Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co
Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co, of Erith
1886 Company formed by Thorsten Nordenfelt.
1886 200 guests attended demonstrations of machine guns at the company's ranges at Dartford[1].
1888 The new Naval Construction and Armaments Co had entered agreements with Nordenfelt Co for the supply of machine guns; they would also make use of Nordenfelt's arrangements in other countries to obtain orders for fully armed ships; also acquired Mr T Nordenfelt's patents in Great Britain for submarine torpedo boats, two of which had already been built at Barrow[2].
1888 Under pressure from Rothschild and Vickers, the Maxim Gun Co merged with the Nordenfelt Co to become the Maxim Nordenfelt Guns and Ammunition Co which would cover the whole field of manufacturing automatic guns. The new company took over various factories at Erith, Crayford, Dartford and Stockholm, as well as arrangements with the Krupp company for the manufacture and sale of Maxim guns in Germany[3].
1931 The Erith works were closed
The public house known as Nordenfelt Tavern at 181 Erith Road, Erith was built to the design of Jonathan G. Ensor (1852/3-19??), architect for brewer Watney Combe & Reid, in 1902 and is named after the firm whose workers frequented the bars in Edwardian times.