Armitage Shanks
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Armitage Shanks is a British manufacturer of bathroom fixtures and plumbing supplies.
As of 2004 Armitage Shanks has eight factories in the UK, the largest of which is in Stoke-on-Trent. Armitage Shanks is one of the sponsors of the Loo of the Year Awards.
The company that became Armitage Shanks was founded in 1817 by Thomas Bond in Armitage, Staffordshire. The Armitage "sanitary pottery manufacture" became a successful UK toilet manucturer. In 1907 Armitage Ware Limited was incorporated. In 1969 Armitage merged with Shanks Holdings Limited, a competing "sanitary engineering company" established at Barrhead near Glasgow, Scotland in 1878, producing the famous brand name Armitage Shanks. In 1980 ownership of Armitage Shanks company was purchased by Blue Circle Industries. In February 1999 Blue Circle sold its bathroom division (consisting of Armitage Shanks and the Italian Ceramica Dolomite) to U.S. based American Standard Companies for 430 million United States dollars. Following this purchase, the Armitage Shanks brand disappeared outside of the UK, as their former export markets, such as those in east Asia, moved over to the American Standard brand.
[edit] Other uses of the name
The company has inspired other people and groups to use the name, sometimes as an example of toilet humour.
- Armitage Shanks (band), a UK rock band
- Armitage Shanks is the pseudonym of the ringmaster of the Seattle, Washington based Circus Contraption
- "Armatage Shanks" [sic] is the first song on Green Day's 1995 album, Insomniac, which came about after the band had been to England and noticed the brand name on the urinals there.
- Armitage Shanks is one of the nicknames for Richard Marsland, the panel operator for Triple M radio program Get This.
