A Pocket History of Drake & Scull

The history of Drake & Scull begins with two companies - Drake & Gorham and Arthur Scull & Son. Both companies were founded by Victorian entrepreneurs with inventive minds, a talent for business and remarkable energy and vision.

Bernard Drake was born in 1858, the eldest of nine children. On reaching the age of 19, he announced that he wanted to become an industrial engineer - not a military engineer like his father. When the outraged Colonel Mervin Drake finally calmed down, he managed to obtain an introduction for his son to Sir Joseph Whitworth, a celebrated engineer.

Bernard worked at Whitworth's works in Manchester for four years. In his spare time he studied the exciting new trade of electrical engineering. At the age of 23, he left to join the Brush Electrical Company. Three years later, he moved again, to become Managing Engineer with the Electrical Power Company at the princely salary of £300 per year. It was here that he met Marshall Gorham, the firm's Works Manager.

Marshall Gorham, like Bernard Drake, was a brilliant inventor. The two men soon found that they worked well together and combined their inventive talents. Over the next 15 years, they invented and patented an astonishing number of devices, including an electronic recording system, a table lamp, an electric sign, a device for purifying exhaust fumes and a primitive type of outboard motor.

Drake & Gorham
In 1886, aged 28, Bernard Drake borrowed £500 from a wealthy aunt to form a new company, Drake & Gorham. The two partners had a clear and simple objective — to install electricity into private houses. Both Bernard Drake and Marshall Gorham had impeccable credentials. Both men had installed electric lighting into the homes of European Kings (Drake for Alphonso XIII of Spain and Gorham for Charles I of Romania). For England's Victorian gentry there could be no better recommendation.

During the 1880s the partners installed electricity into the great country houses of Britain - places too remote to be served by the mains supply. Sightseers gathered, whispering in awe as the windows of the houses were magically illuminated and night turned into day. The Company's major breakthrough came in 1893 when Drake & Gorham won the contract for installing electricity into Chatsworth House, the Derbyshire seat of the Duke of Devonshire and one of the greatest stately homes in England. Forty reporters came to cover the completion of the contract. After that, the volume of work increased steadily.

In May 1901, Drake & Gorham became a limited liability company with a capital of £125,000 divided into £1 shares. During the pre-war period, Bernard Drake and Marshall Gorham expanded the range of the Company's activities. The Company began doing a lot of business in the great cotton mills of Lancashire and Yorkshire. Initially they installed lighting systems. But Bernard Drake soon saw an opportunity to install electric motors to replace the old steam powered engines.

The first few months of the war had little effect on civilian life in Britain. But by 1915 the economy had changed drastically to cope with the war effort. Drake & Gorham was engaged in electrical installations for military camps, hospitals, munitions factories, engineering works and an airplane factory. The firm's profits rose steadily throughout the war years. But after the end of the war came the Depression. Only a number of major mill conversions, a successful venture into electrically powered vehicles and an award for a huge electrical installation at the Bank of England kept the Company safety in profit. Unfortunately, Bernard Drake never saw this contract completed. He died suddenly in 1931 at the age of 73.

Hamlyn Drake
Hamlyn Drake was 32 years old when he became Chairman. Like his father, he was a shrewd businessman with an inventive turn of mind. During the Depression, he consistently refused to lower the standard of workmanship or materials. Instead, he concentrated on diversifying the business.

In 1938, the firm's order books began to change, showing a number of large contracts for RAF aerodromes. Drake & Gorham's factories switched to war work, manufacturing parts for Churchill tanks and equipment for military aircraft. This work was carried out under the most difficult of conditions. Many skilled men joined, or were conscripted, into the forces. Government work meant long delays in payment. Drake & Gorham had to rely on unusually large overdrafts to finance this great increase in activities during the war.

At the end of the war, the Board of Directors took a bold decision - to expand the Company. The policy was a success and the 1950s and 1960s saw Drake & Gorham winning a number of key contracts both in the UK and overseas. By 1963 the firm had become a worldwide business, employing around 2,000 people and producing an annual profit of £300,000. But for some years the directors had been looking for a means of further expansion that would place the Company in the field of multi-service contracting. Their aim would dovetail into those of Drake & Gorham. There was one company that was ideally suited for such a merger, a company that had often worked alongside Drake & Gorham and had much in common. This was Arthur Scull & Son; a Bristol based plumbing, heating and ventilation company.

