Cambridge 2000: Chesterton Road: Henry Giles House, Department of Social Security
This was one of the first purpose-built hi-tech
buildings in the city. It was originally occupied by
Cambridge Scientific Instruments (now part of Leica Microsystems).
It is currently occupied by the Department of Social Security,
renamed (rebranded) by the government in 2001 as the
Department for Working and Pensions.
This particular building was first planned in 1944, but in
the usual Cambridge way it took over ten years to be given
planning permission. The block at the front opened in 1959
and the block at the side along Carlyle Road is a later
extension.
Cambridge Scientific Instruments was itself the
descendant (through various mergers and takeovers) of one
of the first Cambridge hi-tech companies, the Cambridge
Scientific Instrument Company. The latter was founded by
Horace Darwin (the youngest surviving son of Charles Darwin)
and Albert George Dew-Smith in 1881 in premises on Panton
Street (occupying premises from an earlier business of
Dew-Smith and Robert Fulcher, started in 1879).
As might be expected, the Cambridge Scientific Instrument
Company had many employees who went on to found their own
significant companies in Cambridge. For example, William
T. Pye was one of the original employees, and in 1898 he
left to set up a company with his son W.G. Pye called the
W.G. Pye Instrument Company whose later descendants
included Pye Radio and
Pye Telecommunications.
Other photographs within 200 m: