How it started
History
MSE was founded in 1936 by Ernest Foulkes, initially as a manufacturer and distributor of machine tools and equipment. Throughout World War II, MSE was appointed by the UK ministry of supply to act as lease lend agents for American machine tools in order to support the war effort. In the 1930s and early 1940s, the name stood for Machine Shop Equipment.
With the founding of the National Health Service following the culmination of the second world war, MSE was retained by them to develop hospital Microtomes, which until then had not been manufactured in the UK. In the early 1950s, the newly formed Atomic Energy Authority approached MSE requesting them to manufacture a range of centrifuges for use in their research. Following the change of focus from machine tool manufacture to centrifuges, the acronym MSE was changed to Measuring and Scientific Equipment.
From Wikipedia’s article on MSE, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.2