W & T Avery Ltd.

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Main gate to Soho Foundry, head office of W&T Avery Soho Foundry.jpg
Main gate to Soho Foundry, head office of W&T Avery

W & T Avery Ltd. is a British manufacturer of weighing machines. The company was founded in the early 18th century and took the name W & T Avery in 1818. Having been taken over by GEC in 1979 the company was later renamed into GEC-Avery. The company became Avery Berkel in 1993 when GEC acquired the Dutch company Berkel. After the take over by Weigh-Tronix in 2000 the company was again renamed to be called Avery Weigh-Tronix. The company is based in Smethwick, West Midlands, United Kingdom.

Avery Berkel, a major manufacturer of weighing systems and food processing equipment, was formed in 1993 when the British conglomerate General Electric Company plc combined their GEC Avery Ltd. business with the newly acquired Berkel company. The group continued as a subsidiary of GEC until March 2000 when it was sold to Weigh-Tronix for £102.5 million to create Avery Weigh-Tronix. In 2007, Avery Weigh-Tronix sold Avery Berkel to Illinois Tool Works.

Avery Weigh-Tronix is a company specialising in weighing machines. Its headquarters stands on the site of the Soho Foundry overlooking Black Patch Park in Smethwick, England, with a United States-based manufacturing and retail manufacturing plant.

Smethwick town in Sandwell Metropolitan Borough, England

Smethwick is a small town in Sandwell, West Midlands, historically in Staffordshire. It is 4 miles west of Birmingham city centre and borders West Bromwich and Oldbury to the north and west. Formerly a Staffordshire county borough, Smethwick is situated near the edge of Sandwell metropolitan borough and borders the Birmingham districts of Handsworth, Winson Green, Harborne, Edgbaston and Quinton to the south and east, as well as the Black Country towns of West Bromwich and Oldbury, West Midlands in the north and west.

Contents

History

Set of scales made by Avery early 20th century Balance Roberval white.jpg
Set of scales made by Avery early 20th century
Set of scales made by Avery in the 1960s Yarloop wkshop gnangarra 14.jpg
Set of scales made by Avery in the 1960s
An Avery weighing machine, for weighing a person, now in Leominster Museum Leominster Museum - 2014-07-11 - Andy Mabbett - 16.JPG
An Avery weighing machine, for weighing a person, now in Leominster Museum

The undocumented origin of the company goes back to 1730 when James Ford established the business in Digbeth. On Joseph Balden the then owner's death in 1813 William and Thomas Avery took over his scalemaking business and in 1818 renamed it W & T Avery. The business rapidly expanded and in 1885 they owned three factories: the Atlas Works in West Bromwich, the Mill Lane Works in Birmingham and the Moat Lane Works in Digbeth. In 1891 the business became a limited company with a board of directors and in 1894 the shares were quoted on the London Stock Exchange. In 1895 the company bought the legendary Soho Foundry in Smethwick, a former steam engine factory owned by James Watt & Co. In 1897 the move was complete and the steam engine business was gradually converted to pure manufacture of weighing machines. The turn of the century was marked by managing director William Hipkins' determined efforts in broadening the renown of the Avery brand and transforming the business into a specialist manufacturer of weighing machines. [1] By 1914 the company occupied an area of 32,000m² and had some 3000 employees.

Digbeth District in Birmingham, England

Digbeth is an area of Central Birmingham, England. Following the destruction of the Inner Ring Road, Digbeth is now considered a district within Birmingham City Centre. As part of the Big City Plan, Digbeth is undergoing a large redevelopment scheme that will regenerate the old industrial buildings into apartments, retail premises, offices and arts facilities. There is still however much industrial activity in the south of the area. As part of the plans Digbeth Coach Station has also been redeveloped and renamed Birmingham Coach Station.

Soho Foundry

Soho Foundry is a factory created in 1795 by Matthew Boulton and James Watt and their sons Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt Jr. at Smethwick, West Midlands, England, for the manufacture of steam engines. Now owned by Avery Weigh-Tronix, it is used for the manufacture of weighing machines.

In the inter-war period the growth continued with the addition of specialised shops for cast parts, enamel paints and weighbridge assembly and the product range diversified into counting machines, testing machines, automatic packing machines and petrol pumps. During the second world war the company also produced various types of heavy guns. At that time the site underwent severe damage from parachute mines and incendiary bombs.

From 1931 to 1973 the company occupied the 18th-century Middlesex Sessions House in Clerkenwell as its headquarters. [2]

Middlesex Sessions House

The Former Middlesex Session(s) House or the Old Sessions House is a large building on Clerkenwell Green in the London Borough of Islington in London, England, built in 1780 as the seat of the Middlesex Quarter Sessions.

Clerkenwell area of inner north London in the London Borough of Islington

Clerkenwell is an area of central London, England. The area includes the sub-district of Finsbury.

Changes in weighing machine technology after World War II led to the closure of the foundry, the introduction of load cells and electronic weighing with the simultaneous gradual disappearance of purely mechanical devices.

The continued expansion was partly achieved through a series of acquisitions of other companies. The most important are: [3]

Parnall & Sons

Parnall & Sons Ltd was a shop and ship fitting and aircraft component manufacturer in Bristol, England. The original company was set up in 1820 by William Parnall in Narrow Wine Street, initially making weights and measures, before expanding into shop keeping equipment and shop fittings.

After almost a century of national and international expansion the company was taken over by GEC in 1979. Keith Hodgkinson, managing director at the time, completed the turn-around from mechanical to electronic weighing with a complete overhaul of the product range of retail scales and industrial platform scales. In 1993 GEC took over the Dutch-based company Berkel and the Avery-Berkel name was introduced. In 2000 the business was in turn acquired by the US-American company Weigh-Tronix, who already owned Salter, and is today operating as Avery Weigh-Tronix.

In 2008 Illinois Tool Works Inc. purchased Avery Weigh-Tronix from its then owners, European Capital. [4]

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Hipkins died on the Titanic in 1912.
  2. ↑ Temple, Philip, ed. (2008). "Clerkenwell Green". South and East Clerkenwell. Survey of London. 46. New Haven, London: English Heritage. pp. 86–114. ISBN   9780300137279.
  3. ↑ Source: Chapter Four of The General Electric Company Limited and Averys Limited: A Report on the Proposed Merger
  4. ↑ Cf. ILLINOIS TOOL WORKS (ITW) PURCHASES AVERY WEIGH-TRONIX

Literature

See also


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