AMONG companies which have given the R.N.L.I. valuable financial support over a number of years are a firm of naval tailors in Harwich, a Leeds brewery, and a Leith firm of shipowners, exporters and importers.

• The Harwich firm of C. H. Bernard & Sons Ltd. was founded in 1896. Its founders, Mr. Charles Henry Firth-Bernard, his son, who is at present chairman, Mr. T. H. F. Bernard, M.B.E., M.M., and his grandson, the managing director, Mr. T. M. F. Bernard, have all served with the Royal Navy. So have many of the staff of the head office and of the company's 25 retail shops. Much of the firm's business consists of tailoring uniforms for the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy.

Mr. T. H. F. Bernard is president of the Harwich branch of the R.N.L.I.

• The establishment of the brewing firm of Tetley Walker Ltd. may be said to date back to 1822, when Joshua Tetley took over the brewery of William Sykes in Salem Place, Leeds. The firm has expanded steadily over the years, and between 1954 and 1961 acquired other companies owning a number of West Riding public houses. In 1961 a company was formed to link Tetley Walker, Ind Coope and AnseUs to make up the group now called Allied Breweries.

• In 1846 the Leith firm of Chr. Salvesen & Co. Ltd. was founded by J. T.

Salvesen as a branch of his own Grangemouth business, of which the main activities of the time were ships' agency, chartering and brokerage; importing of timber and grain; and exporting of coal and iron.

Early in this century the firm started whaling operations in the Antarctic.

They now act as managers for the South Georgia Company Ltd., which owns, directly or through its subsidiaries, 17 cargo ships, large cold stores and small inshore fishing vessels.

When its whaling activities declined, Chr. Salvesen & Co. Ltd. turned to fishmeal operations and became one of the biggest fishmeal producers in Peru..