Avon Rubber

The business was established when a cloth mill, known as Avon Mill, on the banks of the River Avon at Limpley Stoke, which had been producing timber but had later diversified into rubber goods, was acquired by Messrs E G Browne and J C Margetson in 1885.[2]

Avon military dry diving suit label

Avon wellington boot markings

By 1890 the business had transferred to premises in Melksham and was named The Avon India Rubber Company Limited.[2] Products at this time included solid tyres, conveyor belts and components for railways. By 1900, pneumatic tyres for bicycles were being produced, and by 1906 the first car tyres were advertised.[2] The company acquired the Sirdar Rubber Works at Greenland Mill in Bradford on Avon in 1915.[2]

The company was floated on the London Stock Exchange in 1933. It acquired the rival company of George Spencer Moulton in 1956, bringing with it Abbey Mills and Kingston Mills in Bradford on Avon, and a jointly owned plant in Paris.[2]

In June 1958, an advertisement appeared in the British Sub-Aqua Club journal Triton to publicise the "Typhoon dry diving suit manufactured by the Avon India Rubber Co. Ltd. exclusively for E. T. Skinner Co. Ltd.".[3] For many years, Avon Rubber also produced back-entry dry diving suits for military use. The company also moulded lined "Stonehenge" brand wellington boots at a time when such footwear was manufactured by calendering or dipping processes.[4]

Production started on a range of inflatable boats in 1959.[2] In 1994 the Llanelli-based marine business Avon Inflatables was split-off and sold; it subsequently became a division of Zodiac Marine, France.[5]

In 1997 the Avon Tyres business was sold to Cooper Tire & Rubber Company of Findlay, Ohio in the United States, leaving the company to concentrate on its core businesses of automotive components, technical products and protective equipment.[6]

In March 2000, Avon moved its activities at a manufacturing and head office facility at Hampton Park West, south of Melksham.[7]

In June 2005, Avon purchased International Safety Instruments, Inc., based in Lawrenceville, Georgia, USA. Avon-ISI is a manufacturer of SCBA, APR, and thermal imaging systems for fire, law enforcement and industrial applications.[8]

In August 2006, the Avon Automotive division was sold to a US-based management team and became a separate entity called Avon Automotive Holdings Inc.; this was the largest buy-out in the company's history. The aerosol division was sold for £1.75 million in March 2008 to Avon Group (an unrelated Bristol-based company), enabling Avon Rubber to concentrate on its core protective equipment, dairy and extrusions markets.[9]

In November 2008, the mixing plant at Westbury was sold to ATR Compounding Ltd, a division of SPC UK, a compounder of rubber based in Whitby.[10]

The company, which had a long history of manufacturing respirators – including the S6 NBC Respirator, a gas mask used by the British armed forces from the 1960s, and the S10 from the 1980s – began to supply the M50 mask to United States forces in 2009.[11]

• Robert Fuller, son of George Pargiter Fuller, was managing director in 1927[12]
• Charles Floyd (1905–1971), chairman 1955–68[13]