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E. Elliott Limited
 Edwin Elliott was born in Birmingham,
England in 1878. He started work in a machine
shop before going into the jewellery trade, but
his eyesight was not up the task so he became
office boy at the Birmingham branch of a firm
from Hamburg. He learned German at evening class,
also with the help of two Austrian friends. In
1903, one of them returned to Austria and Edwin
took over his job which was selling imitation
jewellery stones.
In 1909 Elliott started his own
business at 55, Frederick Street, Birmingham as
an importer and manufacturer's agent, Galalith
casein plastics material being one of his imports.
He soon began machining the material to his
customers' requirements. He was also agent for a
manufacturer of spectacle lenses, but in 1911 he
bought them out and developed it into The British
Optical Lens Company. Supplies of Galalith dried
up because of the First World War but fortunately
Erinoid had just started to make casein plastics
in England.
In 1916 Elliott moved to larger
premises in Warstone Lane which took both sides
of his business under one roof. After the war,
the company expanded the machining of Erinoid
casein into beads, knobs, manicure sets, etc. and
started to produce compression mouldings in
Bakelite. The Warstone Lane premises soon became
too small so the company moved to premises in
Brearley Street. Here, in 1926 their first
transfer moulding press was installed and Elliott's
became one of the largest suppliers of radio
components, claiming to be the first large scale
producer of moulded radio cabinets for Telsen in
1928.
1933 saw the installation of an
Isoma injection moulding machine - the first of
its kind in Britain. To cope with demand, Elliott's
bought the moulding section of Messrs. Harrison (Birmingham)
Ltd. in Cheapside and became a private limited
company in 1935.
 In addition
to custom moulding, a range of items under their
own trademark (L-yacht) were produced. Optical
and moulding sides of Elliott's business combined
to produce cameras, such as the VP Twin, with its
Bolco (British Optical Lens Co.) lens - he also
moulded cameras for Coronet, including the Midget
and Vogue. Optical and moulding operations also
combined to produce self-selection spectacles for
sale in Woolworth's (this was eventually stopped
by the Optician's Act of 1958).
Business expanded and a new
factory covering 18,000 square ft. was leased at
Bescot Crescent, Walsall in 1937. By 1938,
Elliott's workforce totalled 700. The optical
department at Summer Lane received a direct hit
with incendiary in 1940 and suffered considerable
damage - a second bomb in 1941 also destroyed
much of the moulding side (including all company
records) - all machinery that could be rescued
was transferred to Bescot Crescent. The Summer
Lane factory was re-built and E. Elliott Ltd.
became a public limited company in 1950.
The business began by Edwin
Elliott and from which he did not retire until he
was eighty-eight closed in 1982.
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