Key Dates:

1892/3: Lacombe opened offices in London (Finsbury Pavement) to market French brush and battery carbons in Great Britain. The company was started with just a manager, a representative and a few staff.

1924: Some years later Lacombe expanded to include a UK manufacturing base. Under the name of ‘Portslade Works Limited’ they produced wet cells known as accumulators (later to become the more familiar batteries). Units were assembled using French sourced carbon materials and locally sourced glass jars. This was the beginning of our association with the area using premises close to the port in Aldrington Basin.

1930s: A new name for the company is introduced ‘Le Carbone Limited’ was used for the first time in the 1930s.

1940s: During the war and in the absence of supplies from France production of dry cells took over from the wet cells previously manufactured. Materials were sourced solely from the UK during this period. Our AD513 dry cell proved particularly popular.

1947: With the Aldrington Basin site proving to be too small for our requirements the businesses re-located to a single site. Our ‘new’ premises already boasting 66 years of its own history being built in 1881 for the Dudney & Sons brewing company itself established in 1849. Production facilities were installed to allow local manufacture of all products using French and locally sourced materials.

1960s: The late sixties saw a diversification into new areas. The core brush market sector continued to be served with more efficiency allowing the introduction of a special Projects Division where our growing expertise could be devoted to experimental applications of our material. This was to form the backbone of the High Temperature Division we know today.

As the seventies opened, with rapid development in the bulk chemical industry there was a requirement for products to be developed to withstand high temperatures and corrosive atmospheres. Our Chemical Engineering Division was established in this era to serve this new market and has quickly emerged a world leader, diversifying into PTFE materials and products along the way.

1976: As Le Carbone continued to establish itself as a world leader in the development of carbon products and their derivatives battery production assumed a much less significant role until it was eventually sold in 1976. Following the disposal Le Carbone concentrated on our high temperature businesses fully refurbishing the building and developing our machining facilities and expertise.

1990 to Present: As our business grew it soon became clear that we needed to expand our facilities to increase our manufacturing capacity and capabilities. In 1997 we acquired the Ralph Coidan group of companies based in Stockton on Tees. Following restructuring they are now a valuable contributor as our Teesside Division. Later in 1999 a further acquisition was made of the Hot Glass Handling business from Johnson Radley. This was a business that we had already been supplying product to under the trade name Cerberite. Due to the close synergies of both companies it made sense geographically and structurally to combine this expertise at our Teesside Division to better serve our customer base.

Today we are proud of our history and achievements. We are a valuable contributor to the group using our local workforce combined with French and UK sourced materials to produce High specification products. A far cry from 1892 our modern organisation serves an extremely diverse market base that touches nearly every facet of modern living.