| 1947 | Pye Ltd acquired Unicam Instruments Ltd which in 1934 had been founded by S. W. J. Stubbens, a foreman at Cambridge Instrument Co, to manufacture instruments for schools and Universities. Unicam was based in Arbury Road Cambridge. When Pye acquired Unicam Instruments Ltd it specialised in spectroscopic and crystallographic analytical instruments. |
| 1962 | Unicam Instruments Ltd and W G Pye & Company Ltd were relocated together in Pye’s new Scientific Instrument Centre in York Street, Cambridge. However the companies continued to operate independently from each other. |
| 1968 | The two companies were merged into a single company called Pye Unicam Ltd as part of Philips Industries; Philips’s scientific division of M.E.L. Equipment Co was also put into the new company. In addition to the York Street site the optics department and technical publications were located on Newmarket Rd and the warehouse and Special Engineering Group were located at Coral Park. |
| 1973 | By now, Pye Unicam employed over 1500 people and by 1985 was the UK’s largest manufacturer and supplier of laboratory analytical instruments. Products included Elemental and Molecular Spectrophotometers, Chromatographs and Electrochemistry equipment. |
| 1988 | The Pye Unicam name was changed to Philips Scientific. |
| 1991 | Philips Scientific was acquired by ATI (Analytical Technologies Incorporated), a US company and the name changed to ATI Unicam. |
| 1995 | ATI was acquired by Thermo Electron Corporation and the ATI Unicam business was split into three businesses; Elemental, UV-Vis (Ultra Violet/Visible) and Chromatography. Chromatography was subsequently merged with Cambridge Scientific Instruments and is now part of Ellutia with a site in Ely. |
| 2002 | The Thermo UV-Vis business transferred to the USA with some production transferred to Thermo Fisher (Elemental) in Cambridge. |
| 2014 | Thermo Fisher closed the last remaining ex Unicam business (Elemental) in Cambridge and transferred the activity to Thermo in Germany. |
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