F.Shaw & Co Ltd was founded by Fred Shaw in Lord Street Huddersfield in 1903. The company was involved with ventilation from its foundation. Manufacturing decorative cowls for passive ventilation systems and providing early ventilation systems for the local mills and factories.
The company played a part in the growing Huddersfield textile industry, supply large numbers of zinc, water tight packing case linings in which coils of fine worsteds were exported to world markets.
1903
Founder Fred Shaw retired in 1924 and the company was sold to two different owners before being acquired by Harold Rhodes, who had worked for the company since 1942.
1924
During the mid-1970’s the company began manufacturing Air handling units and kitchen canopies. These products became a large part of the company business supplying to supermarkets, hospital and schools and continues to grow today.
Under the current managing director Howard Rhodes, the company has invested in some of the latest production techniques including CAD/CAM design, plasma cutting and CNC punching.
1970
In 2003 its centenary year the company moved to a two and a half acre site in Albert Street Huddersfield expanding its production and storage capacity.
2003
Gary Tingle joined the company and brought with him a wealth of technical knowledge within the AHU sector allowing the company to go further into the design and manufacture of specialised HTM03 hospital critical areas ventilation sector
2007
2009 saw the beginning of a changing of the guard so to speak. Kenneth Woodhams retired followed by John Dries in 2015 and Kevin Laycock in 2020. All three had spent their entire working lives at FredShaw having joined the team straight out of school. Ken had started aged 16 and his career spanned 50 years starting out as an apprentice and leaving as a production supervisor operating our CNC duct manufacturing plant. We take great pride in bridging this generational gap and the proud legacy of these three employees is still evident and relevant in our operations today
2009
The company invested in it’s first laser cutting machine to allow greater flexibility and production speeds followed in 2017 by the purchase of a 2nd CNC punch to ease production demands
2013
Malcolm Kidger retired as our works director to spend more time with family. Another long serving employee he started in the company as a sheet metal worker and helped to shape FredShaw as we evolved to meet the changing needs of our customers
2013
Long serving director David Sutton became a shareholder in FredShaw & Co along with Gary Tingle. Both have a vast knowledge of ventilation systems and are well respected within the industry
2014
Working as a partner with Westfield we were proud to be involved on the Bradford Broadway shopping centre as the major ventilation contractor supplying ductwork and air handling units. This prestigious and ambitious project had first been imagined in 1998 but had stalled for some years. We were proud to be heavily involved in the regeneration of one of Yorkshires great cities. 2015 also saw Graham Micklethwaite accept the position of works manager. Having been apprentice trained at FredShaw he is one of the most knowledgeable members of the team
2015
Our largest project to date commenced working as part of a multi-disciplinary team of contractors an extension of the BAE defence facilities at Barrow-in-Furness. As a manufacturing base for BAE systems the time critical works were carried out as quickly as possible. Phase 2 has kept our engineers busy on site at Barrow into 2023.
2019
Keeping an eye on the future, 2021 saw the next phase of succession planning begin with Paul Haigh and Marcus Rhodes becoming associate directors. Paul worked at FredShaw from being a teenager until his 30’s but left briefly before feeling the pull to return to where he’d learned his trade. Marcus has been a part of FredShaw all of his life with both is father and grandfather being ‘Shaws company men’. Both have served time in many departments of the company to better understand the work we do and where we’re going
2021
120 Years! Celebrating our bidecacentennial anniversary does not mean we’re slowing down. We are looking to adapt and prosper in a more sustainable future with investment in new machinery and people to stay competitive and meet the demands of our customers. You may catch us looking back over the past on our social media pages to see how FredShaw has changed during our time
2023
After decades of manufacturing HTM03 ventilation systems we have been officially recognised as an approved designer and manufacturer of compliant equipment. We have been designing, manufacturing and installing ventilation systems for critical healthcare applications for many years so this accreditation is welcome recognition for our whole team.
2023
