The managing director was Hubert Cecil Booth who, the company claimed, had invented the vacuum cleaner in about 1900, although it was subsequently copied in the USA and elsewhere.
By the 1930s, many public buildings were equipped with forty or more centralised vacuum cleaners using a common extraction system.
In the early 1980s the company changed its name to BVC, British Vacuum Cleaners, though the new name never stuck with staff and locals.
In 1984 the company decided to cease operations at the Leatherhead plant and move to Gosport, Hampshire,[citation needed] and its former site was redeveloped as a headquarters for Esso (now ExxonMobil).
Most of these were budget cylinder models similar to their Morphy Richards cleaners but with lesser build quality and fewer features.