Doughty #1049

Doughty Engineering (United Kingdom) is a global manufacturer of rigging, suspension, and lifting equipment for the film, TV, and theater industries: clamps (half-couplers), half-couplers, pantographs, rail systems, stands, and grip equipment.

The company was founded in 1970 by Russell Doughty as a manufacturer of trailers — ranging from small boat and camping trailers to 20-ton haulage trailers. In the 1980s it moved into forklift attachments, and in the mid-1980s, commissioned by a local theatrical company, began producing brackets and hook clamps (in 1987, the first batch of 500 steel clamps). The extruded-aluminum half-coupler "Doughty Clamp" it subsequently developed became an industry standard, and from 1994 the company entered the film and TV grip equipment market. In 2006, Doughty exited the agricultural equipment business entirely to focus on the entertainment industry, and in 2020 it celebrated its 50th anniversary.