The company started making pill boxes and grew to become a major packaging and healthcare business.

John B Robinson had been a retail chemist in Packer's Row, Chesterfield for 20 years when in 1839 he bought Fletcher's box manufacturing business at Middleton-by-Youlgreave.

In the 1850s the business started to produce surgical dressings needed to treat the many wounded soldiers during the Crimean War.

The Portland Works was built in 1921 near the Wheatbridge Mills to accommodate the expansion of the folding box department.

A sports club, an amateur operatic and dramatic society and the company magazine The Link were all founded.

In 1928, the company bought Field House (the former home of William B Robinson II) and converted it into a large canteen and social venue called Bradbury Hall (which operated until 1984).

[2][3] Since 2005, the company has established sites in Poland with the purchase of a factory at Lodz and the acquisition of Madrox plastic packaging in Warsaw.

[3] From the late 1940s to the 1980s, the Dressings Division launched successful branded hygiene products including the 'Mene' sanitary towel, the 'Paddi' and 'Cosifits' disposable nappies and the 'Soft and Pure' range.

Robinson Healthcare now specialises in single-use surgical instruments, first aid consumables and cotton wool products, from their manufacturing facility in Worksop, Nottinghamshire.