Arthur Scull
Arthur Stanley Scull was born in Bristol in 1860, one of 11 children. The Sculls were not a wealthy family and, at the age of 14, Arthur was apprenticed to G. F. Tuckey, Master Plumber.

After financing his indentures, Arthur rented a small workshop in Milk Street, Bristol. For the first few years, his "sanitary engineering" business remained small and Arthur could not even afford a handcart for the transport of tools and fittings. But by 1899 he was employing two Plumbers and their Mates, plus an apprentice, William Rudman, who was eventually to become a Director of the Company and a close family friend of the Sculls. The firm began to specialise in the repair of church roofs, which were then largely made of lead. The high quality of their work soon led to jobs on country houses, the first being "Giencof' at Wookey Hole. Arthur Scull began making his reputation for country housework at the same time as Bernard Drake was making his reputation at Chatsworth House.

The Company grew in size and prosperity. During the 1900s the firm began winning major commercial contracts including hospitals, municipal buildings, factories and some of the finest private houses in the land. Arthur Scull was full of confidence. The Company had grown steadily for 23 years and was still expanding both at home and overseas.

Unfortunately, the early archives of the Company were destroyed by firebombs in 1941. But it is clear that the business did not do well during the Great War. Another blow came in 1916 when Arthur brought his son into the firm to learn the business. Ten days later the boy announced he had joined the army. Arthur, enraged, threatened to tell the authorities the lad's real age. He eventually calmed down and Anthony spent the next three years in the trenches of the Western Front.

When he returned to civilian life in 1919, Anthony found the Company sadly depleted. But he soon showed a remarkable talent for business and his energy and enthusiasm began winning contracts. In fact, the firm's order book grew so fast that his father struggled to find finance for the extra work. In 1925, Arthur took his son into the business as a full partner and the firm became Arthur Scull & Son. Anthony not only increased the Company's country house work but he also greatly enlarged the range of contracts. He secured work on cinemas, hotels and office blocks, and most significantly, won some of the earliest public housing contracts.

Early in 1928 Arthur Scull decided to retire. That same year Anthony Scull was appointed Chairman and Managing Director and William Rudman; the Company's first Apprentice became a Director. The Great Depression caused serious problems for the Company. But Anthony Scull refused to compromise on quality. By careful economies and planning, the Company continued to obtain its share of contracts. During the Second World War the Company was kept busy all over the country carrying out plumbing and heating work in aircraft factories, air fields, service and evacuation camps, munitions factories, foundries, mills and military hospitals. When the war ended the Company was in a strong position. Local Authorities were keen to get back to house building and widespread German bombing had created an enormous backlog of work. Arthur Scull & Son was one of many companies that helped to rebuild the city of Bristol.

In 1948, the Company undertook remedial work on Bristol Cathedral. This lead to further contracts, most noticeably the roofing of Sir Giles Gilbert Scott's magnificent Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool - a building second only in size to St Peters in Rome. During the 1950s, the Company continued to expand, working on Lloyd's new building in the City of London and Battersea Fun Fair. By 1963, the Company achieved a record profit of £76,569, employing 1,200 staff.

Merger
The merger negotiation between the companies of Drake & Gorham and Arthur Scull & Son was carried out in secrecy during the first month of 1964. When the merger was complete, the Drake & Scull Engineering Company was formed and divided into four Regions, operating from London, Bristol, Manchester and Glasgow.

The new company soon embarked on multi-service contracts, working on various hospital, government, commercial and industrial work, university buildings, public authority work and overseas contracts. After its first year, the Company showed a profit of £364,762 before tax, both parties having made record profits. Two years later, in March 1966, Anthony Scull retired as Director and Deputy Chairman of the Company after 51 years in the business.

