George Hare (1825-1913) was born in Yorkshire where he was apprenticed to his father as a joiner. After working in York he moved to London and joined the firm of Thomas Ottewill before starting his own business circa 1856. The firm was originally located at 140 Pentonville Road before moving to 1 Lower Calthorpe Street, London, in 1864 and in 1877 it moved to 26 Calthorpe Street, London, where it remained until its demise.

Hare introduced various designs of cameras including a binocular camera in 1860 and New Universal camera in 1871 which was based on W. J. Stillman's patent (number 3069) of 14 November 1871 which allowed for a swinging and tilting focusing back. This patent is incorporated into this camera and according to Barron: 'a particularly noteworthy feature of this camera is the method used to achieve rear tilt and swing (Stillman's patent) which would make demands on the most skilful joiner and accordingly would be expensive to produce. It is the only known example of this Stillman patent known [to me]'.