Catalogue description Records created or inherited by the National Physical Laboratory (post 1996)

The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK’s national standards laboratory and the largest applied physics organisation in the UK. It develops, maintains and disseminates national measurement standards for physical quantities such as mass, length, time, temperature, voltage, force and pressure. It also conducts underpinning research on engineering materials and information technology and disseminates good measurement practice. The National Physical Laboratory is government-owned but contractor-operated.

Prior to 1996, the National Physical Laboratory was the responsibility of various government departments before, in 1991, it became an executive agency of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). In 1996 it became a privatised company and from that date the Laboratory has operated under contract by NPL Management Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Serco Group Plc.

The Laboratory is based at Bushy Park in Teddington, London. A new state-of-the-art laboratory for the NPL at Teddington was completed in 2007.