The story of Ensign is a bit complicated, but in summary is as follows: It starts with Houghtons in 1834 and soon thereafter they began selling Daguerreotypes requisites. In 1892 they became george Houghton & Son and in 1904 Houghtons Ltd. 1926 saw a merger and Houghton-Butcher (Great Britain) Ltd was formed. 1930 saw the creation of a selling arm called Ensign Ltd, which is where we came in with this thread.

In 1940 Ensign's London premises were destroyed by enemy action and Johnsons (the chemists) took over Ensign forming Houghtons (Holborn) Ltd. The Ensign name was retained and in 1945 another merger resulted in Barnet-Ensign, followed by Barnett Ensign Ross (1944 and then Ross-Ensign (1954).

This continued until the firm disappeared around 1961.

In common with other famous names such as Voigtlander they don't disappear but the rights to the name linger on owned by someone. The Japanese seem to have picked up a few and I think Ensinor (being a derivative used for lenses by Ensign) was used for budget SLR lenses probably up to the 1970s.

Ensinor lenses are very rare and virtually unobtainable and it would appear that no-one knows who actually manufactured them.