Graseby
Graseby was a British engineering company.
History
As Graseby Instruments it made and refurbished naval sonar equipment. The company (00385807) was established on 25 February 1944.
On 1 January 1982 it merged with Pye Dynamics forming Graseby Dynamics and moved its operations to the latter's site in Bushey, Hertfordshire. Later it became part of Cambridge Electronic Industries plc, with Graseby Analytical, Graseby Ionics, and Graseby Security. Cambridge Electronic Industries changed its name to Graseby plc in January 1992, being situated on the A1307 in the south of Cambridge, next to Cambridge University Botanic Garden, at Botanic House.
In April 1988 Graseby Ionics won the Queen's Award for Technological Achievement for CAM, a hand-held chemical vapour monitor.
In May 1992 Graseby plc bought Intertest.
On August 7, 1997 it was bought for £136m (US$216.7m) by Smiths Industries.
On March 16, 1998, Smith Industries sold Graseby Andersen and Graseby Product Monitoring to Thermo Electron. Graseby Product Monitoring included Goring Kerr,[1] Best and Allen Coding was absorbed by Thermo Sentron for US$43m. Thermo Sentron also owned competing brands such as Ramsey and Icore. Thermo Instrument Systems acquired Graseby Andersen. The aggregate price was US$73 million. Combined revenues of these companies were US$78 million.
Products
- Sonar equipment
- Torpedo decoys
- Gyroscopes for inertial navigation of guided missiles[2] in a gimbal system.
- Chemical agent monitors (Graseby Dynamics)
- Metal Detector (Graseby Goring Kerr)
- X-Ray (Graseby Goring Kerr)
- Checkweigher (Graseby Best)
Structure
It was initially situated in Tolworth in south-west London. At this time before 1965, Tolworth was part of Surrey.[3] It was situated on the A3 near the junction with the A243.
Alumni
- Paul Lester, former Chief Executive from 1990–97
- Dave Johnson, President, Graseby Volkman, Graseby Goring Kerr
- Tim Coombs, Managing Director, Graseby Medical, Graseby Product Monitoring
- Nick Ward, Sales Director, Graseby Product Monitoring
- David Reid, Director, Goring Kerr Metal Detection
- John Cooper, Graseby plc
- Tim O'Brien, Graseby Volkman
See also
- Graseby, a brand of syringe pumps of Smiths Medical
