The company was established in 1894 in Sri Lanka as The Nahalma Tea Estate Company Limited.[4] It switched to rubber production in 1937 and became The Nahalma Rubber Estate Company Limited.[4] During the early 1950s the company's rubber estates were nationalised by the Sri Lankan government, and in 1956 the company became Halma Investments Limited, thereby severing its connections with both tea and rubber and becoming an investment and industrial holding company.[4]
In the early 1970s the company began a sequence of acquisitions in the mechanical, electrical and electronic engineering sectors. The company was renamed Halma Limited in 1973 and registered as a public limited company in 1981, becoming Halma plc.[4] In 1984, the company acquired Apollo Fire Detectors, the largest manufacturer of smoke detectors in the UK.[5]
The company undertook three acquisitions in the second half of 2019, including Ampac, another fire detection business, and two further acquisitions in the medical sector in early 2020.[6]
