Celebrating the extraordinary story of Oxford Instruments to mark 60 years since its foundation.
Oxford Instruments began in 1959 as a husband and wife partnership. Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood combined technical skills and business flair to create a company whose first focus was on building powerful magnets. Starting in their own garden shed, the company moved between a succession of Oxford premises, from a former abattoir to a boat house. The company of two would grow to dozens and eventually hundreds of employees.
By 1983 the combination of technical innovation and business strategy led to a successful flotation on the London stock market, providing the funds to develop the huge opportunity of MRI magnets.
Oxford Instruments remains a successful and dynamic company, providing high technology products and services to industry and science across the world. We now take for granted that research in universities will lead to commercial development and spinout companies but when Oxford Instruments began this was not a widely shared view. The company's culture has enabled it to move rapidly, adapt and remain a market leader: a global team of 1600 people who share Martin and Audrey's vision.
Ziad Melhem and Ben Knott from Oxford Instruments tell the extraordinary story of Oxford University’s first commercial spinout company, Oxford Instruments plc.
Oxford University’s first commercial spinout company, Oxford Instruments plc, is marking its 60th anniversary with a special display at the History of Science Museum on Broad Street.
To celebrate sixty years of the University of Oxford's first commercial spin-out company, the History of Science Museum in central Oxford has a new display on Oxford Instruments.
Martin (right) and Audrey Wood, the founders of Oxford Instruments, discussing magnet design with staff at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, in November 1961.
The first complete magnet made by Oxford Instruments, for the Royal Radar Establishment at Malvern in 1961.
Oxford Instruments featured on the front cover of British Industry Week in 1968.
During the 1980s increasingly large superconducting magnets were made for special purposes. This example, intended for high-energy physics, was the company's largest ever when it hit the road.
Martin Wood acting as a guinea pig in a whole body scanner. Did you know that Oxford Instruments were the first major supplier of MRI machines' superconducting magnets?
The complex family tree. A diagram drawn up in the year 2000 to show 40 years of the growth of the business and its many individual companies.
Sir Martin and Lady Audrey Wood in 2018.
For a trade exhibition in Asia, the company commissioned a full-size Lego version of a new detector. The quirky creation was such a marketing success that this miniature Lego laboratory was subsequently ordered.
Sir Martin Wood at the opening of the Oxford Instruments display in October 2019.
