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Alfred Herbert Ltd was the parent company of machine tool manufacturers which are still in existence and which have acquired the following past operating companies: Herbert B.S.A Ltd, Herbert Boring & Drilling Ltd, Churchill M/c Tool Co.Ltd, Herbert Associates, Herbert Small Tools & Equip.Ltd, Herbert Controls & Instruments Ltd, Herbert-Ingersoll Ltd, I.L. Berridge, Holbrook M/c Tool Co., Mudies Elec. Co., Sigma Instruments.
Its present UK Branches include Coventry; London; Glasgow; Rotherham; Bristol; Birmingham;
Gateshead; Manchester; Leeds. Its overseas branches are in Australia; Canada; India; France and Italy and USA. It has agents in 69 countries.
It was in 1889 that Alfred Herbert with an old school friend William Hubbard started a small business in Upper York Street Coventry under the name of Herbert & Hubbard to manufacture machines connected to the cycle trade. It later became known as Herbert Machine Tools Ltd and eventually grew into the world's largest machine toolmaking company. The Alfred Herbert Company was once the world's largest machine tool manufacturer, with a name comparable to Rolls Royce. Alfred Herbert died on 5th June 1957 and since the entrepreneur's death, the firm has been one of decline.
In 1980 Tooling Investments took over the firm, but with debts 3 years later of some seventeen million pounds led to the firm's collapse, and the Sale by Auction in October 1983 of the entire stock. At the time of the auction the workforce numbered 400, approximately the same as when Alfred Herbert declared it a private limited company in 1894.
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