Home | Brief History | All Cameras | Tailboard Cameras | English Style Cameras | Other | Resources | Contact me | Search by Maker

De Vere Ltd | Monorail Camera | Other | 5 X 4 inch Plate

1948-52 Founded as De Vere (Kensington) Ltd., at Kensington High Street, London, in the late 1940s, they later expanded to other addresses, including a factory at Beckenham in Kent, and adopted the name De Vere Ltd. They were manufacturing solely for the professional customer until c.1952 when they began to produce enlargers and monorail cameras aimed at the amateur market. Their 1952 to mid-60s monorail cameras were made with a hexagonal rail; this one Serial No. 51191, has a square rail and is therefore presumed to be an early model, and intended as a professional instrument. Channing and Dunn assume that De Vere's 60s models were not highly successful, because, although still advertising its own products in the 1960s, the company was retailing competitive equipment by Arca, Cambo, MPP and others, while continuing to produce industrial and professional apparatus. Their "Devon" camera was made from 1972 to 1977 at a new factory in Devon, but camera production ceased when DeVere merged with Cambo in 1976-7, and the DeVere branch concentrated on enlargers.

Extra photographs, where available: Click on thumbnail to open in a new page.