Sterling Armaments Company

The Sterling Engineering Company of Dagenham made Jaguar car parts, ArmaLite AR-18 rifles under licence, and the submachine gun the British Army carried for thirty-five years. George Patchett designed that weapon there during the Second World War, when the company was already building Lanchester submachine guns; it won a competitive trial in 1947 and was adopted in 1953.

No free source records the year the company was founded, which is why this entry has no founding year rather than a plausible one. The article establishes only that it was operating during the war. It went bankrupt in 1988, and the brand was revived as a dormant company in 2016.