The late 1960s were a time of unprecedented expansion for Drake & Scull. The Company acquired Sturtevant Engineering Company Ltd, the historic firm of Holland, Hannen and Cubbit and Chiltern Electric, a switchgear manufacturing company. It also expanded into Scotland following the purchase by James Coombe Ltd. By the end of 1969, the Company was employing 10,900 people in the UK alone with a profit of £1,467,623.

In August 1983, the Company merged with Simon Engineering Group, a holding company with around 50j trading subsidiaries, mostly in the manufacturing business. But 1987 saw a rural electrification project in Nigeria go badly wrong. It reminded the board of the difficulties they had been experiencing understanding the rewards and risks of mechanical and electrical contracting. In 1988 Simon Engineering announced its intention to sell Drake & Scull.

A new start under EMCOR
The favoured buyer was a young US company called JWP - a group of specialist mechanical and electrical contractors. An early spin-off of the new relationship was the award of the E50 million Canary Wharf contract. This was soon followed by a facility management contract for British Airways, which marked Drake & Scull's coming of age as a premier facility services provider. The Company's facility services division grew from a starting turnover of £8 million to a profitable £68 million in only five years.

This success and the award of the £75 million Jubilee Line Extension contracts softened the blow of the early 1990s recession. In December 1994 Drake & Scull's US parent company radically restructured and emerged, phoenix-like, under the new name, EMCOR. It soon became apparent on Wall Street that the company had completed a remarkable turnaround in fortune.

By the beginning of 1996 the UK recession had finally come to an end. All economic indicators were pointing to a period of strong, healthy growth. Drake & Scull's facility services division now had a turnover in excess of £100 million, it's contracting division was increasing market share and in September 1996 it launched a new South African facility services company in a joint venture with the Tsebo Outsourcing Group (formerly known as the Fedics Outsourcing Group). But most importantly the Company had committed itself to a major culture change underpinned by four core values, designed to make the Company more efficient and effective: commitment to customer satisfaction; commitment to quality; recognition of the individual; integrity and openness.

From its humble beginnings Drake & Scull Engineering Ltd has developed into a world class engineering and facility services provider with a turnover of around £350 million. Now, with the backing of the $2.2 billion EMCOR Group, the Company is ideally positioned to take advantage of the new opportunities.

Drake & Scull FM (SA) (PTY) Ltd
In September 1996, DSTS launched a new South African facility services company in a joint venture with the Tsebo Outsourcing Group (formerly known as the Fedics Outsourcing Group). Facilities Management had taken off in the UK during the late eighties, and by the mid-nineties Britain was a world leader in the field. South Africa, however, still had a largely untapped market. The venture was enthusiastically supported by EMCOR, who had themselves drawn on Drake & Scull’s expertise in the FM business. The new business flourished as clients saw the gains that could be achieved by outsourcing their non-core activities. All it lacked was a flagship contract to signal its arrival as a major player on the world scene. This finally came in 1999 when Drake & Scull South Africa won the R170 million Standard Bank Contract for the facilities management of the Bank’s head office in Johannesburg.

Drake & Scull offered a complete package of service to help reduce overheads and improve standards as well as allowing the Bank to focus its effort on its core business. The scope of the services covered everything from space management, help desk and cleaning to managing the catering, mail room and maintenance.

DRAKE & Scull FM (SA) (Pty) Ltd now wholly South African
In August 2004, Drake & Scull FM (SA) Pty Ltd negotiated the sale of 50% ownership by EMCOR Drake & Scull to a BEE investor and this resulted in Tsebo Outsourcing Group acquiring full ownership of DSFM. The 41.6% BEE ownership presents itself through Ethos Private Equity, Nozala Investments Holdings & Siphumelele Investments. Management has been empowered by a further 5 % as demonstrated in the current DSFM Corporate Structure. The group is in the process of selling a further 20% stake to a yet unannounced BEE consortium.

The company continue to provide integrated facilities management solutions to over 500 sites in both private and public sectors nationally and its’ footprint can be seen throughout Sub-Saharan Africa. The company provides a full spectrum of non-core services including Technical Services, Business Support Services and Soft Services.