Morphy Richards
Encyclopedia
Morphy Richards is a business located in the Swinton Meadows Industrial Estate, Swinton, near Mexborough
, South Yorkshire
.
s, hairdryers, bread makers, kettle
s and sandwich toaster
s and other appliances. In its early stage it also made refrigerator
s and washer-dryer
s, but these would be later made by Hotpoint
. It is owned by the Irish Glen Dimplex
electronics group. They also make Digital Radio Mondiale
-compatible digital radios, one of very few companies to do so.
and Charles Richards of Farnborough, London
formed Morphy-Richards Ltd on 8 July 1936 at an oast house
in St Mary Cray
in Kent
. Morphy and Richards were joint managing directors, and had raised £1,000. It began making electric fire
s and from March 1938 it made electric irons. During the war its factories made components for the aircraft industry.
A. Reyrolle & Company
took 30% of the company in June 1944 and their General Manager was on the board of directors. Exports accounted for around 15% of turnover, helped by subsidiary companies in Australia and South Africa. It later opened a Canadian subsidiary. It was churning out around 2,000 irons per day.
On 1 May 1947, it became a public company
and merged with Astral Equipmemt Ltd, a company in Dundee
, Scotland
that made spin dryers
and refrigerators. Astral became a wholly owned subsidiary. George Wansbrough was the company chairman from 1944-54. In 1949, it produced its first automatic toaster which used a bi-metallic strip
. It also produced the Simon electric floor scrubber
. In 1953, it produced its first hairdryer and claimed to have 90% of the market six years later, as it sold very well. In 1954 it introduced a steam iron
; these would still be comparatively revolutionary thirty years later. At the same time it introduced electrical convector heaters and panel heaters (ceramic heater
s). By 1957, it was the UK's leading provider of electric blanket
s, had produced its 10 millionth electric iron, and was producing 60% of the toasters made in the UK. It had bought Yelsen Ltd, a manufacturer of electric blankets at Ruxley
in Kent, on 16 June 1957 for £112,000, which became a subsidiary. Also in June, new factories opened at the main site and Dundee. 40% of products were exported and overseas subsidiaries had been established. Morphy did not like the huge expansion of the company, but Richards thought it was too slow. Sir Patrick Bishop
became Chairman in 1957.
(Electric and Musical Industries) in August 1960, who then tried to take-over the company, as did Philips
Electrical Industries. On the board of directors, Morphy supported the EMI offer, but Richards did not. EMI took over the company in September 1960. In the late 1950s the company had developed the Silavent ventilation system., manufactured for them by Robert McArd & Co.
In December 1960, the Chairman, Sir Patrick Bishop, resigned and Richards left the board. Morphy also left as managing director, but stayed on the board. Graham Hurst became managing director. By March 1961, Richards had joined GEC as joint managing director of their electrical appliance division. On 12 May 1961, a new £500,000 factory at Dundee built by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts
was opened by Richard Wood, Baron Holderness
, then the Ministry of Power. The Dundee site was managed by Willis Roxburgh until July 1966, and produced around a quarter of all fridges in the UK. By 1962 it was exporting to over 120 countries. In August 1962 the company appointed Faber Birren to give advice on colours of products. On 7 December 1962, Richards joined the board of directors of GEC. In October 1963, it took over the record-player division of EMI. On 15 November 1964, Charles Richards died aged 64 at his house in Buckinghamshire
.
In February 1965 there were discussions with English Electric
to merge their large appliance divisions. In April 1965 Norman Tomlinson became managing director.
, decided to merge their domestic appliance divisions to form British Domestic Appliances (BDA) from 1 July 1966. Morphy Richards was employing about 4,000 people. The headquarters of BDA was at Peterborough
, the site of the main Hotpoint factory. In September 1967, GEC
announced it wanted to take-over AEI, and on 24 May 1968 GEC agreed to merge its domestic appliance division with BDA. EMI would own a third, and GEC two thirds. The managing director of BDA from September 1966, Laurence Peterken, would be the new managing director, but he left two weeks later.
The domestic appliance manufacture was moved to the Swinton
Works at Mexborough and, in 1970, the original factory in St Mary Cray was closed, which employed around 1,200 people. The nearby Ruxley
factory manufactured kettles and coffee percolator
s. In January 1970 it was decided to remove the Morphy Richards brand from the fridges. It was argued that GEC had little interest in Morphy Richards. On 25 May 1975 Donal Morphy died, aged 74.
