Well, I got in touch with Glen and he told me he got the info from someone else, so it looks like he was misinformed.
I have found a company called R. Hovenden & Sons who were mainly famous for selling human hair and making wigs. The company was dissolved and re-arranged several times, but the definitive firm dates from 1896 (although they give a date of 1811 in their advertisements).
In the early 1900s they advertised themselves as 'Manufacturers, Perfumers, Wholesale & Export" and specialised in 'cheapness' combined with 'quality' - in one of their adverts they advertised 'B. Cowvan straight razors and strops' and 'VOOGD's scissors and razors.' In the early days they made their own razors under the R. Hovenden mark - or had them made for them.
They also sold toiletries, pharmaceuticals, curlers, walking sticks, mirrors, combs, patent medicines, strops, tobacconists sundries, cutlery, brushes, clippers, cigars, pipes, umbrellas, clippers, etc, etc, etc - obviously they could not manufacture all these items themselves. Their trade catalogue was over 600 pages long.
Some people believe that the B. Cowvan razors were actually made by Hovenden, but I have no proof either way, and the same applies to Voogd razors. Voogd seems to be quite a common word in Holland, being dutch for 'guardian' and also a surname. I have owned one Cowvan razor - sturdy, but a bit middle-of-the-road.
They were still in business in the 1940s, and the Voogd razors I had came from around then, or a little earlier. Glen has told me that he has had a few, and that they seemed like nice razors. I have seen a smaller, more delicate one on an auction site that looked as if it was from around 1900 - 1920, quite unlike the crude big choppers I had.
So - still a mystery, except that mystery is whether there was a company called Voogd or whether Hovenden owned the mark and made the razors.
Regards,
Neil
