The History of Tangye 1957 – present

In the late sixties Tangye was sold to the Central Wagon Group who historically were known as ‘asset strippers’, after the purchase they decided to sell off the Cornwall site and they moved Tangye into premises in Birmingham also occupied by the Shelly company who manufactured mechanical car jacks. From this is was decided that all products previously manufactured by Tangye were discontinued and only the ship jack and aluminium jack manufacturing was retained.

At this point the Central Wagon Group owned another asset known as Eric Peel & Co (better known as EPCO). They were the leading garage equipment manufacturer at that time and they supplied products such as trolley jacks, garage presses and cranes. Tangye and EPCO were then merged into one to become Tangye EPCO Ltd with manufacturing in both Birmingham and Leeds.

However, after some financial difficulties Central Wagon were forced to sell Tangye EPCO to the Booker Group who wanted to diversify their business model as they had existing businesses in the Grocery and Publishing industry. The group continued to manufacture from their Birmingham and Leeds branches and the ownership lasted 3 years before a management buyout by the Managing and Engineering Directors.

This arrangement was short lived as they sought help from the West Midlands Enterprise Board who agreed to help and they proceeded appointed their own Managing Director. After experiencing some labour problems Tangye and EPCO got split up to be sold as separate entities and they reverted back to the products they specialised in before the merger.

Tangye then went on to be acquired by the Turner & Newall Group (also known as Hydratight). Hydrotight manufactured Hydraulic Rope Pullers and Torque Multiplier equipment. Tangye had a strong period of relative stability which attracted interest by the Allspeeds Group (part of the GEI group), in 1994 Allspeeds purchased Tangye and moved all the operations from Birmingham to Accrington.

The Allspeeds group already had ownership of three companies known as Variators, John Blake and Webtool (which was a direct competitor of Tangye). After a few years the GEI group came up against financial difficulties and another management buyout was accepted to acquire the Allspeeds group.

The Allspeeds group is still operating successfully today and now consists of the four companies aforementioned plus Millingford which manufactures sub surface sucker rod pumps for the oil industry.

All of the manufacturing takes place in the Allspeeds complex in Accrington and Tangye is now the only aluminium jack range that Allspeeds manufacture (along with other branded products).
Tangye has endured a lot of mergers, de-mergers and acquisitions but the name still lives on!