Rank Taylor Hobson
1886 Brothers William and Thomas Smithies Taylor started a company to make lenses as T. S. and W. Taylor.
1887 W. S. H. Hobson joined and became the sales face of Taylor Hobson.
The company then became Taylor, Taylor and Hobson
1893 H. Dennis Taylor the manager of T. Cooke and Sons, patented the "Cooke Triplet" lens, made of three optical elements of different sorts of glass. With this construction, chromatic aberration was reduced to a minimum. Taylor took his design to Taylor, Taylor and Hobson (no connection) for manufacture. This lens became the most consistent in quality worldwide.
1947 The company was part of the J Arthur Rank Organisation
c.1962 Renamed as Rank Taylor Hobson.
1968 New division of Rank established, using Rank Taylor Hobson as the nucleus, to focus on development of the scientific instruments businesses; initially it involved Hilger and Watts, Rank Taylor Hobson, Rank Bush Murphy Electronics, Rank Electronic Tubes[1].
1974 Asked to investigate alignment of tracks on tanks by using an optical processes.[2]
1980 Three British firms collaborated to develop night-vision equipment for the armed forces - the electro-optical surveillance division of Marconi Avionics at Basildon and Rank Taylor Hobson at Leicester would work on indirect view systems whilst EMI Electronics at Feltham would produce direct-view systems[3]
1992 of Thurmaston, Leicester, Queen's Award for Form Talysurf Series of measuring gauges based on computer technology.[4]
1996 Schroder Ventures acquired Taylor Hobson from the Rank Organisation.
1998 Cooke Optics was formed as a buy-out of the Optical division of Taylor Hobson.[5]
2004 Taylor Hobson taken over by AMETEK Inc.