Brush Electrical Machines

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Brush Electrical Machines works in Loughborough, United Kingdom.

Brush Electrical Machines is a manufacturer of large generators for gas turbine and steam turbine drive applications, based at Loughborough in Leicestershire, United Kingdom.

In 1879, a company was established in Lambeth London, called the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation. Its formation was to exploit the invention of Charles Francis Brush, who was born in Cleveland Ohio in 1849 and who had invented his first electric dynamo in 1876.

He founded a company called the American Brush Company, which stayed in business in the USA until about 1891. As the business grew in Lambeth due to the demand for new electrical apparatus, larger premises were required and the Anglo-American Brush Electric Light Corporation moved 100 miles north to the Falcon Works at Loughborough in 1889.

Over the next sixty years the business grew by acquisitions until in 1957 the Brush companies were incorporated into the Hawker Siddeley Group under the new name of the Brush Electrical Engineering Company Limited. Within the Hawker Siddeley Group the company manufactured a vast range of electrical products including; turbo-generators, salient pole machines, induction motors, traction motors and generators, traction locomotives, switchgear, transformers and fuses.

In November 1991 Hawker Siddeley Electric Power Group was subject to a hostile takeover bid of £1.5 billion from BTR, the large engineering conglomerate. The bid was successful so the Brush companies then became part of the BTR organisation. The most recent change in Brush’s history occurred in November 1996 when the FKI Group of Companies acquired the Hawker Siddeley Electric Power Group from BTR for a price of £182 million.

During the last 125 years various Brush companies (Brush Switchgear, Brush Transformers, Brush Traction and Brush Control Gear) have existed on the Falcon Works site, but throughout this period Brush Electrical Machines Ltd manufacturing generators and motors has always been the largest company. Over 5000 staff were employed on the site during the 1960s and 70s; today there are approximately 680 staff, 450 of which are direct production personnel. The following products are manufactured at the Loughborough facility:

Air-cooled turbogenerator in the range of 20 to 225MVA, Turbomotors from 10 to 100MW and the associated control equipment each.