How it started
Early history
Lee Electric began renting lighting equipment. Although the lighting rental market grew throughout the 1960s, largely due to the impact of commercial television, the market was dominated by a single manufacturer of lighting equipment, Mole-Richardson (England) Ltd, which was also the largest rental house. Lee Electric aggressively increased its inventory and bought from competitors in financial trouble.
In 1967, Lee Electric acquired a major camera filter company, which was renamed Lee Filters.
BBC2 began to transmit in colour in 1967, with BBC1 and ITV following in 1969. The introduction of colour broadcasts entailed a substantial increase in the amount of lighting needed in studios as well as on location. With a major increase in the amount of equipment available to it as a result of purchasing Ianiro equipment, Lee Electric was able to tender for and to win a five-year contract with the BBC for the supply of lighting equipment for U.K. television outside broadcasts. The contract, which was retained by Lee Electric for many more years put the company into the limelight and necessitated further substantial investment in equipment and established Lee Electric's leading reputation and position in the lighting rental market. The contract was subsequently extended to 1990.
In 1968, Lee Electric purchased a 3-acre (12,000 m2) site in North Kensington, which was converted to provide premises for the lighting equipment rental business and a three-stage film studio. Lee Electric was able to compete with the major U.K. studios because it offered its stages on a 'four wall' basis, that is without the requirement to use the studio's labour and equipment. Significant feature films made at the Kensington studios included A Touch of Class (1973) and The Who rock opera, Tommy (1975). In the same year Lee Electric acquired Telefilm Lighting Services Ltd, a competitor, thereby further increasing the quantity of equipment that Lee Electric could provide and expanding its range of marketing contracts.
To enhance the services offered to the television companies, Lee Scaffolding Ltd was formed in 1969 to hire scaffolding for rigging lighting equipment for television outside broadcasts. Stagemate Ltd was also established to provide scaffolding to film production companies.
From Wikipedia’s article on Lee International, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2