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The History and Origins of the Old Paint Company |
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This page gives a simple outline of the old BJN companies for more information click the individual logos |
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LEWIS BERGER & Sons In 1760 Louis Amelius Christanus Adolphus Steigenberger came to England from Frankfurt and by 1770 his name was shortened to Lewis Berger and he was manufacturing pigments in East London ~ initially in Limehouse. He moved to Homerton in 1780. The company slowly developed a number of manufacturing sites around the world. The company trade mark logo pre-WW II is shown on the right ~ Mercury, the messenger to the Gods. |
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The company adopted a new logo after the second world war. In the 1950 the Company had to move from Homerton to make way for a new trunk road [that was never built]. The Chadwell Heath site in Essex already supported a small factory making nitro cellulose paints and this site was developed in the 1950’s to accommodated a new offices, paint and resin production plants, laboratories and warehouses on the site ............... read more |
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JOHN HALL & Sons Financed by his father, John Hall started in business as a glazier in in Bristol in1788. He diversified into paint which became the company’s main business in the late 19th century. The original John Hall logo is reproduced on the right. |
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Originally most paint companies sold to professional painters, coach makers, etc, who often made up their own colours by mixing pastes, oils and lacquers. John Hall was the first paint company to offer the general public decorative paints made to a professional quality. The company had one of the best remembered logos in the paint industry ~ 'Painter Bill' The Company was purchased by JENSON & NICHOLSON in 1948 |
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JENSON & NICHOLSON Jenson & Nicholson started life as a manufacturer of coach paints in 1821, although the company did not bear that name till 1861. It was based in Carpenters Road Stratford. In 1958 they acquired Cuprinol. Like the Berger group of companies, Jenson & Nicholson had created a number of factories round the world. |
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BERGER, JENSON & NICHOLSON aka .. BJN In the summer of 1960 Lewis Berger & Sons merged with JENSON & NICHOLSON to form Berger, Jenson & Nicholson [B.J.N.] In 1969 BJN purchased BRITISH PAINTS from Celanese. This made the ‘Berger Group’ one of the largest paint groups in the world. A list of Group companies is on the BJN Companies List page. |
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BRITISH PAINTS The original company of British Paints was J. Dampney & Co in Cardiff. They acquired a pigment factory in Tyneside in 1923 and began paint manufacture there shortly afterwards. They merged with British Anti-Fouling Paints in 1930. Please note: we believe there was logo trade mark for British paints with a compass as the theme. A copy of this would be most welcome |
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HPG In 1968, the group which by this time had 43 factories in sixteen countries around the world, was purchased by Farbewerke Hoechst and merged with the German company Herberts. The UK area of operation became know as HPG. In 1983 the HPG group purchased Ault and Wiborg Paints who were based in Perivale. Production was transferred to the Chadwell Heath site. The decorative paint business was sold off to Williams Holdings and later purchased by Crown Sadly, Hoechst sold the group to DuPont in 1996 ~ and with the great American love for tradition, the last of the UK sites closes in 2005 ...........… and the rest, as they say, "is history". |
HPG There was no logo for this company and the title HPG had no official meaning. |
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Ault & Wiborg This part of the website is being developed. The two logos on the right are from a sales brochure circa 1960.
We are still looking for more information regarding the history of the Glasso/General Industrial Paints/Ault & Wiborg factories |
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Resinous Chemicals This part of the website is being developed ~ We are starting to get some history and background but need photos, visuals, etc. |
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Cuprinol This part of the website gives the background of the Cuprinol up to the sale of the business to ICI. It covers the history of the site, history of the product, its manufacture and development. If anyone has any photos, maps, press cuttings, etc, of the old Frome site, we would like to include them on this website. |
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| Anecdotal History | |||||||||||
| OPEN ~ .. but in development stages! - have you anything to offer? | |||||||||||
| Memories of 49 years Service ... by Alan Newnham | |||||||||||
| The Cost of Painting ~ early 19th Century |
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A more detailed history appears on individual pages on this website ~ simply double click the individual logo for further details |
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The Friends of the Old Paint Company would like to thank the following for the information and materials received in developing this website:
Bill Storey, George Murphy, Dick Woodbridge, John Cain, Brian Law, Geoff Pink, Ron Stanfield, Ken Arbuckle, Bob Hanson, Jack Hamer, Mike Sayles, Brian Davies, Bill Crisp, Richard Banwell, Arthur Hopgood, Bart Kent, John Balfour, Bob Batey, Bruno Giordan, PatGoodwin, Derk Aldis, John Crookes |
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