A History of Innovation: ARCC's Legacy

ARCC Innovations’ commitment to unrelenting reappraisal and exploration of design choice comes from a long line of entrepreneurial engineering. Indeed, ARCC’s heritage reaches back to the early-twentieth century, to the Cannon Rubber company; one of the most successful British companies of the modern age.

Its founder, David Atkin, born in 1904 in London, came from a family with roots in the Eastern European fur industry. In the 1920s, David joined his uncles in the region and learned the tools of the trade. At the time the firm was testing rubber solution for waterproofing clothes, and David gained important experience designing, moulding, engineering, manufacturing, and retailing rubber products. In the mid-1930s, David returned to London and, in an available space in Welbourne Road, Tottenham, established his own rubber products factory; founded in 1936, Cannon Rubber Manufacturers Ltd. took its name from the billiard cue company that had previously occupied the factory space.

A first-class engineer, innovator and salesman, David designed the machines, moulds, and presses for Cannon’s seminal product, hot-water bottles, and oversaw marketing them too. Throwing himself into all facets of the company, David’s mantra was ‘there is always more than one way…look at all the ways and take the best’; a belief that still resonates in ARCC Innovations.

Following the war, during which David was elected an associate member of the Institution of British Engineers, the company looked to diversify. In the mid-1950s, the booming automobile industry saw the entrance of Cannon Rubber Manufacturers into the car mat business. By 1955, they had become a major client of Ford, who greatly appreciated the company’s tailored rubber ‘Automat’.

In 1965, David’s son, Edward, joined the business and looked to expand the company even further. Investing in state of the art plastic moulding technology, the company soon unveiled their revolutionary Cannon Babysafe bottle; a huge step forward from the traditional glass baby bottle, the Babysafe was a lighter, unbreakable, and easier to sterilise alternative. A renowned success, by 1971, the Babysafe range was exported to more than 50 countries, and demand was such that the company had to open a new global-shipping facility in Glemsford, Suffolk to accommodate for increased production.

By the 1980s, consumer needs had changed and Cannon responded by phasing out its household products, instead channelling its efforts into just baby products and automobile mats, leading to the company’s division into Cannon Automotive and Cannon Babysafe. The latter was propelled financially by the advent of a new plastic bottle design, the AVENT; the research and development of which had been promoted personally by Edward. Launched in 1984, the AVENT range, which included the new bottle, steam and microwave sterilisers, breast pumps and skincare products, was a resounding success; so much so that, by the mid-’90s, AVENT was quickly surpassing its global rivals and had become the fastest growing wing of the business.

At a time when many European and American companies were moving their production lines to China to take advantage of cheap labour, Edward wanted to keep design, development and manufacturing capabilities all in Britain, so that quality care and industrial oversight could be maintained. The Glemsford facility experienced a significant re-design in the early 2000s to ensure this was the case.

With baby products still made there today, research and development continues to be a critical part of the work at Glemsford, and, since then, Edward established ARCC Innovations in nearby Abington, Cambridgeshire, to carry on that same ethos further into the world of cutting edge, industrial design.