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Henry, the Beaminster Legend

 


Henry, the diminutive vacuum cleaner with eyes and a cheeky grin was conceived in Beaminster. Today, Henry is the only mass-produced consumer vacuum cleaner still produced in Britain.

Numatic, the company that produces Henry was founded in Crewkerne in 1969 with just six employees. In 1971 the business moved to a Yeovil watermill and with  continued growth transferred to Broadwindsor Road,, Beaminster in 1974.

During a trade show in Portugal in the 1970s, business owner Chris Duncan chalked a a wide grin under the hose outlet of the latest model together with a pair of eyes above. The model was then named, Henry. This caused such an amused reaction among onlookers that  Chris Duncan realised he had stumbled upon a potentially winning concept. The Henry model was then introduced commercially in 1981.

To meet the growing customer demand, the company had to move production to Chard, Somerset in 1990. Henry also has sibling model variants named Hetty, Harry and James.

There was some amusement in March 2021, during the opening of the British Government’s new £2.6 million Downing Street press briefing room, when a cute Henry vacuum cleaner somehow snook into the pictures.

From its humble beginnings Henry, created almost by accident, has now become a design classic. There are also several Henry groups on Facebook.




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