History

The Biddle name has been associated with heating and innovation since 1929 when FH Biddle joined Mumford Bailey and Preston Limited as Company Secretary. In the same year the company established a joint venture with Trand (USA), with the objective of manufacturing and marketing convection heating equipment in the UK. This was a major advancement in the provision of heat and a year or two later ‘British Trane Co Ltd’ introduced industrial unit heaters to the British market.

In 1941 the company’s London premises were blitzed, forcing a move to Silesby in Leicestershire. Then in 1943 FH Biddle acquired the company in a management buyout and changed the name to the British Trane Co after buying a 50% share in the business.

The manufacturing base of the British Trane Co was established in Nuneaton, Warwickshire, in 1946 and by the mid-1950s a new company, FH Biddle Limited, was selling the products.

With FH Biddle’s technical, estimating and research capabilities combining well with British Trane’s manufacturing facilities the company went from strength-to-strength. The group, now known as FH Biddle Limited, established offices and showrooms around the world and head office was moved to Mayfair in London.

In the 1960s the company’s factory in Kootstertille in the Netherlands was purchased. Biddle continued to trade from the original Newtown Road factory in Nuneaton until 1985, when the company moved to its present site at St. Mary’s Road, Nuneaton.

Until recently the Biddle Group of Companies was owned by the Biddle family. However nowadays the company is part of Carver PLC – a midlands based group of manufacturing businesses.

With annual sales in excess of £12million the company still has research and manufacturing sites at Nuneaton in the UK and at Kootsttille in the Netherlands, and also has sales offices in France, Germany, Belgium and Canada.