Andrew Smith Harkness
of Station Road, Borehamwood
Perlux screens
1952 Acquired by Rank Organisation, later becoming part of Rank Precision Industries, and then Rank Audio Visual Division.
2025 The company Andrew Harkness Ltd is still trading and making screens. 'In 1929, founder Andrew Harkness, a master draper by profession first entered into the screen-manufacturing business with his 18-year-old son Tom. The business operating out of the then bustling UK film studio lots of Borehamwood in the UK rapidly grew and became hugely successful manufacturing woven screens and then washable woven screens. During the early 1940s, Tom Harkness identified plastic (PVC). A new material which seemed to possess all the properties required in an ideal screen, however this new material still needed to be joined. Harkness spent significant time developing a revolutionary method of welding the plastic together called the Tearseal method which was later patented. Where other manufacturers had failed to produce invisible seams, the Harkness Tearseal method produced a flat seam...'See [Harkness Screens]