Morphy Richards

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Morphy Richards is a leading business firm located in the Swinton Meadows Industrial Estate, Swinton near Mexborough, South Yorkshire.

It specialises in the manufacturing of toasters, hairdryers, bread makers, kettles and sandwich toasters and other appliances. In its early stage it also made refrigerators and washer-dryers, but these would be later made by Hotpoint. It is owned by the Irish Glen Dimplex electronics group. They also make Digital Radio Mondiale-compatible digital radios, one of very few companies to do so.

Donal Morphy and Charles Richards formed the company on July 8th 1936 in St Mary Cray in Kent. In 1947, it became a public company and merged with Astral, a company in Dundee, Scotland that made spin dryers and refrigerators. In 1949, they produced their first automatic toaster which used a bi-metallic strip. In 1953, they produced their first hairdryer and claimed to have 90% of the market six years later. By 1957, they were the UK's leading provider of electric blankets. 40% of products were exported and overseas subsidiaries were established in Canada, Australia and South Africa. Morphy did not like the huge expansion of the company, but Richards thought it was too slow. Morphy sold his share of the company to EMI in 1960, and the company was taken over by GEC. In 1966, it became part of British Domestic Appliances (BDA), which was formed when AEI Hotpoint and EMI merged their domestic appliance division. The domestic appliance manufacture was moved to the Swinton Works at Mexborough and in 1970, the original St Mary Cray factory was closed. In the 1970s, BDA were the UK's largest manufacturer of domestic appliances. BDA changed its name to Hotpoint in 1975, with small domestic appliances marketed under the Morphy Richards name.

In 1982, the company was sold for £5m to a holding company of the Throgmorton Trust. The company began to make audio equipment and TVs and expand its product range. The workforce of the Mexborough plant was about 400. In 1985, it was taken over by Glen Dimplex. In the late 1980s, the company was once again very successful with advances in electronics making their way into domestic appliances. In the 1990s, the product range grew much larger. Consumers, due to repair costs, would now buy a new appliance than have an older one fixed.