Fenwick Groupe
The Fenwick Groupe is a French engineering company, established in 1862, located in Saint-Ouen on the northern outskirts of Paris. Its headquarters are in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
History
Fenwick was founded as an export company in 1862. Most of its trade was with the United States. A meeting in 1878 led to the import of American made hair clippers. These sold well and other imports such as bicycles, typewriters and lifting equipment followed.[http://www.fenwick.fr/fenwick-histoire.php Histoire de FENWICK]
In 1927, the French franc collapsed against the dollar making American goods prohibitively expensive. Consequently, Fenwick obtained a licence to build Yale forklift trucks in France and so diversified into manufacturing.
In 1951 Fenwick obtained a licence to manufacture Lambretta scooters in France. Approximately 200,000 of these were built by 870 employees at factory at Saint-Julien-les-Villas in Troyes. Production stopped in 1960 when demand fell.{{Cite web |url=http://www.lest-eclair.fr/article/autre-actu/de-lambretta-a-fenwick-la-saga-de-lusine-phare-de-saint-julien |title=De Lambretta à Fenwick : la saga de l'usine phare de Saint-Julien |access-date=2011-05-15 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111009044651/http://www.lest-eclair.fr/article/autre-actu/de-lambretta-a-fenwick-la-saga-de-lusine-phare-de-saint-julien |archive-date=2011-10-09 |url-status=dead }}
At its peak in 1970, the company employed 1,150 staff at the Saint-Julien-les-Villas plant, which was also used to manufacture forklifts. The plant closed in 1984 with the loss of 515 jobs. The factory's forklift production was taken over by Linde and a new subsidiary called Fenwick-Linde was created.