Thorn Lighting Ltd, a subsidiary of the Zumtobel Group, is a global supplier of both outdoor and indoor luminaires and integrated controls.
Thorn was founded when Sir Jules Thorn started The Electric Lamp Service Company Ltd, in 1928, dealing in incandescent filament lamps. In 1936, renamed Thorn Electrical Industries, the company was floated on the London Stock Exchange. Continuous post World War II expansion followed and the organisation seized a variety of lighting, engineering and consumer electronics businesses, merging with EMI in 1979 to create Thorn EMI, which itself demerged in the year 1996.
In 1994, following a leveraged management buy-out, Thorn Lighting Ltd floated on the London Stock Exchange as TLG plc (the Thorn Lighting Group) until it was acquired by Wassall plc four years later. In 2000, Wassall plc was purchased in order to merge TLG with the luminaire business of the Zumtobel Group, an acquisition financed with the assistance of private equity firm KKR who subsequently reduced its position. Thorn is now fully owned by the Zumtobel Group.
History
Birth of the company
The Thorn brand started life as the Electric Lamp Service Company Limited, established by Jules Thorn on 29 March 1928, importing incandescent filament lamps and radio valves from the continent. Faced with increased import duties, introduced to aid British manufacturing, Jules Thorn bought his first lighting factory, the Atlas Lamp Works Ltd in Edmonton, north London in 1932. In 1936 the company went public as Thorn Electrical Industries.
1940s and 1950s
The lamp businesses prospered until 1939 when production was geared to military needs. When war broke out a second lamp site, run by the Vale Royal Electric Lamp Company, was bought in nearby Tottenham in case Edmonton was bombed.
When World War II ended, Jules Thorn continued expansion through investing in new plants, partnerships and acquisitions, including the opening of an incandescent lamp operation in Merthyr Tydfil, South Wales in 1947; a technology transfer with Sylvania Electric Products to mass-produce tubular fluorescent lamps in Enfield, north London and taking over 51% of Ekco-Ensign Electric (Ekco) in 1950, which added a further incandescent lamp factory – in Preston, Lancashire.
In 1951, Thorn took over Smart & Brown (Engineers) Ltd's luminaire factory at Spennymoor, near Durham. In the mid-1950s specialist incandescent lamp factories were opened in Buckie, Scotland and in Wimbledon, London (the Omega Electric Lamp Works Ltd).
Between 1952 and 1964 Thorn established additional overseas connections, including a controlling interest in an Italian lamp manufacturer (SIVI Illuminazione SpA) and plants in Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, followed by agencies in the Middle East and Hong Kong, the latter with Jardine Pacific.
In September 1959 a new London-based headquarters was opened. Thorn House, designed by Sir Basil Spence, was at the time England's tallest office block.
1960s
In 1964, driven by the need to compete more effectively in world markets, Thorn merged its lighting interests with those of Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) to form British Lighting Industries Ltd, taking a controlling 65% share (the remaining 35% being acquired three years later). AEI Lamp and Lighting brought to the BLI group three significant lighting interests: British Thomson-Houston (BTH) which owned major factories, especially at Melton Road in Rushey Mead, Leicester in the East Midlands of England (producing discharge lamps) and in Hereford, near the Welsh border (making luminaires), and sold lamps under the ‘Mazda’ brand; Metropolitan-Vickers (MV) which drew supplies from the BTH factories, selling them under the 'Metrovick' brand; and the Edison & Swan Electric Light Company (Ediswan), which had recently transferred its factory at Ponders End and ‘Royal Ediswan’ brand over to BTH. Within a year of its formation BLI reorganised - consolidating laboratories, factories, and selling functions - to operate under just three main brands: Atlas, Mazda and Ekco (the remaining 49% interest in Ekco-Ensign being secured in 1966). Once complete, in 1969, the BLI name was changed to Thorn Lighting Ltd and subsequently the Ekco and Atlas brand names were replaced by the Thorn name.
Substantial export growth followed, quickly earning a Queen's Award for Export Achievement, in 1968, and five years later Romford Export Centre opened, stocking over 10,000 items.