of Twinlock Works, Beckenham, Kent. Twinlock Export Limited: 37 Chancery Lane, London, WC2. Telephone: Chancery 8971. Cables: "Ebullient, London". (1947)
Records available from 1905 to 1993. London Metropolitan Archives. [1]
Percy Jones (Twinlock) Ltd was the major supplier of hand-bound loose-leaf ledgers to the Stationery and Printing trade for approximately the first seventy years of the twentieth century.
1905 Company founded.
1920 Public company.
1932 Patent - Improvements relating to loose leaf ledgers and the like. [2]
1947 Listed Exhibitor - British Industries Fair. Manufacturers of Loose Leaf Books, systems, Mechanised Accounting Equipment. Loose Leaf Metals, Mechanisms and Fittings. (Olympia, Ground Floor, Stand No. B.1455) [3]
1956 Patent - Improvements in or relating to runners or skids. [4]
1961 Manufacturers of loose leaf books and office mechanisms. 900 employees. [5]
1965 Name changed to Twinlock Ltd[6]
1967 Started preparing for the demand likely to arise from the UK's decimalisation; was able to draw on the company's experience with such changes in Australia and South Africa, so expanded the Sheerness factory[7]
1969 Subsidiary Twinlock Computer Services formed a joint venture with a German company on computer data processing accessories and equipment[8]
1970 Acquired Jenkins Fidgeon, computer ancillaries company[9]
1971 Sold the Twinlock Precision Plastics subsidiary to Northel of Leicester[10]
1972 Became a public but unquoted company[11]
1973 Acquired British Pens[12] and bought into a company in the Netherlands
1974 Had 15 factories worldwide[13]. Acquired The Shannon business systems and office equipment group[14] of new Malden, Surrey, the first time that Over-The-Counter shares had been used for a take-over.
1975 Reorganisation of Shannon and the filing systems division to form Datastor[15] but this led to substantial losses.
1976 The National Enterprise Board provided capital to support the company[16]; a rights issue was not practicable because of the OTC nature of the shares but the NEB offer raised concerns from one director and from a competitor.
1978 The company returned to profit[17]
1980 The company was back in losses; sold Cumberland Graphics and Cumberland Pencils to Ofrex but William Mitchell would stay in the Twinlock group[18]
1981 NEB sold much of its holding to Scottish American Investment Trust[19]
1983 Acquired by Acco World Corporation of Chicago[20]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ [1] National Archives
- ↑ [2] Wikipatents
- ↑ 1947 British Industries Fair p150
- ↑ [3] Wikipatents
- ↑ 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
- ↑ The Times, Feb 09, 1965
- ↑ The Times, Mar 16, 1970
- ↑ The Times, Feb 17, 1969
- ↑ The Times Feb 02, 1970
- ↑ The Times, Feb 18, 1971
- ↑ The Times, Oct 23, 1972
- ↑ The Times, Sep 13, 1973
- ↑ The Times, Nov 11, 1974
- ↑ The Times, Dec 10, 1974
- ↑ The Times, Sep 18, 1975
- ↑ The Times Jul 28, 1976
- ↑ The Times, Oct 27, 1978
- ↑ The Times, Nov 07, 1980
- ↑ The Times, Jun 30, 1982
- ↑ The Times, Sep 30, 1983