Equipping and fitting out 21st-century facilities

Howorth Air Technology will still be best-known to many in healthcare as the company which, working with world-renowned orthopaedic surgeon, Sir John Charnley, in the early 1960s, developed the world’s first ultraclean surgical enclosure. Today, sales of its Exflow UCV canopy system to both UK and overseas customers remain strong, but the company now offers an ever broader range of complementary operating theatre and ITU products. As HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, discovered from Group Sales director, Tom Ford, it also has extensive experience as a turnkey theatre contractor, and is seeing growing demand for a recently introduced ‘digital integration’ service.

Howorth Air Technology’s origins were not, in fact, in healthcare; the business was founded in Bolton in 1858 as James Howorth & Co Ltd to manufacture apparatus for humidifying, ventilating, heating, air-conditioning, conveying, duct control, and drying applications within the textile industry. Indeed serving the textile sector – with Lancashire’s cotton mills on its doorstep – and, latterly, providing equipment to ensure a controlled environment in brewing halls, were the business’s staples well into the 1950s. In 1945 Hugh Howorth, the grandson of the company’s founder, took over the running of the family firm from his father, Frederick, who had died towards the end of the Second World War. Under his stewardship the company began further developing and patenting ventilation-related equipment for the textile and brewing industries, plus HVAC systems designed to protect textiles and artwork in museums. 

A new direction