In the 1970s, BDA was the UK's largest manufacturer of domestic appliances. BDA changed its name to Hotpoint in 1975, with small domestic appliances marketed under the Morphy Richards name.
of Northern Ireland. From the late 1980s, the company was once again very successful with advances in electronics making their way into domestic appliances. In the 1990s, the product range grew much larger. Due to repair costs, consumers would now buy a new appliance rather than have an older one fixed.
Mexborough
Mexborough is a town in the metropolitan borough of Doncaster, South Yorkshire, England, situated on the north bank of the River Don west of its confluence with the River Dearne...
, South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It has a population of 1.29 million. It consists of four metropolitan boroughs: Barnsley, Doncaster, Rotherham, and City of Sheffield...
.
Product range
It specialises in the manufacture of toasterToaster
The toaster is typically a small electric kitchen appliance designed to toast multiple types of bread products. A typical modern two-slice toaster draws anywhere between 600 and 1200 W and makes toast in 1 to 3 minutes...
s, hairdryers, bread makers, kettle
Kettle
A kettle, sometimes called a tea kettle or teakettle, is a small kitchen appliance used for boiling water. Kettles can be heated either by placing on a stove, or by their own electric heating element.- Stovetop kettles :...
s and sandwich toaster
Sandwich toaster
A sandwich toaster is used to make toasted sandwiches. It can be either a cooking utensil designed to be used over hot coals, or an electrical appliance....
s and other appliances. In its early stage it also made refrigerator
Refrigerator
A refrigerator is a common household appliance that consists of a thermally insulated compartment and a heat pump that transfers heat from the inside of the fridge to its external environment so that the inside of the fridge is cooled to a temperature below the ambient temperature of the room...
s and washer-dryer
Combo washer dryer
A combo washer dryer is a combination of a washing machine and a clothes dryer.Combination washer dryers are popular amongst those living in smaller urban properties as they only need half the amount of space usually required for a separate washing machine and clothes dryer and do not require an...
s, but these would be later made by Hotpoint
Hotpoint
The Hotpoint Electric Heating Company is a British brand of domestic appliances. The brand is currently fully owned by Italy's Indesit....
. It is owned by the Irish Glen Dimplex
Glen Dimplex
Glen Dimplex is an Irish-based consumer electrical goods firm. It is the world's largest electrical heating business and holds significant market positions in the domestic appliance industry worldwide...
electronics group. They also make Digital Radio Mondiale
Digital Radio Mondiale
Digital Radio Mondiale is a set of digital audio broadcasting technologies designed to work over the bands currently used for AM broadcasting, particularly shortwave...
-compatible digital radios, one of very few companies to do so.
History
Donal Morphy of ChislehurstChislehurst
Chislehurst is a suburban district in south-east London, England, and an electoral ward of the London Borough of Bromley. It is south-east of Charing Cross.-Toponymy:...
and Charles Richards of Farnborough, London
Farnborough, London
Farnborough is a settlement in the London Borough of Bromley. It is a suburban development located 13.4 miles southeast of Charing Cross.-History:...
formed Morphy-Richards Ltd on 8 July 1936 at an oast house
Oast house
An oast, oast house or hop kiln is a building designed for kilning hops as part of the brewing process. They can be found in most hop-growing areas and are often good examples of vernacular architecture...
in St Mary Cray
St Mary Cray
St Mary Cray lies on the River Cray and is part of the London Borough of Bromley. St Mary Cray, like St Paul's Cray, has been somewhat overshadowed by the growth of nearby Orpington, which now provides local communities with their main shopping and business facilities...
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
. Morphy and Richards were joint managing directors, and had raised £1,000. It began making electric fire
Electric fireplace
An electric fireplace is an electric heater that mimics a fireplace burning coal, wood, or natural gas. Electric fireplaces are often placed in conventional fireplaces, which can then no longer be used for conventional fires...
s and from March 1938 it made electric irons. During the war its factories made components for the aircraft industry.
A. Reyrolle & Company
A. Reyrolle & Company
A. Reyrolle & Company was a British engineering firm, which for many years was one of the largest employers on Tyneside.-History:The company was founded by Alphonse Constant Reyrolle, a Frenchman, in 1886 at Fitzroy Square in London to produce scientific instruments. He moved the business to...
took 30% of the company in June 1944 and their General Manager was on the board of directors. Exports accounted for around 15% of turnover, helped by subsidiary companies in Australia and South Africa. It later opened a Canadian subsidiary. It was churning out around 2,000 irons per day.
