COVER STORY
OF ENGINEERING EXCELLENCE 150 YEARS What an achievement; lift company Stannah is celebrating 150 years of
engineering expertise and insist that this is only the beginning of its story, Tomorrow’s FM finds out more.
In 1867 Joseph Stannah founded the company that first made its name making hoists and cranes for London’s dockyards. These were exciting times for aspiring engineers and signaled the very beginning of lifts being used as a means of vertical transport, something we take for granted today. Here are just a few engineering projects happening at the same time that Stannah was founded:
• In 1860 the first passenger lift in London was installed in the Grosvenor Hotel
• In 1863 the world’s first underground rail service, London’s Metropolitan Railway, was opened.
• In 1867 the foundation stone of the iconic Royal Albert Hall was laid by Queen Victoria.
• In 1867 the famous Paris Expo displayed ‘the world’s first working hydraulic lift’
THE RULES OF LIFE Joseph Stannah had strong principles and set out twelve
rules by which, he recommended, it was advisable to live your life to succeed in your ambitions. They make interesting reading (pictured right) – and the fifth- generation Stannah family, who now run the company, say they remain the foundation of their business ethos.
Joseph’s son, Albert Stannah, developed the company’s product range in the early 1900s. Albert’s son, Leslie followed his father in his love of engineering and ambitions
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to continue the business. Sadly, during WW2 the Stannah factory was destroyed and with no workforce, drawings or components available to him, Lt. Commander Leslie Stannah rebuilt the business from scratch using his reputable family name. His sons, current joint chairman and brothers, Brian and Alan Stannah, extended the product range further and in the 1970’s turbulent political times with the three-day week and miner’s strikes led the brothers to look for product diversification to supplement the downtime of the lift factory, thus, the Stannah Stairlift was born.
The brothers introduced service and goods lifts, continued to develop passenger and platform lifts and brought their four sons and one daughter into the family business that now employs over 1,700 people.
When asked what reaching this milestone means to the Stannah family, Jon Stannah, Group Managing Director said: “It means a great deal. Family is all about generations, the legacy left behind and the future generations that will continue to grow the business. We are very lucky to know the history of our company - this celebration is not just about the Stannah family, but also about the wider family that is the Stannah corporation.”
INNOVATION AND DIVERSIFICATION In 2017 Stannah remains a proudly British, family-owned
engineering company, looking forward to the challenges ahead. After 150 years of trading, today’s uncertain Brexit challenges are just another bump in the road.
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