TWO Oxfordshire science companies will see their names disappear under a ‘rebranding’ exercise by their blue-chip owner.

Vector Fields and Culham Lightning were both spin-off companies from ‘blue-sky’ research at Government laboratories.

Set up by Oxfordshire scientists, they were both later sold to defence company Cobham, now one of the UK’s top 100 companies.

Vector Fields, of Kidlington, was started in 1984 by Bill Trowbridge and John Simkin from the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, at Chilton, near Didcot, and John Whitney, of Compeda, a company related to British Technology Group.

The RAL scientists had built up expertise in software for devices using electromagnetic fields during their work on superconductivity equipment for university particle physicists exploring the fundamental building blocks of the universe.

Mr Whitney became involved when Compeda was licensed to sell the Rutherford Electromagnet- ics Software.

Vector Fields was supported by RAL’s spin-off programme and now employs 27 people in offices in Kidlington and in Aurora, USA.

Culham Lighting grew from fusion research by James Eastwood and Guy Morgan at the UK Atomic Energy Authority's Culham site.

Culham Lightning and Vector Fields — along with the former Electrical Research Association, which is now called ERA Technology, have been brought together under the new name of Cobham Technical Services.

Cobham plc, which joined the FTSE 100 last year, has revenue of £1.5bn and employs more than 12,500 people worldwide on five continents.

Cobham Technical Services marketing manager Neil Gardner said: “We will still use the previous names when describing some of the products, but you won’t see Culham Lightning or Vector Fields as the company name marketed to our respective customers.”

Paul McCarter, general manager of Cobham Technical Services, said: “This is an evolution of a successful growing business, with our great products and services now provided under the brand of a FTSE 100 company.”