General
Electric 1886
In
1886, an electrical wholesale company, G. Binswanger
and Company, run by Gustav Binswanger (later Byng)
was joined by another German immigrant, Hugo Hurst
(later Lord Hirst) and The General Electric Apparatus
Company was formed. It became a limited company,
and from 1903 it was known as ‘The General Electric
Co Ltd’. From the 1920s the company was involved
in the creation of the National Grid, and it was
a major supplier of electrical and engineering
products to the military during the Second World
War.
GEC
took over and merged with other companies over
the next few decades and moved from the domestic
electrical goods’ market towards electronics and
modern technology. It manufactured computers from
1956 to 1970, when it sold its computer division
to Honeywell. Notable GE computers include the
GE265 and the GE645. Although the company no longer
manufactures computers, it does use computer technologies
in its electronics, particularly for the defense
sector and medical imaging.
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