The Sterling Engineering Company Ltd was an arms manufacturer based in

Dagenham Dagenham () is a town in East London, England, within the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham. Dagenham is centred east of Charing Cross. It was historically a rural parish in the Becontree Hundred of Essex, stretching from Hainault Forest ...

, famous for manufacturing the L2A3 (the '

Sterling submachine gun The Sterling submachine gun is a British submachine gun (SMG). It was tested with the British Army in 1944–1945 as a replacement for the Sten but it did not start to replace it until 1953. A successful and reliable design, it remained as stan ...

'),

ArmaLite AR-18 The ArmaLite AR-18 is a gas-operated assault rifle chambered for 5.56×45mm NATO ammunition. The AR-18 was designed at ArmaLite in California by Arthur Miller, Eugene Stoner, George Sullivan, and Charles Dorchester in 1963 as an alternative t ...

and

Sterling SAR-87 The Sterling SAR-87 is a military assault rifle of the late 20th century. The Sterling Assault Rifle (SAR), which included elements from Sterling's earlier Light Automatic Rifle (LAR) design, was jointly engineered by Sterling Armaments Company ...

assault rifles and parts of

Jaguar cars Jaguar (, ) is the luxury vehicle brand of Jaguar Land Rover, a British multinational car manufacturer with its headquarters in Whitley, Coventry, England. Jaguar Cars was the company that was responsible for the production of Jaguar cars ...

. The company went bankrupt in 1988. During

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, engineers

George Lanchester George Herbert Lanchester (1874 – 13 February 1970) was an English engineer. He was one of three brothers who played a leading role in the early development of the UK auto-industry. In 1909, following the departure from full-time involvement ...

and

George William Patchett George William Patchett (23 December 1901 - before 31 December 1974) was a British motorcycle racer and engineer. Career In his early career he was a motor cycle racer for motorcycle manufacturers such as Brough Superior, McEvoy and the Belgi ...

oversaw the manufacture of the

Lanchester submachine gun The Lanchester is a submachine gun (SMG) manufactured by the Sterling Armaments Company between 1941 and 1945. It is a copy of the German MP28/II and was manufactured in two versions, Mk.1 and Mk.1*; the latter was a simplified version of the ...

. Patchett afterwards went on to design the Patchett machine carbine which, after a competitive trial in 1947, was adopted by the British Army in 1953 as the L2A1 Sterling submachine gun, replacing the

Sten The STEN (or Sten gun) is a family of British submachine guns chambered in 9×19mm which were used extensively by British and Commonwealth forces throughout World War II and the Korean War. They had a simple design and very low production cost ...

gun. The weapon was later upgraded to the L2A3, the Sterling Mk IV. The Sterling brand name was revived in 2016 by James Edmiston, a former director of the original company. It is however a dormant company, according to accounts filed with Companies House, with no stated plans to do any business beyond engraving services.

References

Sources

* ''The Guns of Dagenham'' - Collector Grade Publications,Canada (5 Jan 1996), * ''Last Enfield - SA80: The Reluctant Rifle'', Steve Raw, R.Blake Stevens, * ''Military Small Arms of the 20th Century'', 4th Edition, by Ian V. Hogg and John Weeks, ,Ca 1981 * ''AK56 magazine'', December 2006 Defunct engineering companies of England Firearm manufacturers of the United Kingdom Former defence companies of the United Kingdom Manufacturing companies of England Military history of London {{England-company-stub