A few of the landmark achievements during its forty five years were: Fulmer Research Institute was founded in 1945[1] by Col W C (Dev) Devereux and incorporated in 1946.

Initially it was in temporary accommodation but he soon found a permanent base by purchasing a large Edwardian country house with ten acres of grounds, in the Buckinghamshire village of Stoke Poges.

Its income was solely from projects, each with defined objectives and time and cost limits agreed with individual sponsors from Government or Industry.

Normally, the project contract would provide that all results would belong in confidence to the sponsor, who would also own any patents arising from the investigation.

The technological advances which had been made on both sides of the conflict had been impressive: radar, the jet engine, the V-2 rocket and the atomic bomb are just a few examples.

Government procurement projects were frequently out of control: the BAC TSR-2 was cancelled after enormous overspend in development and only 24 test flights; the de Havilland Blue Streak missile was also abandoned in 1960 after great expense.

[note 2] He proposed that IOP should acquire Fulmer and thus become the first Learned Society to own a commercial research company.

[12] Also in that year Fulmer strengthened its expertise, particularly in electron metallography, by recruiting several key staff who transferred from Aeon Laboratories of Egham, Surrey.

The earlier pattern of Fulmer sponsorship, with a large proportion of contracts from UK ministries and government agencies, no longer applied.

Following Fulmer, many other contract R&D companies had been formed, important examples being Huntingdon Life Sciences(1957) and Cambridge Consultants(1960).

By 1975, leading independent research companies felt that they were not getting a fair share of government R&D contracts and needed a stronger voice.

[26][note 3] The journal New Scientist published a special supplement on Contract Research in 1974[27] There were two major developments that intensified competition in Fulmer's market.

Beginning in 1970, the policy also included the patenting of worthwhile ideas developed in-house before applying for sponsorship so that Fulmer could retain rights and benefit from subsequent exploitation.

Early in his career Eric Duckworth had spent ten years at the Glacier Metal Company at the time when the Glacier Project - a pioneering new approach to management-staff relations - was being developed there by Wilfred (later Lord) Brown, the managing director, and Elliott Jaques of the Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

[29] When he joined Fulmer Eric Duckworth introduced a style of management heavily influenced by his experience of the Glacier Project.

The grading system enabled parity of career progression between managers and people who focussed on developing their technical expertise.

The first and most important of the complementary organizations to link with Fulmer was Yarsley, whose expertise was particularly strong in plastics and polymers and their applications.

Before the Second World War he had been a consultant in this new field and, starting in 1941 he had built a series of laboratories, mostly by converting and extending domestic premises, just as in the case of Fulmer.

A new company Yarsley Technical Centre Limited (YTEC) was set up to embrace all the activities carried out by YRL, YTL and YPEC.

However, Fulmer's recent expansion and its large investment in capital equipment required increasing bank borrowing.

Preparations were made for a stock exchange flotation but, in the late 1980s Fulmer sustained large losses and plans to float were postponed.

The IOP were becoming concerned that their ownership of Fulmer as a commercial organization might be judged incompatible with their charitable status as a learned society.

An approach was then made to the UK subsidiary of the Swiss company Societe Generale de Surveillance S.A. (SGS), who were particularly interested in strengthening their activities in quality assurance consultancy and certification.

The Fulmer activities at Stoke Poges were merged with BNF Metals Technology Centre at Wantage Oxfordshire, and the manufacturing unit at Slough was acquired by Sintek of Germany.

During its forty five years it provided technical solutions and research results as well as testing and consultancy for hundreds of companies and national and international agencies across the whole field of materials technology and related areas of physics and chemistry.

Fulmer sponsored the further education of its technicians and helped many young graduates in metallurgy, physics and other sciences on the road to successful careers.

[54][55][49] A senior staff member joined the Berkshire education advisory service from Fulmer to continue and extend work of this kind.

Among these, because of the wide range of projects that Fulmer undertook, investigators and other technical staff had to be able to adapt their specialist skills and to innovate.