Fenwick Groupe

The Fenwick Groupe is a French engineering company, established in 1862, located in Saint-Ouen on the northern outskirts of Paris. Its headquarters are in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.

History

Fenwick was founded as an export company in 1862. Most of its trade was with the United States. A meeting in 1878 led to the import of American made hair clippers. These sold well and other imports such as bicycles, typewriters and lifting equipment followed.[1]

In 1927, the French franc collapsed against the dollar making American goods prohibitively expensive. Consequently, Fenwick obtained a licence to build Yale forklift trucks in France and so diversified into manufacturing.[1]

In 1951 Fenwick obtained a licence to manufacture Lambretta scooters in France. Approximately 200,000 of these were built by 870 employees at factory at Saint-Julien-les-Villas in Troyes. Production stopped in 1960 when demand fell.[2]

At its peak in 1970, the company employed 1,150 staff at the Saint-Julien-les-Villas plant, which was also used to manufacture forklifts. The plant closed in 1984 with the loss of 515 jobs. The factory's forklift production was taken over by Linde and a new subsidiary called Fenwick-Linde was created.[2]

See also

References
  1. Histoire de FENWICK
  2. "De Lambretta à Fenwick : la saga de l'usine phare de Saint-Julien". Archived from the original on 2011-10-09. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
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