Gill Air Limited is a wholly owned subsidiary of Hunter Products Limited.

The Hunter Products Group consists of a collection of leading companies specializing primary in two distinctive areas, namely Air Movement and Architectural Aluminium Products.

Gill Air specializes in louvres, solar shading, smoke and passive ventilation systems, which rely primarily on natural air movement. These products are complementary to Mathews and Yates' business of non-domestic ventilation products and enable the company to offer complete ventilation and fire engineering solutions to meet clients' needs.

Origins and history of Gill air

In 1882 Thomas Greenwood of Moss Side, Manchester, was operating as a sole agent for the Boyle system of ventilation which worked by natural convection through air inlet and ducted roof turrets.

By 1884 he had started manufacturing and offered the first ventilator product under the Greenwood name in direct competition with Robert Boyle.

In 1903 Greenwood’s business had a ten page catalogue offering a range of natural ventilators, louvres and electric fans.

The business was incorporated in 1912 as Greenwood’s Ventilating Company Limited and introduced a skylight ventilator. Sales were boosted by new building bye-laws requiring staircases to be ventilated.

Thomas Greenwood died in 1927 and shortly afterwards control of the business was acquired by Donald Hughes. The business was moved to Wood Green in London and then to Wembley in 1938/39.

In March 1940 the company name was changed to Greenwood’s and Airvac Ventilation Company Limited. During the Second World War the company made ventilators for Corvette Destroyers and Booster Fans for Barrage Balloons.

A factory was acquired in Rustington in 1957 and in 1964 a controlling interest in the company was acquired by Keith Blackman and the company name changed to Greenwood Airvac Ventilation Limited.

In 1968 Keith Black man was acquired by GEC and Greenwood Airvac Ventilation Limited ran successfully as a 51% subsidiary for the following 14 years.

In 1982 the Edmondson family acquired 100% control of Greenwood Airvac Ventilation Limited, which was then incorporated as part of Hunter International (Manufacturing) Limited.

In April 1995 the Gill Group purchased the commercial division of Greenwood Airvac with the established and renowned range of louvres and smoke ventilation products and traded as Gill Airvac International Limited. The Housing Division of Greenwood Airvac with its range of grilles, diffusers, window vents and extract fans remained part of Hunter International until September 1996 when it was sold to Marley Plc with its rights to the Greenwood Airvac names and currently trades as Greenwood Air Management Limited.

In May 1997 the Spire Group acquired the business of Gill Airvac International Limited, which has now been renamed Gill Air. Gill Air continues to design and manufacture the same excellent range of louvres and smoke vent products using the same tooling, engineers and workforce as established by the commercial division of Greenwood Airvac. Gill Air pledged to continue with the high standard of design, manufacture and produce quality developed since 1882.

In 2006 Hunter Products procured the rights to the Gill range of goods and services including glazing, smoke control powered extract equipment and high specification design services such as computational dynamics.