H W Kearns & Co Ltd was a machine tool manufacturing business set up by Henry Ward Kearns in 1907. The company went public in 1955, before becoming part of the Staveley Group in June 1967. The Group closed the George Richards factory and combined the two companies under the one roof at the Kearns factory, under the name Kearns-Richards.

The British Thomson-Houston Co. Ltd., (BTH) was created as a subsidiary of the General Electric Company, USA in 1896 to exploit the sale of products in the United Kingdom. BTH was a reconstruction of an existing firm, Laing, Wharton and Down (1886). The BTH manufacturing works were based at Rugby, Warwickshire and the company’s products included induction motors, alternators, switchgear, turbo-generators and turbines, as well as a large number of rotary converters and motor converters, primarily for chemical plants. During the First World War, BTH’s most significant contribution was the development of marine apparatus for the naval service. The 1920s saw a period of vast expansion for the company with new extensions built at many of its factories such as Willesden, Birmingham, Chesterfield and Lutterworth. BTH amalgamated with Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company Ltd to form Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) in 1928 although both companies retained their separate identities and continued to compete for the same contracts. BTH developed manufactured electric torpedoes and electrical components for aircraft engines, munitions, etc., during the Second World War and in 1935 independently of each other, BTH and Metropolitan-Vickers were the first two companies in the world to construct jet engines.

Founded in 1891 by Gerard Philips in Eindhoven, producing carbon filament lamps. In 1918, the company began to diversify its product range becoming a pioneer in many new technologies including medical x-ray tubes, vacuum tubes, radios, audio and video cassettes, CDs and DVDs.