Delaval

Delaval is the surname of a family of gentry/aristocracy in Northumberland, England, from the 11th century to the 19th century. Their main estate was the manor of Seaton Delaval. The 18th century Delavals are noteworthy for their colourful lifestyle, for the magnificent Seaton Delaval Hall and for the development of the little seaport of Seaton Sluice and a coal mine at Old Hartley.

Early history

The Delaval name derives from Laval, a town in the valley of the Mayenne River, in the département of Mayenne in old Maine, north-western France. An early ancestor, Guy de la Val II, built a castle there in the first half of the eleventh century. One of his descendants fought at the Battle of Hastings in AD 1066 (the event marking the Norman conquest of England), and thereafter the De la Vals settled in Northumberland. At Seaton they built a small fortified dwelling near the existing Saxon church, which in 1100 Hubert de la Val rebuilt, bringing into being the present Church of Our Lady near Delaval Hall.

DeLaval

DeLaval is a leading producer of dairy and farming machine, with a head office in Tumba, Sweden, and is part of the Tetra Laval group. The company has 18 factories worldwide, employs over 4,500 people and has a net annual sales of €1 billion in 2014.

History

From the 1870s Gustaf de Laval (1845–1913) developed machines for the dairy industry, including the first centrifugal milk-cream separator and early milking machines. His first separator was patented in 1887, and his first milking machine in 1894. From the early 1880s, De Laval's cream separator, was promoted internationally. For example the London-based Dairy Supply Co presented the cream separator at the 1891 Dairy Show in London.

In 1883, DeLaval and Oscar Lamm founded Aktiebolaget Separator (abbreviated to AB Separator) in Stockholm, Sweden. In the first year the company built 53 milk separators, of which 37 were exported.

In 1888 in the US the company founded the De Laval Cream Separator Co. as a subsidiary, with a sales office in New York and production facility in Poughkeepsie, New York. Another company that Gustaf de Laval founded in the United States in 1901 was the De Laval Steam Turbine Company in Trenton.