Russell Hobbs

A CP1 coffee percolator

After serving with the British Army's REME in World War II, William Russell (22 July 1920 – 16 February 2006), from High Wycombe, joined home appliance manufacturer Morphy Richards and helped to design a pop-up toaster, an electric iron and a hairdryer, when working as Chief Development Engineer. Peter Hobbs (3 May 1916 – 11 April 2008), from Tunbridge Wells, was a major during the war in the Royal Engineers, and he also worked for Morphy Richards, as manager of the South African division of the company. He had returned to the UK in 1952, after a disagreement with Charles Richards over sales policy, and worked for another company, where he was trying to design a coffee percolator, with reference to a German patent. Later in 1952, Bill Russell had a disagreement with Donal Morphy and joined Hobbs to form Russell Hobbs Ltd.

In 1952, they designed the world's first automatic coffee percolator, the CP1, with Russell's ingenuity and started the Russell Hobbs company at 1 Bensham Lane in Broad Green, Croydon, Surrey, near the A213/A235 junction south of Mayday Hospital.

Russell was in charge of product development, and Hobbs was the sales director. Russell's de facto ultimate safety test for any new product was to pour half a pint of boiling gravy on it. The company was always in profit from day one. In the late 1960s it was chiefly manufacturing automatic electric coffee pots, vapour-controlled electric kettles, and tea makers.

• In 1952 the company introduced world first coffee percolator.[3]
• The automatic electric kettle K1 (a world first),[4] designed in October 1955, used a bi-metallic strip at the rear of the kettle: steam was forced through an aperture in the lid of the strip and this knocked the switch, turning the kettle off.
• In 1960, the K2 kettle was introduced, which was manufactured for the next thirty years, and was possibly its best known product.[5]
• They designed the world's first fully programmable kettle, the M2.
• In 1972 Russell & Hobbs produced the world's first all-plastic kettle, called "The Futura", which was spout-filled and equipped with an external liquid level indicator. The model was designed by Julius Thalmann. It still held to the traditional shape of a kettle, with radical new styling facilitated by the malleability of its heat-resistant plastic construction. The Futura was retailed at the expensive end of the market (£9.65p in 1972 prices) and received good reviews in the press on its commercial release. However it did not sell well as the 1970s progressed. Despite its eye-catching innovative elements the plastic used (Noryl) was found to heat-discolour after regular use, the model was slow to boil, and customers were put off by the spout-filling design which prevented a view inside the kettle to confirm its clean condition. In 1978 the company adjusted the design in an attempt to overcome its adverse market reputation by changing the plastic used to Kematal, which had greater heat-resistant properties, but sales didn't greatly improve and the model was discontinued in 1979 with the advent of the tall "Jug kettle" design from Redring with its Autoboil model, which swept out of the retail sector in the 1980s and beyond the traditional basic kettle design shape.[6]
• In 1997 the company introduced the Millennium kettle that used a special flat OPTEC element to boil water in half the time, with a limescale filter.

Russell Hobbs Legacy kettle

The company also makes:

• Bread makers
• Electric hobs
• Electric jar openers
• Electric kettles
• Electric shavers (after merging with Remington)
• Coffeemaker
• Food processors
• Irons
• Juicers
• Microwave ovens
• Smoothie makers
• Toasters
  • Sandwich toasters
• Vacuum cleaners
• Rice cookers
• Heaters

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