History of Conventional Limb Manufacture

The first of the limb Fitting Companies to become established in the UK was J.E Hanger & Co Ltd, a company originating from the early days of the American Civil War when James Edgar Hanger, the student son of a Virginian plantation owner, left college to volunteer to join the Confederate Army. He was wounded at the battle of Phillipi on June 3rd 1861 and his leg was amputated. He was probably the first amputee of the war.

There were no rehabilitation services available to him and he designed and produced an artificial limb for himself. So successful was the limb that he later made similar limbs for his fellow amputees at a hospital in Richmond, Virginia. It was a short step to setting up a company that was to flourish and expand its activities into Philadelphia, St Louis, Atlanta and Pittsburgh.
During 1915 the British Government invited James Edgar Hanger to set up a company at Roehampton to deal with the large number of war amputees. By the time of World War Two the company was well established to deal with the amputees from that conflict.

In 1948, the Vessa Company, also specialising in the manufacture of artificial limbs, was established in Alton Hampshire.

Through several acquisitions J.E.Hanger and Vessa merged and continued to trade under the name of Vessa Limited until the final acquisition by the Ortho Group. Vessa became fully integrated with Ortho Europe in 2004.

Ortho Europe continue to manufacture the range of Hanger and Vessa style conventional limb components and, with a group of highly skilled and very experienced technicians, provide a central fabrication manufacturing service to the UK Limb Fitting Companies

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