Remembering the Founding Generation of Today’s Gas Detection Industry

July 2009 will be remembered as a sad, yet memorable month for the gas detection industry in the UK. Two founders of this industry both passed away in the same weekend.

Paul Gotley founded Neotronics in the early ‘70s, the largest UK gas detector company. Tony Tantram founded City Technology in the mid ‘70s, the largest UK gas sensor company.

Both men had the foresight to invest knowledge, acumen and financial resources to develop the UK gas sensor market, and each has their own story to tell.

The UK leads the world in gas sensor technology, benefiting from several technology and market opportunities, but certainly these two men led the way for this UK dominance. So why does the UK have such dominance in the gas detection market?

Let us start with Paul Gotley Paul was born in Vienna, Austria in 1925. Forced to leave his home by the Nazi regime at the age of 13, he made his way alone on a ‘Kinder Transport’ to England, never to see his parents or sister again. Any formal education stopped at that time, but he gradually worked himself through a night-school education by doing anything from tea delivery boy to lab assistant at the Clarendon Laboratory, Oxford.

Eventually, Paul became an Electrical and Mechanical Engineer, working in London for Londex & then Rank Cintel until 1959. He then moved to Harlow, working at Elremco until 1972. Paul was responsible for sales, quality and technical management at various times, achieving a Directorship in the early ‘60’s. Elremco built remote controlled timers, with Paul being a named inventor on several patents, including one for thermostatically controlled soldering irons for a spin-off company.

After discussions with the ‘Post Office’ in the early 70’s, who then owned what is now British Telecoms, Paul recognised a niche market for electronic gas detection technology, which was moving towards the later nicknamed ‘electronic canary’. They needed something to monitor flammable gas for Telephone Exchanges where gas explosions were an increasing threat.