Based in Leicester, England, Jones and Shipman began life in the late 1800s (unfortunately details of the early company and its constitution and not clear), with products ranging across a wide field and including numerous small but very high-quality engineering accessories. By the mid 1930s the Company was well known not only for their specialist precision tools but also a wide ranger of ordinary and precision drills and a number of grinding machines - the majority of which were of the cylindrical, universal and tool-and-cutter type
Approaching the 1940s the range of grinders was expanded further and considerably improved with many models having compact, built-in motor drives replacing the flat-belts driven from overhead line shafting. In 1941 a significant model was introduced, the long-lived and hugely popular Model 540 toolroom surface grinder in automatic and plain models.Post WW2, after 1945, the range expanded further and exports were made world-wide - the 1950s to 1980s being the company's best years as an independent, highly-regarded concern. J & S followed industry trends by introducing machines with NC controls from the mid 1960s onwards and then, with full CNC operation, by the mid 1980s. By 1991 J & S had acquired the range of grinders made by their American competitors, Brown and Sharpe, then absorbed the Edgetek Machine Corporation. Today, although the huge Leicester factory has gone, the company still trades as Jones & Shipman Precision Limited and are part of the Precision Technologies Group..