Jarrell-Ash Company

The Jarrell-Ash Company in Boston was incorporated by J. O. Jarrell in 1933. It had previously done business under the name of the Spencer Lens Company of New England, a distributor of Spencer Lens Company of Buffalo (which in 1933 was bought out by American Optical Company). Ash had been Jarrell's assistant in the old company.

Jarrell-Ash become the New England agent for Adam Hilger Limited, the British spectrometer manufacturer. After graduating from MIT, Jarrell's son, Richard, went to England to learn how to service spectrographs. The company shipped its first spectrograph—a 21-foot Wadsworth stigmatic grating spectrograph—in 1942. Other products in the 1940s included replicated gratings and direct-reading spectrometers.

During World War II, Jarrell-Ash spectrographs were used for quality control of the nickel used for aircraft engines. They were also used to perform uranium analysis for the Manhattan Project.

After Jarrell died in 1943, his son, Richard Jarrell, became the general manager of Jarrell-Ash. In 1968 Jarrell-Ash merged with the Fisher Scientific Corporation and in 1981 became part of Allied Corporation (later Allied Signal Corporation). Eventually Allied sold its spectroscopy business to Thermo Electron, forming the Thermo Jarrel-Ash Corporation.