Echoes of the Past: Lens laboratory survival

This week’s Echoes of the Past looks at Optician sister title, Manufacturing Optician from July 1965. That month, The Beatles released ‘Help’ in the UK and cigarette advertising was banned on British TV.

Today’s prescription lens laboratories have it tough. The pace of technology development and increased pressure on prices and discounts make sure there are constant concerns for independent lab managers. Although the landscape of the prescription lab sector was different in the mid-1960s, commercial pressures still threatened their businesses.

According to the article, A re-modelled Rx Laboratory, the pressures that the industry faced at the time would have been deemed unimaginable in the 1950s. The shrinking number of opticians was one of the problems identified, as was the small number of large companies starting to exert greater control of lens manufacturing.