This company was established in 1896 as a reconstruction of an existing firm (Laing, Wharton and Down) holding rights to manufacture and sell electrical equipment and machinery under patent from the U.S. firm the Thomson-Houston Electric Company (later part of the U.S. General Electric Company). Its manufacturing became centred in Rugby, Warwickshire. In 1928 it was acquired by the Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company which became Associated Electrical Industries in 1929, a holding company for both British Thomson-Houston and a new Metropolitan-Vickers Electrical Company. British Thomson-Houston continued in this form until 1960 when its activities were absorbed into the parent Associated Electrical Industries.