Akeron is an engineering company (Est. 1979) providing a wide range of products and services to many different industries, most notably in the lighting, shipping, metalwork, bar and catering fields. We are a small family-run business that is really a merger of three different companies, one founded by us and the rest successively acquired :

- S.L. Products	(Est. 1950)
- Essex Anchor Bolt Company	(Est. 1959 - Purchased 1961)
- Akeron	(Est. 1979 - Purchased 1981)

  In 1929, many years before the business was established, Samuel Lemel began trading as himself. He was a sheet-metal worker, producing all kinds of products out of metal; For instance stainless-steel signs for the original General Electric Company (founded either before or just after the First World War), and gramophone horns for the entertainment industry.
  After the Wall Street Crash, later that year, however, work became very difficult to obtain and so he was unable to keep going. In the hope that one day he could start up again, he kept in his basement, some house-tools, a few machines and equipment. In fact these items included a manual guillotine, jennies, metal benders and numerous hand and knocking-tools.
  During the war, he was generally working on munitions for other firms doing war work, but decided in 1944 to start up on his own again, trading as "S.Lemel" as before, but this time joined by his son, Alan. A relative lent him £150 and he built himself a shed in the garden with the help of a neighbour, who was a builder. From that shed, he made up many, many samples in tin-plate and copper, which he used to obtain orders from West-End stores including Gamages, Selfridges and a few others. These samples were tin kettles, of a heavy quality, biscuit-cutters of various shapes and sizes, copper teapots (chromium plated), pie warmers, urns, glove boxes for hospitals (for disinfecting instruments), tube-holders for laboratories, various bins and boxes, spittoons, cake tins, and many others. From this shed in Listria Park, Stoke Newington, he moved out into a workshop in Neville Road, Stoke Newington, which gave him more space, and the opportunity to obtain help in labour. When the family were living in Listria Park, we lived near "magic shops", and we used to make specialist equipment for them, such as magic cabinets and boxes with secret compartments.
  In 1950, we traded as a Partnership, "S.L. Products", formed from the initials of Samuel Lemel.
In the late 1950's, another son, Nathan, joined the family business. Nathan Lemel personally used to go about travelling all over London, looking for orders on foot, by bus or tube and was lucky enough to secure several orders, altogether totalling under £2000. Meanwhile, London was so bad with fogs and smog, and the air was so foul that the family decided it would be better to move out from London to the seaside town of Southend. As a result of fulfilling the above orders, the family had enough money to spend one week in Southend looking for private domestic accommodation and were able to put down a relatively large deposit on a bungalow, taking out a mortgage on it. For about a year, before moving to Southend, Samuel Lemel and his two sons went to work there daily, having taken a workshop in Grainger Road Industrial Estate of 800 square feet, and by 1960, the family had completely moved out of Listria Park, and now lived and worked in the same town.
  Being in 1960 on the Southend Grainger Road Industrial Estate, there was another firm called Essex Anchor Bolt Company Ltd, who were of interest to us because they specialised in iron work for the building trades; anchor bolts of all types and sizes; pipe clips and clamps of all types and sizes; pipe supports of all types; and U-Bolts. They employed a welder-plater, and also a blacksmith-welder. In 1961, S.L. products took over this firm for about £600. Unfortunately, however, not long after taking it over, there were not enough orders about and we were unable to keep on our two men mentioned above, and so we gave up the separate premises of Essex Anchor Bolt Company and did what work came in at No 22. Grainger Road Workshop.
  The next decade was one of great change for the company. In 1972, Alan left the company to found his own business. In 1973, the original proprietor Samuel Lemel passed away, and so the business came into the hands of Nathan, who became the new proprietor. In 1974 and 1977, Nathan had two sons, Julian and Adrian. It was evident from a very early age that Adrian had inherited the engineering "hands" of Samuel, constantly constructing things; initially out of paper, cutting up pieces and glueing them together, and then, when he became older, out of meccano. Later in the 1980's & beyond he would come to visit our subsequent factories on a regular basis, experimenting with the machinery.
  Back in the 1970's though, we had about 800 square feet of manufacturing capacity in the Grainger Road industrial estate. Having combined the iron-workshop of the Bolt company with our sheet-metal capacity of S.L. Products, we found that this area was not big enough. Consequently, we found a larger area for light industrial use in Rochford, recently vacated by Jegs, a local wholesale company who had moved away after expanding.
  At Rochford, we concentrated on sheet-metal work, our standard products, and iron work, which included bolts of all types, pipe brackets and small steel structures. We also added a wholesale nut and bolt service but found it was not viable after a 9 months trial. It also became evident, after two years at Rochford that the premises had a handicap regarding a limited access for vehicles and customers and so we decided to take over a detached premises at Swaines Estate, Rochford, of nearly 4000 square feet. This was about 1978. After another 3 or 4 years, we sold these premises and moved into a larger unit in an industrial complex in Brook Road near Rayleigh Weir. The premises had previously been a very large bakery. Meanwhile, in 1981, S.L. products took over a Lighting company called Akeron U.K. Ltd, which subsequently became our main trading name.
  During our time in Rayleigh, there was a big slump on in manufacturing and industry. We were desperate for work, to keep our full time staff occupied, but with interest rates climbing to over 15%, we were unable to support this venture and so in 1984-5, we moved out of this unit (which comprised about 8000 square feet) into Terminal Close, Shoeburyness, our present unit of less than half this area, where we are presently engaged.

      To be continued ... [as this site develops].

Further Outline Information :

Our leaflet, - An Introduction to Akeron, Main Products & Services -

PDF

To view this leaflet, you must have Adobe Reader (normally pre-installed on computers these days).
If you do not have Adobe Reader please click the button below to download it.