Renamed Pearson and Bennion, in 1898 it moved to the new Union Works factory on Ross Walk near Belgrave Road also known as the Golden Mile, Leicester.

[4] Despite the huge increase in demand for military footwear, World War I saw over 800 of the highly skilled workers joining the armed forces.

[13] The 1920s saw the company diversify into shoe components including those made from synthetic materials,[14] a process that continued after World War II and helped reduce the effects of the Economic cycle.

[17] BUSM also worked extensively on aspects of the development and was the main sub-contractor for the Rolls-Royce 40mm Cannon which was originally intended for mounting in aircraft, especially for use in the anti-tank role.

[9] A "trial of prodigious length" followed but although the verdict went against USM, the corporation wasn't broken up and the judgement and remedy was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 1954.

[19] Though BUSM won a Queen's Award for Export in 1971, the 1970s saw the company's advantage in complex production machinery eroded, as off the shelf hydraulics, pneumatics and electronics replaced many mechanical components, reducing the cost of entry to new competitors.

[22] A long-term research project, starting in the late 1970s and involving universities and a polytechnic, was to use machine vision to automate the production of shoe uppers.

[23][24] The idea was that after the components of shoe uppers were cut by multiple operators they would be placed on a conveyor system which would carry the pieces through automatic machines.

[25] However, although the vision system which used a T800 Transputer was successful, accurately manipulating the shoe upper components (which can range from stiff and curled to floppy and intricately shaped) was always problematic.

After 18 months negotiation, "Britain’s largest ever Management buyout" led by John Foster[26] purchased the whole worldwide shoe machinery business, excluding materials, at a cost of £80M.

[2] Chris Price, a former BUSM graduate apprentice who became Research and Development Manager and eventually rose to the board rejoined the MBO as Technical Director.

[30] In 1990 BUSM bought the shoe materials company Texon from Emhart's owners Black & Decker for around $125M, doubling turnover to £200m and increasing the workforce to around 3000.

Now focusing on materials, it opened a factory in Foshan South China in 1993 and Chennai, India in 1994[31] and planned to float on the London Stock Exchange the following year.

[28] Initial optimism turned sour and the flotation was cancelled, leading to its acquisition in 1995 by Venture Capitalists Apax Partners Corporate Finance Limited for £131M.

[33] In 1997, USM-Texon announced they would demerge into British United Shoe Machinery and Texon UK "in order to increase the focus on their respective businesses".

[33] The award-winning Research and Development department's budget was "promptly cut.. by 60 per cent"[5] and Chris Price left for Rolls-Royce where he eventually became an Executive Vice President.

In February 2000, the Crispin shoe CAD/CAM product division, a key IT asset, was sold by installments to Texon, allegedly at a knock down price.

As one of four Judicial Review litigants,[41] Duncan played a key part in Dr Ros Altmann's eventually successful Pensionstheft campaign.

[42] Once the Independent Trustee revealed the full extent of the pension loss in January 2002, Apax's alleged role in the collapse of the company came under scrutiny.

Three separate complaints were made, all rejected on the grounds of jurisdiction leading Dr Ashok Kumar MP to tell Parliament that "Some serious joined-up thinking is needed on all these issues".

[51] In a letter to Alan Johnson MP, the Department of Trade and Industry minister, she recommended "that the Companies Investigation Branch should look at the concerns raised by my constituent.

A long-standing meeting arranged by Loughborough MP Andy Reed with minister James Purnell took place shortly afterwards following which, both BBC and ITV regional news led with interviews of those attending.

[60] In 2012 the National Lottery awarded funds to record the social history of BUSM -described as a "powerhouse of British manufacturing" -via a website, DVD and book.