On 1 May 1947, it became a public company
Public company
This is not the same as a Government-owned corporation.A public company or publicly traded company is a limited liability company that offers its securities for sale to the general public, typically through a stock exchange, or through market makers operating in over the counter markets...
and merged with Astral Equipmemt Ltd, a company in Dundee
Dundee
Dundee is the fourth-largest city in Scotland and the 39th most populous settlement in the United Kingdom. It lies within the eastern central Lowlands on the north bank of the Firth of Tay, which feeds into the North Sea...
, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
that made spin dryers
Clothes dryer
A clothes dryer or tumble dryer is a household appliance that is used to remove moisture from a load of clothing and other textiles, generally shortly after they are cleaned in a washing machine....
and refrigerators. Astral became a wholly owned subsidiary. George Wansbrough was the company chairman from 1944-54. In 1949, it produced its first automatic toaster which used a bi-metallic strip
Bi-metallic strip
A bimetallic strip is used to convert a temperature change into mechanical displacement. The strip consists of two strips of different metals which expand at different rates as they are heated, usually steel and copper, or in some cases brass instead of copper. The strips are joined together...
. It also produced the Simon electric floor scrubber
Floor scrubbers
Automatic floor scrubbers, also known as auto scrubbers, are a type of floor cleaning machine that are used to scrub a floor clean of light debris, dust, oil, grease or floor marks. These machines have either rotary or cylindrical scrubbing head and an automated system for dispensing cleaning...
. In 1953, it produced its first hairdryer and claimed to have 90% of the market six years later, as it sold very well. In 1954 it introduced a steam iron
Iron (appliance)
A clothes iron, also referred to as simply an iron, is a small appliance used in ironing to remove wrinkles from fabric.Ironing works by loosening the ties between the long chains of molecules that exist in polymer fiber materials. With the heat and the weight of the ironing plate, the fibers are...
; these would still be comparatively revolutionary thirty years later. At the same time it introduced electrical convector heaters and panel heaters (ceramic heater
Ceramic heater
Ceramic heaters are space heaters that generate heat by passing electricity through heating wires embedded in ceramic plates. The plates heat aluminium baffles, and a fan blowing across the baffles heats the air...
s). By 1957, it was the UK's leading provider of electric blanket
Electric blanket
In the US the electric blanket is a blanket with an integrated electrical heating device usually placed above the top bed sheet. In the UK and Commonwealth, electric blanket commonly refers to an electric mattress pad, which is placed below the bottom bed sheet. Electric blankets usually have a...
s, had produced its 10 millionth electric iron, and was producing 60% of the toasters made in the UK. It had bought Yelsen Ltd, a manufacturer of electric blankets at Ruxley
Ruxley
Ruxley is a small settlement mostly within the London Borough of Bromley and on the boundary with the London Borough of Bexley, in southeast London, England....
in Kent, on 16 June 1957 for £112,000, which became a subsidiary. Also in June, new factories opened at the main site and Dundee. 40% of products were exported and overseas subsidiaries had been established. Morphy did not like the huge expansion of the company, but Richards thought it was too slow. Sir Patrick Bishop
Patrick Bishop
For the 19th-century baseball player, see Frank Bishop .Sir Patrick Bishop, MBE was a British advertising copywriter, Barrister, businessman, and Conservative Party politician.-Early career:...
became Chairman in 1957.
EMI
Morphy sold his share of the company to EMIEMI
The EMI Group, also known as EMI Music or simply EMI, is a multinational music company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the fourth-largest business group and family of record labels in the recording industry and one of the "big four" record companies. EMI Group also has a major...
(Electric and Musical Industries) in August 1960, who then tried to take-over the company, as did Philips
Philips
Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. , more commonly known as Philips, is a multinational Dutch electronics company....
Electrical Industries. On the board of directors, Morphy supported the EMI offer, but Richards did not. EMI took over the company in September 1960. In the late 1950s the company had developed the Silavent ventilation system., manufactured for them by Robert McArd & Co.
