RHAM/FAMCO was started by Robert Lewit in a small office in Melbourne in 1961. It was first known as Rham Commercial & Custom Lighting and specialised in original innovative designs.

Specialised factories carried out all of the manufacture to Rham’s specifications. Among these factories was Fitzroy Art Metal, a company which had entered the lighting field at the turn of the century with the manufacture of gaslight brackets.

By 1962 it was closing down and the remaining five employees, some of whom had worked for the company for 40 years, had asked Robert Lewit to buy the company.

The name was then changed to the anagram FAMCO, but it has always remained Fitzroy Art Metal to those in the industry. In the years that followed the company moved three times to new and larger premises, acquired adjacent properties and purchased or established other companies in streetlighting, plastics, shop fittings and electronics.