Interview


Ellis’ 60th anniversary party


60 years at the top A


EW editor Bryony Andrews caught up with Danny MacFarlane, managing director at Ellis Patents, as the business celebrates its 60th anniversary.


S bomber pilot Arthur Ellis headed back to base, his chances of survival seemed slim. His plane was riddled with 100 bullet holes. One bullet had even destroyed the thermos bottle by his leſt thigh, but he managed, against phenomenal odds, to land safely. Today, he’s remembered as the entrepreneur who founded a Yorkshire company that today sells its electrical safety products around the world.


After a stint working on the roof of York Minster, where he taught himself how to pour lead to make decorative lead gargoyles, Mr Ellis decided that the future was plastic. So he moved into plastic injection moulding. In 1977 – 15 years after establishing the business – Mr Ellis decided that


26 | electrical wholesaler September 2022


he needed more space and moved to Rillington, near Malton, where its scale remained modest. By the time Mr Ellis retired in 1987, it employed just seven staff and the turnover was £470,000. The business was snapped up by Chris Calvert, the recently retired chairman, and a number of investors, who moved an injection moulding business from Hertfordshire to Rillington.


This year the company celebrates its 60th anniversary with a full-time staff of 60 in North Yorkshire, a global network of distributors in 50 diff erent export markets, and a profi le that means it’s virtually guaranteed that its cable cleats will be under consideration for any new major electrical installation anywhere in the world.


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