In December 1960, the Chairman, Sir Patrick Bishop, resigned and Richards left the board. Morphy also left as managing director, but stayed on the board. Graham Hurst became managing director. By March 1961, Richards had joined GEC as joint managing director of their electrical appliance division. On 12 May 1961, a new £500,000 factory at Dundee built by Holland, Hannen & Cubitts
Holland, Hannen & Cubitts
Holland, Hannen & Cubitts was a major building firm responsible for many of the great buildings of London.-History:It was formed from the fusion of two well-established building houses that had competed throughout the later decades of the nineteenth century but came together in 1883: this was...
was opened by Richard Wood, Baron Holderness
Richard Wood, Baron Holderness
Richard Frederick Wood, Baron Holderness PC, DL was a British Conservative politician who held numerous ministerial positions from 1955 to 1974...
, then the Ministry of Power. The Dundee site was managed by Willis Roxburgh until July 1966, and produced around a quarter of all fridges in the UK. By 1962 it was exporting to over 120 countries. In August 1962 the company appointed Faber Birren to give advice on colours of products. On 7 December 1962, Richards joined the board of directors of GEC. In October 1963, it took over the record-player division of EMI. On 15 November 1964, Charles Richards died aged 64 at his house in Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
.
In February 1965 there were discussions with English Electric
English Electric
English Electric was a British industrial manufacturer. Founded in 1918, it initially specialised in industrial electric motors and transformers...
to merge their large appliance divisions. In April 1965 Norman Tomlinson became managing director.
GEC
On 26 May 1966, EMI and AEI, owner of HotpointHotpoint
The Hotpoint Electric Heating Company is a British brand of domestic appliances. The brand is currently fully owned by Italy's Indesit....
, decided to merge their domestic appliance divisions to form British Domestic Appliances (BDA) from 1 July 1966. Morphy Richards was employing about 4,000 people. The headquarters of BDA was at Peterborough
Peterborough
Peterborough is a cathedral city and unitary authority area in the East of England, with an estimated population of in June 2007. For ceremonial purposes it is in the county of Cambridgeshire. Situated north of London, the city stands on the River Nene which flows into the North Sea...
, the site of the main Hotpoint factory. In September 1967, GEC
The General Electric Company plc
The General Electric Company or GEC was a major British-based industrial conglomerate, involved in consumer and defence electronics, communications and engineering. The company was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. It was renamed Marconi Corporation plc in 1999 after its defence arm,...
announced it wanted to take-over AEI, and on 24 May 1968 GEC agreed to merge its domestic appliance division with BDA. EMI would own a third, and GEC two thirds. The managing director of BDA from September 1966, Laurence Peterken, would be the new managing director, but he left two weeks later.
The domestic appliance manufacture was moved to the Swinton
Swinton, South Yorkshire
Swinton is a suburban town within the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham, in South Yorkshire, England on part of the west bank of the River Don...
Works at Mexborough and, in 1970, the original factory in St Mary Cray was closed, which employed around 1,200 people. The nearby Ruxley
Ruxley
Ruxley is a small settlement mostly within the London Borough of Bromley and on the boundary with the London Borough of Bexley, in southeast London, England....
factory manufactured kettles and coffee percolator
Coffee percolator
A coffee percolator is a type of pot used to brew coffee. The name stems from the word "percolate" which means to cause to pass through a permeable substance especially for extracting a soluble constituent....
s. In January 1970 it was decided to remove the Morphy Richards brand from the fridges. It was argued that GEC had little interest in Morphy Richards. On 25 May 1975 Donal Morphy died, aged 74.
In the 1970s, BDA was the UK's largest manufacturer of domestic appliances. BDA changed its name to Hotpoint in 1975, with small domestic appliances marketed under the Morphy Richards name.
Throgmorton Trust
On 4 April 1982, the company was sold for £5m to a holding company of the Throgmorton Trust called Capital For Industry. The company began to make audio equipment and televisions and expanded its product range. The workforce of the Mexborough plant numbered about 400.Glen Dimplex
On 10 May 1985, it was taken over by Glen DimplexGlen Dimplex
Glen Dimplex is an Irish-based consumer electrical goods firm. It is the world's largest electrical heating business and holds significant market positions in the domestic appliance industry worldwide...
of Northern Ireland. From the late 1980s, the company was once again very successful with advances in electronics making their way into domestic appliances. In the 1990s, the product range grew much larger. Due to repair costs, consumers would now buy a new appliance rather than have an older one fixed.
External links
- Morphy Richards
- Graces Guides
- 1980s toaster in the Science Museum
- Glen Dimplex Group
- Reviews of its products at Ciao!