History
Healey and Sprowson Ltd was established in January 1970 by Tim Healey and Keith Sprowson, both of whom had previously worked for a company called Hilton & Tuck Ltd.
Hilton & Tuck Ltd. was originally founded in 1946 by Claude Hilton and Ian Tuck, both of whom had recently been demobbed and were looking for work. John Healey, Tim’s father and a friend of Claude and Ian, suggested that they looked into the Decorative Plating Industry. He found and installed a Plating Plant in stables in Urmston, Manchester, for them to decoratively plate car door handles & bumper bars etc. As John was at the time already working elsewhere installing and managing a plant in Dudley plating Laystall Engineering Cylinder Liners for the car industry, he was only able to assist at the plant every other weekend.
John was also experimenting in his garden shed in Wolverhampton with hard chrome plating mould tools for the plastics industry.
After three years, John decided to move with his family to Manchester and join Claude and Ian full time, forming three equal partnerships within Hilton and Tuck Ltd.
The Company gradually built up to become one of the largest plating and grinding companies in Europe with over 200 employees, with factories in Wythenshawe, Weaste, Pendleton, Kirby (Liverpool) and Beverley in Yorkshire. They sold out to GKN in 1967.
Tim & Keith worked at Hilton & Tuck Ltd. for 10 and 5 years respectively then in 1970 they set up ‘Healey & Sprowson Ltd’, for the purpose of Grinding, Hard Chrome Plating and Re-furbishing Rollers and Hydraulic Piston Rams for most manufacturing industries – Steel, plastics, glass etc. and also Mirror Finishing of Rolls.
Tim and Keith have now retired and Mike & Tony, their respective son’s, now run the company.