name John Lilley and Son Limited of London and North Shields. During the 1930s many of the London nautical instrument makers were in difficulties, including John Lilley and Son Limited and Reynolds and Son, Dobbie and Clyde Limited, and Mr. J.W. Gillie arranged an amalgamation between these two companies. The new firm became Lilley and Reynolds Limited. In 1943, with estate duties in mind, the North Shields company was reconstituted and took the name of John Lilley and Gillie Limited, although the shareholders, directors and personnel remained unchanged In the early 1970s Lilley and Gillie developed close links with Observator in Rotterdam, who manufactured one of the first fully reliable transmitting magnetic compass systems. The Observator shareholders, Holland America Line, bought the share capital of John Lilley and Gillie Limited., but retained all the personnel and the directors. In 1975 Mr. C.H. Turnbull joined the company as M.D. and during 1976 the company bought the shares in the London chart agent, Brown and Perring Limited, and re-acquired Lilley and Reynolds. Since then, the company has consolidated its position as a Class A Admiralty Chart Agent and nautical instrument manufacturer, and has gradually entered the field of marine electronics. The centenary year was celebrated with the acquisition of the assets of Henry Brown & Sons (Sestrel) Limited. This firmly established the company as the leading UK manufacturer of nautical instruments. In June 1988 the Holland America Line sold the shares in Lilley and Gillie and the London company, Brown & Perring, to Kopcke International Supply Systems, a large Dutch ship chandler owned by Consolidated Press (the Australian entrepreneur Kerry Packer's holding company). In July 1989 Lilley and Gillie, Brown and Perring and a Kopcke subsidiary, Cullen Metcalfe, were consolidated as divisions of one operating company, Sestrel International. The companies continued to operate independently and to trade under their well known individual names. Observator in the Netherlands had now become Sestrel Observator, and closer co-operation between the Dutch and UK companies was encouraged. Manufacturing for the group was consolidated in North Shields in 1991. In 1992 Lilley and Gillie purchased sophisticated test equipment from the Admiralty Compass Observatory (A.C.O.) and gained approval from the Department of Transport to test to I.S.O. and D.O.T. requirements for individual compasses and T.M.C.’s. This was subject to the company obtaining quality acceptance to BS5750 Part II and ISO 9002, and this was achieved in November 1993.