Standard Engineering Co
of Leicester
1894 Company founded.
1902 Private company.
1921 Auxiliary factories: F. H. and H. S. Pochin Ltd of Leicester and Pochins, Ward and Gent of Northampton (see advert).
1961 Manufacturers of boot making and shoe repairing machinery, shoe knives and abrasive products.[1]
1961 Death of Horace Wilmer Pochin, one time chairman of the company, and senior director of R. Pochin and Son[2]
1973 Halma Investments acquired Standard Engineering, which was an asset-rich group of companies[3]
1975 Standard Engineering Co Ltd was a subsidiary of Halma Ltd [4]
1982 Standard Engineering Ltd was a subsidiary of Halma plc[5][6]
1983 Halma's shoe division had been so successful that it was split in two - Standard Engineering would concentrate on sales of machinery to the repair industry; Standard Machinery would sell its equipment to the manufacturing industry.[7]
1989 Standard Machinery Ltd was a subsidiary of Halma[8]
The company remains in business, manufacturing shoe repair equipment, key cutting machinery, and shredding machines[9]
1999 Standard was a subsidiary of Halma plc. MBO of Standard Engineering from Halma. Together with the shoe-making and shoe-repairing equipment parts of the business, Standard acquired the rights to market and sell the Volumatic range of High Security Disintegrators. These had previously been manufactured by Standard for Volumatic, another Halma business.
2000 Standard Engineering Ltd. purchased its only UK shoe repair machine competitor Whitfield Wylie Ltd., part of the portfolio of Winemanor Holdings. Whitfield's products included the Silca key blank and machinery agency for the shoe repair industry. Whitfield’s range of finishing machines ideally complimented Standard’s products and their full manufacturing capability in their Kettering factory suited the small batch bespoke requirements of the market. The newly reformed Standard Engineering Ltd moved to Lawson Street, Kettering.
1999 The Standard Engineering Co was established in January 1999 in Huthwaite, Sutton in Ashfield, as a tools supplier.
See Also