Hounsfield History

Diversification Is Key

Beam-Echo began in 1953, when Henry Michael Rahmer saw an opportunity to buy a run-down cine projector manufacturing company called Danson. Henry Rahmer decided that he could build the Danson cine projectors, so he purchased the Danson company from the official receivers. He persuaded his friend Philip Hounsfield to give him some space in his factory to start building the projectors.

Hounsfield ran a company in Witham, Essex, called Parion Products, which built caravans. The caravan factory and offices were in Witham High Street. Philip Hounsfield had made a lot of money through sales of his 'Hounsfield Safari', a camp bed which folded into 3 parts and apparently was incredibly comfortable and could be carried around easily when camping.

Philip Hounsfield gave some factory space to Henry Rahmer and an office over the top of the showroom in the High Street, in exchange for shares in the company. This was how Beam-Echo began, and the they started building the Danson 540 cine projector. Incidentally, the name Beam-Echo was actually based on cine film equipment. 'Beam' representing the light source and 'Echo' for the sound track.