The History of Cope & Timmins can be tracked back to 1760, when Cope and Austin, manufacturers of builders and furnisher’s brass foundry, were established in Birmingham.
To give some perspective of the timeline the business started to trade 4 years after the birth of Mozart (1756), 10 years before the birth of Beethoven (1770), 45 years before the battle of Trafalgar (1805), 52 years before the birth of Charles Dickens and 55 years before Waterloo (1815).
Cope & Timmins was created by the merger of 2 companies – Cope and Collinson and Clarke & Timmins - in 1897, and one of its first new products was a brass railway curtain rod.
In 1911 Joseph Thomas Davey, then cashier, formed a company to look after the London trade exclusively, so Cope & Timmins (London 1911) Ltd was born. In the 1930s, the company moved and expanded its spring-making from a one-floor department to a 5-floor factory in East Road, London.
During the Second World War, the company switched its business to the manufacture and fitting of blackout curtains, and the tracks to support them, and a new department was also created to make precision springs for military small arms. After the war, product development took the direction of speciality curtain tracks for domestic, hospital and public building purposes while the production of precision springs expanded. As the product range gradually evolved, curtain tracks and poles eventually became the dominant business of the company.
We were awarded the Royal Warrant to H.M. The Queen for brass finishing and spring making in 1956.
In June 2004, the assets and company name of Cope & Timmins was the subject of a Management Buy-Out, with additional funding from Bridges Community Ventures.
Unfortunately due to worsening financial problems the Board of Directors found it necessary to appoint KPMG London as Administrators late 2008. After a short period of negotiation the intellectual property, stock and assets were purchased by Cope & Timmins UK in early 2009 with a view of rebuilding the business around the concept of Product design, craft skills and a service ethos.
After an extended period to liquidate unwanted and excessive stock the current business owner managers are working to rebuild the Cope & Timmins brand by creating a multi skilled in-house design, manufacturing and communications team.
We took a decision to stop selling products via third party websites (drop shipping) as we felt no customer value was added with this activity and extended supply chain. We felt our customers would be better served by talking directly with us .
In 2012 we started to make our collections available exclusively through this website. We now provide product and fitting advice, direct sales and distribution to a wide range of customers.
We relocated the business to our current location (Kirkbymoorside, North Yorkshire) in 2015 opening a small woodworking and finishing workshop to produce our current wood collections.
We now believe we have created a simple business model built on expert knowledge, local manufacturing, direct distribution and friendly accessibility.
To support our efforts to improve our service we have recently (2017) updated our ecommerce platform and website to ensure the online experience remains secure, reliable and enjoyable.