Graseby
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Graseby was a British engineering company.
History
[edit]As Graseby Instruments it made and refurbished naval sonar equipment. The company (00385807) was established on 25 February 1944. It was initially situated in Tolworth in south-west London.[1]
On 1 January 1982 it merged with Pye Dynamics forming Graseby Dynamics and moved its operations to the latter's site in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Graseby Dynamics' business activities were:
- Marine - the ex-Instruments services,
- Medical - principally Cot Death Monitors and Continuous Syringe Drivers,
- Ordnance - including test and post-design services,
- RF products - specialist services and the manufacture of Personal Locator Beacons (PLBs),
- Ionics/Security/Analytical providing vapour detectors based up Ion Mobility Spectrometry - the three identities addressing the Military, Civil and Space markets respectively.
Later Graseby Dynamics became part of Cambridge Electronic Industries plc. As part of a rationalisation process Cambridge Electronic Industries later changed it name to Graseby plc in January 1992 - a process it extended to many of its remaining subsidiaries, e.g. Newmarket Semiconductors became Graseby Semiconductors
In April 1988 Graseby Ionics won the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for CAM, a hand-held chemical agent monitor.
In May 1992 Graseby plc bought Intertest.
On 7 August 1997 it was bought for £136m (US$216.7m) by Smiths Industries.[2]
On 16 March 1998 Smith Industries sold Graseby Andersen and Graseby Product Monitoring to Thermo Electron. Graseby Product Monitoring included Goring Kerr,[3] Best and Allen Coding was absorbed by Thermo Sentron for US$43m. Thermo Sentron also owned competing brands such as Ramsey and Icore. Thermo Instrument Systems acquired Graseby Andersen. The aggregate price was US$73 million. Combined revenues of these companies were US$78 million.
Products
[edit]- Sonar equipment
- Torpedo decoys
- Gyroscopes for inertial navigation of guided missiles in a gimbal system.
- Chemical agent monitors (Graseby Dynamics)
- Metal Detector (Graseby Goring Kerr)
- X-Ray (Graseby Goring Kerr)
- Checkweigher (Graseby Best)
Alumni
[edit]- Godfey and Hilda Sharman, Founders of Graseby Instruments, 1940 - 1982
- Paul Lester, former Chief Executive from 1990–97
- Steven Glick, General Counsel, Graseby plc, 1992-96
- Dave Johnson, President, Graseby Volkman, Graseby Goring Kerr
- Tim Coombs, Managing Director, Graseby Medical, Graseby Product Monitoring
- Ping Wu, Sales Director, Graseby Goring Kerr
- David Reid, Director, Goring Kerr Metal Detection
- John Cooper, Graseby plc
- Tim O'Brien, Graseby Volkman
See also
[edit]- Graseby, a brand of syringe pumps of Smiths Medical
References
[edit]- ^ Flight International August 1962
- ^ "Smiths Industries continues acquisition strategy with £136 million purchase of Graseby". Medtech Insight. 11 August 1997. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
- ^ Goring Kerr Metal Detectors
- 1944 establishments in the United Kingdom
- Companies based in Cambridge
- Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange
- Defence companies of the United Kingdom
- Defunct companies based in London
- Defunct manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom
- Electronics industry in London
- Manufacturing companies established in 1944
- Military sonar equipment of the United Kingdom
- Missile guidance
- Science and technology in Cambridgeshire
- Sonar manufacturers