BRD Co
BRD Company of Aldridge, Staffordshire.
1940 Company incorporated; Glacier Metal Co Ltd and Langley Alloys Ltd of Slough were subscribers to the new company. Their intention was that the letters BRD would mean that the company would be engaged in Bearings Research and Development. After this the business was dormant for several years.
1948 The company undertook research and development work in connection with turbine blades.
1951 Blade Research and Development (BRD) was formed at Aldridge, Staffordshire, to produce aero-engine turbine and compressor blades. For a detailed account of the business, see here[1]
By 1952 Garringtons a subsidiary of GKN had agreed to produce semi-precision blade forgings for jet engines using the relatively new technique of press forging. BRD had been developing the Jameson process for machining some types of blade forgings. Clifford Motor Components Ltd had taken a financial interest in BRD to develop the process. Development work had been transferred from Slough to the Leamington Road premises of Clifford in Birmingham. Initially BRD would make compressor blades for the Avon engine being made under license by the Standard Motor Co Ltd at Coventry and for the Armstrong Siddeley: Sapphire engine being made by their subsidiary Brockworth Engineering Co Ltd at Hucclecote.
1952 GKN and Clifford agreed to become partners in a reconstituted BRD Company, owning 50% each.
1954 B.R.D. Co. Ltd. Manufacturers of compressor blades. Regd. Office and Works: Dumblederry Lane, Aldridge, Staffs. T.: Aldridge 52490, 52495-6.[2]
1954 "... B.R.D. Ltd., an associated company, sponsored by the G.K.N. and Clifford Groups, for which the Government has built a new factory at Aldridge to machine the ..."[3]
1957 "As the B.R.D. Company is now almost wholly engaged on the machining and finishing of forgings produced by subsidiaries of the G.K.N. Group, your (ie GKN) Board decided to negotiate with Clifford Motor Components to acquire its one-half share of the B.R.D. capital.."[4]
1963 B.R.D. Co. Ltd., Aldridge (mining equipment) exhibited at the Leipzig Fair[6]
1965 G.K.N. moved from Newtown to Welshpool and turned their Newtown premises over to another G.K.N. subsidiary, B.R.D. Co., Ltd. Mr. Garth Blythe, director and general manager of Floform, said he did not anticipate building delays as a result ...[7]
1993 Name changed to GKN Driveshafts Ltd
2003 Became GKN Driveline Walsall
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ [1] Early Days at BRD by John L. Edwards, 1995
- ↑ 1954 The Aeroplane Directory of the Aviation and Allied Industries
- ↑ Birmingham Daily Post 10 May 1954
- ↑ Birmingham Daily Post 28 June 1957
- ↑ Sunday Express 10 May 1959
- ↑ Wolverhampton Express and Star 09 February 1963
- ↑ Wolverhampton Express and Star 21 August 1965