (BFI: Britain on Film - player.bfi.org.uk/britain-on-film).  During the War, the firm featured in the press under the headline, ‘Preston Workers Packed Rations for the Arnhem Heroes’ (Lancashire Daily Post, 9 February 1943).  After the end of hostilities, Dyson was appointed Controller General of Commerce in the British zone of occupied Germany. He was also a director of C. H. Victor & Co Ltd (drapers and furnishings and warehousemen), Aqueduct Estates Ltd, and John Buccleugh & Co Ltd (wine merchant).

Herbert Horsfall died at Bournemouth on 27 May 1954, leaving £63,380. Cyril B. Dyson, who lived at Bolton-by-Bowland, died on 19 January 1964 (aged 72). He left £114,629.  Dyson & Horsfall continued to trade and issue Christmas Club catalogues. After Dyson’s death, the firm was taken over by Kay & Co Ltd, a mail-order catalogue business with offices and warehouses throughout the UK.  Kay’s was, in turn, absorbed by the Littlewoods group.