The history of Gordian Strapping
We were originally formed as ‘Strappings Ltd’ in 1937, based out of central London. The company was still in its infancy when a little thing called World War II began. This proved to be a valuable opportunity as we supplied tensional strapping wire to war ministries.
By the sixties, we fancied a refresh and Gordian Strapping was established.
The company grew, adding more products to the offering and eventually partnering with StraPack in the early 70s. We’d have to wait until 1995 for Gordian to become an official member of the StraPack Corporation group, distributing their world-class strapping machines across the breadth of the UK.
The 80s was a busy decade for Gordian as we partnered with Italian manufacturer OMS, who we still have a great relationship with to this day, and we hit the big screens as one of our automatic strapping machines was featured in the James Bond film ‘A View To Kill’.Â
And it was the late 80s that saw Gordian relocate to our current office in Basingstoke – a Hampshire town that is the birthplace of Jane Austen and home of the largest phallus statue in Britain.
Check out a visual walk through our history below or find out more about us here.
A lot has changed over the past 85 years...
Phones have changed…
Bricks weren’t just for building!
A snake was a gaming partner
Angry birds were a group of disgruntled women
Twitter was when the birds sang in the morning
An iPad was for when you’d injured your eye
A troll was a cuddly (but pretty terrifying) friend
A selfie was for when no one was watching
We come from a time where dinner came from a can
A big mac was an oversized raincoat
And a turkey twizzler was the staple of a diet
We came from a time where we made-do and mended
Since then, styles have got louder…
More flared…
More denim…
More meaty…
And more whatever this was…
We’ve survived a world war
Witnessed a man walk on the moon
And, even more shockingly, seen England win a world cup
We’re a company that’s lived through an entire generation. We’ve been there to witness so much, and we’ve come a long way as a human race.Â
As a society, we have grown more tolerant to others, more caring to the planet we live on. But we still have a long way to go.
So, as we look forward to the next 85 years:
We might be whizzing around in flying cars.
We might be buying real estate on Mars.Â
We might all have robotic arms.
But let’s remember to be kind to one another and look after the planet.Â
Here’s to the next 85 years and continuing to push boundaries, reach new heights and continue being the number one in the the UK for specialist end-of-line packaging solutions.
