With a legacy dating back to 1946 Steele and Bray have been a pillar in the Northampton Business community and this continues under the leadership and stewardship of Steve and Ian, both long serving Directors in the business they have continued to maintain that reputation as and deliver numerous construction projects in Northamptonshire and beyond, reaching out across the Midlands and East Anglia.
The company has changed a little but the philosophy and determination to succeed does not and this rebranding, the first for a number of years demonstrates how far we have come as a business.
Steele & Bray were formed by Jack Steele & Harold Bray and the new company’s initial workload was undertaking post-war building and chimney repairs.
The Company was bought out by Wilson Connolly Holdings Group, which had started life in 1905 as T Wilson & Son in Sheep Street Northampton before developing into Wilson Connolly under which they operated the very successful housebuilder ‘Wilcon’, and Steele & Bray became the small works division undertaking decent homes projects for local councils as well as some small speculative developments on sites which were deemed too small for Wilcon’s business model. Wilson Connolly later sold out to Taylor Woodrow who eventually merged with Wimpey to become the Taylor Wimpey that we all recognise today.
Wison Connolly sold Steele & Bray to the Walgrave Group headed up by Dewar Baird, who had been the Manager of Wilcon Electrical before Wilson Connolly closed that division. Walgrave were major players in mains electrical cable jointing, and that business was eventually sold by the Baird family to Balfour Beatty
Following on a few years after the premature passing of Dewar Baird, the Executive Directors of Steele & Bray, (Laurence Walters, Ian Chamberlain, and Steve Burditt) were given the opportunity of a Management Buy-Out which was duly completed on 4th July, and affectionately marked from that point on as ‘Steele & Bray Independence Day’.
Laurence Walters retires from the Company and his shareholding is dealt with via a Company buy-back of shares.
Steele & Bray undertake a re-branding for the first time since 1995, launching a new logo with historic links to the past, as well as a new website.