A British company, the Barr & Stroud story goes right back to 1891, when Archibald Barr and William Stroud were approached by the Admiralty of the Royal Navy to come up with a design for a short-base rangefinder.
With the outbreak of the first World War, they saw a large increase in demand for their rangefinders, but there was a problem with supplying the British forces with binoculars. At the time Zeiss, a German company, were the leading makers of binoculars and obviously the military thought this may cause problems in the future.
By 1919 Barr & Stroud started producing their first binoculars which were supplied to the British Navy and were used almost universally by them during WW2. Over the years they have played a leading role in the development of modern optics and today apart from binoculars they manufacture microscopes, monoculars and spotting scopes.
