A. I. Welders
of 20 Rose Street, Inverness
1962 The name of Resistance Welders Ltd was changed to A. I. Welders Ltd[1]
As Resistance Welders had presumably been the proprietor of A-I Electric Welding Appliances Company, it is assumed that the successor company, A. I. Electric Welding Machines Ltd, became a subsidiary of A.I. Welders Ltd.
1969 James McGregor Sinclair, managing director of A.I. Welders Ltd was awarded an OBE[2]
1970 A. 1. Welders Ltd. Inverness, Manufacturers of complex welding machinery for the World's Capital Goods Market has opportunities in Mechanical Engineering[3]
1972 Order for automatic welding equipment received by A I Welders from India[4]
1992 A. I. Welders Ltd was incorporated as a private company.[5]
2002 Due to the company restructuring, there was an auction of machine tools - via Henry Butcher and Co.
2013 Resolution: “That the Company be wound up voluntarily.”[6]
- From a Facebook post by Highland Archive Centre, 17 My 2022:
'The Company, initially named the Northern Agricultural Implement Foundry Co. began by manufacturing agricultural implements and wire fencing, operating as a general iron foundry. It grew with the arrival of the railway in the Highlands, changed its name to Rose Street Foundry and Engineering Co. in 1895 and later diversified into marine engineering. The Company prospered during World War I making boom defences for the Royal Navy.
In 1921 a bankrupt firm in Bradford, A.I. Manufacturing (Armitage & Ibbotson), was purchased and the era of resistance welding was entered. The demise of the Highland Railway Company in 1923 and the general economic downturn of the 1920s and 1930s impacted adversely. WWII saw an upturn in orders and worldwide fame was achieved through work on PLUTO – Pipeline Under The Ocean – the delivery system for petrol and diesel for the Allied invasion of Normandy.
The company name was changed to Resistance Welders Ltd. in 1945, with another name-change in 1962 to A. I. Welders Ltd. The company ceased trading formally in 2013.'