Hatton Anderson Associates was founded as a partnership in 1977 by John and Chris Hatton, freelance technical translators, and Peter Anderson, manager of a translation agency in the City of London, to supply high-quality technical and specialised translation services to clients in the manufacturing and service industries and professionals such as lawyers and patent agents. Shortly afterwards the agency operation was expanded to meet the varied needs of the Ford Motor Company, which ranged from workshop manuals for trucks and cars to technical training publications and from production engineering and manufacturing standards to real estate, banking and legal documents - all in a variety of languages.