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Jack Appleton and Stan Davenport set up their mortice lock manufacturing company in Wednesfield ...Jack Appleton, with experience as a representative from Erebus Manufacturing and Arthur Hough and Sons, set up a company manufacturing mortice locks with Stan Davenport, of H Davenport and Sons, within the premises at Wednesfield near Wolverhampton. Jack soon decided to form his own company where he made a range of mortice locks as well as factoring locks, keys and lock furniture, which he named M. D. Appleton, which was his wife's name. Jack's wife managed the business, whilst he was out and about visiting clients and customers to build up the company. As the business developed, the company expanded moving first to Croft Yard in Willenhall, before moving to Dimmingsdale in Willenhall in the early 1970's. However, shortly after the move the business was closed, and re-opened as Jack Appleton (Willenhall) Ltd who then sold under the brand name SECUREFAST. Following Jack's death in the late 1980's, the company was purchased by Honing Equipment of Cheltenham and in March 1990 they changed the name to SECUREFAST. The company later purchased Enoch Pinson who were located in the premises next to Securefast and manufactured the PINSON Padlocks and Shutter Locks. The business continued to operate as one company, under Paul Cranshaw who had joined the company in 1983, from the existing premises and sold under the two brand names. In 1997 David Sebre and Alex Reid purchased the business and formed a new company called Security Engineering plc. In 1998 they acquired Willenhall Engineering (Stockwell Industries), which manufactured the Old English Padlocks which was merged with the Pinson range. Duncan Crawley, the current Managing Director, was appointed in 1999, with a plan to expand the business and re-establish the SECUREFAST Brand. With the decline of the UK Lock Manufacturing in Willenhall, the company needed to expand in new areas of security products. Duncan saw the increasing growth opportunity for Access Control and the company established a relationship with Controlsoft, a South African company dealing with access control and hotel locking systems. The company continued to increase the turnover and profit margin by introducing new products into the lock range, such as Scandinavian Locks, Cylinders and Digital Locking which were manufactured outside the UK, with the original products, still made in the Willenhall factory. In 2004 the company changed the name to Securefast plc and in 2005 acquired the Colson brand name and Electrical Locking business from Avocet Hardware, who had previously taken over Colin & Sons, a leading wholesaler for the locking industry for many years. With the COLSON brand and expertise of Access Control, Securefast plc now had the foundations to build the business in the Security Locking market. To increase the product range Securefast plc purchased the DEEDLOCK Company and merged the range into the COLSON brand, to be able to offer DEEDLOCK Electro-Magnets and Electric Releases. The business continued to expand as COLSON became a major supplier for some of the leading brands in access control, such as Paxton, Trimec and ACT. The business continued to look at acquisitions and in 2007, they took over Tate, a company offering fire products and door entry kits, which was to blend into the current business. With the company expanding and now operating form three sites, TATE in Cheddar, COLSON in Southport and SECUREFAST in Willenhall, it was decided to re-structure its operation. In November 2008 the company set up its head office, warehouse and SECUREFAST sales at Cedar Business Centre in Cannock, with its Tele-sales and Technical team for Electrical and Fire products based at Southport and a new office base at Cheddar for its TATE sales and Door Entry assembly. Site Map: |
