Established in 1899 as Denham's Patent Bottling Machine Co., Ltd., by cabinetmaker William Denham. Their first location was in Halifax. After regrouping from early failures the company introduced a lathe and a slotting machine, and these products were successful. In 1907 the name changed to Denham Engineering Co., and in 1912 the business relocated to a building in the nearby railway junction village of Holmfield (which has since virtually disappeared). The company survived until 1982 when the hard assets were auctioned off and the business remnants were merged into Churchill Machines Tools.
Before World War II the company specialized in smaller lathes. During the war, a company with the unlikely name of Keighley Lifts as well as another company called Henry Milnes manufactured clones of a Denham lathe in support of the war effort. In the post-war era Denham Engineering made some larger lathes
Information Sources
- Much of the history here is cribbed from the lathe.co.uk Denham page. The webmaster, Tony Griffiths, can provide catalogs, parts list and handbook for some Denham lathes; see the link near the top of his Denham page.
- We learned of this maker via an owwm.org forum discussion.