Woods of Colchester
Woods of Colchester, fan makers
1909 Company founded by Maurice W. Woods.
1928 Private company incorporated as M. W. Woods Ltd.[1]
1935 Maurice Geoffrey Wood (1902-1978), son of the founder, became MD. Production of propellor fans and electric motors to drive them.
1942 Name changed to Woods of Colchester
1945 GEC acquired 50% of the ordinary shares and a majority of the preference shares but the company continued as an independent associate. GEC became responsible for sales.
Postwar: introduced axial flow fans; Xpelair fans for use in kitchens and bathrooms.
1953 Advert: an associate company of GEC.[2]
1954 Built up home sales organisation so reducing use of GEC for sales.
1957 All UK sales were handled by the company.
1961 Specialist manufacturers of electric fans for industry, mines, marine, including air-conditioning and general ventilation applications. 1,600 employees. [3]
1962 Converted to public company to acquire business of electrical and general engineers of the same name.[4] At this time, the company purchased heat exchangers from a separate company, Air Exchangers Ltd, owned by Geoffrey Woods and located in factories in Colchester leased from the company.
1964 Acquired Whittingham and Mitchel, marine and structural engineers.[5]
1966 GEC acquired the rest of the shares.[6]
1968 GEC acquired Keith Blackman which would be joined with its Woods of Colchester subsidiary[7] in GEC Light Industrial Products Ltd[8]
In 1986, The American Fan company was purchased by GEC, who owned Woods from 1964, and joined the Woods ‘family’.
Woods merged with ABB Fläkt in 2002 to create Fläkt Woods, which was subsequently merged with Denco Happel in 2016 to create FläktGroup.
2021 Fläkt Woods rebranded itself and changed their trading name to Woods Air Movement, a brand under FläktGroup.
See Woods Air Movement website.