Wolseley UK

Wolseley UK
Company type	Privately held company
Founded	1887; 138 years ago (1887)
Headquarters	Warwick
Area served	United Kingdom
Owner	Clayton, Dubilier & Rice
Website	www.wolseley.co.uk

The company traces its roots to The Wolseley Sheep Shearing Machine Company, founded in 1889 in London by Frederick Wolseley with £200,000 in investor capital. He had patented a sheep shearing invention in March 1877. Herbert Austin, who had worked on the product's development in Melbourne Australia from 1887, was appointed its manager and received a share of its equity.^[1]

Wolseley, owner of a large sheep station, had set up a business of the same name in Sydney, Australia, in 1887. He manufactured the sheep shearing machinery largely by assembling bought-in components.^[1]

His first sheep shearing machinery was driven by horse power, replaced later by stationary engines. Following wide demonstrations in eastern Australia and New Zealand in 1887–1888, a woolshed in Louth, New South Wales, was set up with the machinery and was the first to complete a shearing with the machines. Eighteen more woolsheds were equipped with Wolseley's invention in 1888.^[2] The Australian incorporation was wound up and the business's ownership transferred to the new London company in 1889 but operations were retained in Australia.^[1]

There is a Wolseley brand two-stand portable shearing plant in the collection of the National Museum of Australia in Canberra.^[3]

In the early 1890s, Austin studied Wolseley's shearing machinery in use on a large sheep station and patented several improvements. In 1893, it was discovered they had sold a large amount of defective machinery, brought about by the failure of local suppliers to meet the required specifications. Austin was sent to England to open a manufacturing operation. In November 1893, Wolseley and Austin arrived in England, where Austin managed the business from a small workshop in Broad Street, Birmingham. Wolseley, with his Australian pastoral interests, resigned in 1894 because of poor health.^[1]

Austin's first Wolseley four-wheel car 1899

Seeking other suitable products, Austin designed his first car in 1896, and for the next four years, continued to develop and improve his designs. Though the board did allow Austin to purchase some machinery to build cars, they decided around 1900, it was unlikely to be a profitable industry. In 1901, Wolseley Motors was acquired by Vickers.^[1]

The postwar rise of synthetic textiles sharply reduced the demand for wool and the necessary machinery, and in 1960, Wolseley diversified activities by buying Nu Way Heating Limited.

In 1965, Wolseley purchased Granville Controls and Yorkshire Heating Supplies.

In 1982, it entered the market in the United States by acquiring Ferguson Enterprises, a distributor of plumbing supplies, with around 50 branches on the East Coast of the United States, for $30.7 million.^[4]

In 1984, the company sold its Wolseley and Hughes engineering businesses, and since that time Wolseley has been mainly a distribution business.

Plumb Center was acquired in 1985.

In 2003, the company acquired Bathstore. It was sold in 2012.^[5]

In 2005, the company moved its headquarters from Ripon, Yorkshire, to Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.^[6]

In November 2007, during the Great Recession, the company cut 3,000 jobs in the United States, approximately 5% of its workforce.^[7]

In 2010, Wolseley ended its participation in the hire industry, selling Brandon Hire for £43 million.^[8]

In 2011, it sold Build Center to Jewsons.^[9]

In 2013, the company sold Electric Center to Edmundson Electrical.^[10]

In 2018, the company relocated from Leamington Spa to Warwick.^[11]

In January 2021, Wolseley UK was sold by Ferguson to Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, a private equity firm, for £308 million.^[12]

In July 2021, the company bought Graham Plumbers' Merchant stores after Saint-Gobain divested the business.^[13]

History

References

External links

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