G&H, formerly Gooch & Housego, describes itself as a “global leader in photonics technology” – it designs, engineers, and manufactures optical systems. It works across three markets: Aerospace and Defense, Industrial and Telecom and Life Sciences. The company was founded in 1948 by Archie Gooch and Leslie Housego, who had worked with quartz crystal-based radio during the second World War.
Based in Ilminster in Somerset, G&H has UK facilities located in Ashford, Ilminster, Torquay, St. Asaph and Plymouth, and manufacturing sites in the US in California, New Hampshire, Ohio and New York. It has offices in the US, Germany, France, Japan and Thailand. It has over 900 employees, most of which are at its UK offices.
G&H made revenues of UK£ 150 million in 2025; its aerospace and defense business revenues increased 52.1% from the previous year due to “growing demand from US defence prime contractors, particularly for laser protection filtering, periscopes and complex optical systems”. Within its aerospace and defense business, it produces: guidance and navigation components for ring laser gyroscope, countermeasures for ground-based systems and airborne platforms, space photonics including components for unmanned aerial vehicles, periscopes and sighting systems for land, opto-mechanical subsystems for unmanned aerial and ground vehicles, directed energy systems for military platform and infrastructure defence applications, among other products.
In 2016, the company acquired two companies: Kent Periscopes, which manufactured “periscopes, vehicle sights, and related equipment for land-based armored fighting vehicles.”; and Alfalight, a US company, which was “…a designer and manufacturer of high reliability, rugged laser-based, electro-optic systems for defense and security applications”. Alfalight was added to its existing US business. In 2023, G&H acquired Artemis Optical Technologies, which makes photonic systems used in the aerospace and defence sectors.
Though G&H does not publish much information about the end users of its products, or its commercial partners, UK military export license information shows that since 2008 the company has applied to export its products to China, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, and the US.
Controversies
Israel and the Palestinian territories
Since 2008, Gooch & Housego (UK) Ltd has obtained 11 standard individual export licences (SIELs) for export of its products to Israel. The goods covered by these licences include aircraft military communications equipment, components for military aircraft displays, electronic warfare equipment, and components for UAVs. Despite their obscurity relative to better known companies, Gooch & Housego became the largest recipient of single-issue arms licences to Israel between October 2021 and May 2023, according to government data obtained by CAAT. As such, the company has faced targeted protest actions. In January 2025, CAAT organised a blockade of Gooch & Housego’s Artemis site in Plymouth.
