The company was founded as Taylor, Taylor and Hobson in 1886 as a manufcaturer of still camera and cine lenses, with its most famous being the Cooke camera lens first produced in 1932. Its name was changed in c.1924 to Taylor Hobson. Bell & Howell took control of the company in 1930 and it was sold to Rank in 1946. In the 1940s, William Taylor began investigating how to best understand and control the surface quality of camera lenses. He designed instruments to help evaluate surface texture and roundness and, after initially not wanting other manufacturers to get their hands on these instruments believing them to be the secret to the success of the company's camera lenses, he began marketing them. These became very successful with the company still continuing today as a metrology instrument manufacturer rather than the initial manufacturer of lenses. In 1998, Cooke Optics Ltd formed following a buy-out of the Optical division of Taylor Hobson. In 2004, Taylor Hobson was acquired by AMETEK Inc where it still continues today under its own name of Taylor Hobson.