Grace's Guide
British Industrial History
Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 130,433 pages of information and 207,167 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.
Metal Industries
From Graces Guide
of 145 Saint Vincent Street, Glasgow (1935)
1920 William Edward Evans gained a patent (presumably on a method of production of oxygen)[1]
Began business as ship breakers, marine salvage, metal merchants and refiners in Charlestown, Fife[2].
1922 Company formed as Alloa Shipbreaking Co.
1926 Acquired Rosyth Shipbreaking Co, of HM Dockyard, Rosyth
1929 Company name changed to Metal Industries.
1932 Disposed of Oxygen Industries Ltd to British Oxygen Co Ltd in exchange for shares[3].
1933 Acquired marine salvage undertaking at Scapa Flow of Cox and Danks
1935 Became a public company - metal merchants, metal refiners, ship breakers, and ship salvers at H.M. Dockyard Rosyth and Charlestown, Fife and Scapa Flow[4].
1935 Application with British Oxygen Co and others to extend Weaver's patent[5]
1937 Metal merchants. [6]
1943 Acquired Electrical Switchgear and Associated Manufacturers Ltd, which owned Brookhirst Switchgear Ltd; also acquired Igranic Electric Co of Bedford; had increased shareholding in Sentinel Waggon Works (1936) Ltd[7].
Postwar: acquired facilities at Faslane Port.
1947 Company was operating in three main areas[8]:
- Metal Industries (Salvage) Ltd
- Metal Industries (Electrical Group) Ltd -
- Sentinel (Shrewsbury) Ltd
1948 Acquired Fawcett, Preston and Co[9]
1949 Acquired Cox and Danks[10]
1952 Acquired the rest of the capital of John Allan and Co (Glenpark)[11]
1954/5 Acquired Finney Presses which would complement the presses business of Fawcett Preston; took over the business of unbreakable resistors of the Rheostatic Co[12] which was put into Fawcett Preston.
1956 Addressed poor profitability by selling Sentinel and curtailment of the activities of 2 electrical subsidiaries - Brookhirst Switchgear and Cantie Switches[13]. Other subsidiaries included[14]:
- Shipbreaking Industries
- Hughes Bolckow Shipbreaking Co of Blyth
- Metal Industries (Salvage)
- Cox and Danks
- John Allan and Co of Glasgow and Oldbury
- Igranic Electric Co
- Fawcett, Preston and Co of Bromborough
- Finney Presses of Birmingham
- Ferrous Castings of Warrington
- Metind Ltd, which had been closed
Substantial management and organisation changes were made in the electrical division. Redirection of the mechanical engineering businesses away from sub-contract work[15]
1958 Acquired Farmer Brothers (Shifnal), constructers of steelwork. Integrated its long established subsidiaries Brookhirst Switchgear Ltd and Igranic Electric Co Ltd into Brookhirst Igranic Ltd.[16]
1959 Acquired Towler Brothers (Patents) including its subsidiary Electraulic Presses[17].
1959 Metal Industries Ltd acquired Avo Ltd, including its subsidiary Taylor Electrical Instruments Ltd[18]
1960 Acquired Lancashire Dynamo Holdings Ltd which doubled the size of the group; rights issue to pay for the acquisition. Total of 38 subsidiaries. Towler Brothers was working with Brookhirst on a joint development[19].
1961 Had 24 subsidiaries manufacturing. Employs 12,000 persons. [20]
1967 As part of a programme of focussing on strategic assets, disposed of J. G. Statter and Co, switchgear makers to English Electric Co, and Fawcett, Preston and Co, rubber and plastic extrusion machinery makers[21].
1967 Thorn Electrical Industries acquired Metal Industries after a contentious battle with Aberdare Holdings[22]. This included Lancashire Dynamo Electronic Products which was later renamed Thorn Automation[23]. Associated with the deal was the acquistion by AEI of Lancashire Dynamo and Crypto[24]
Acquisition by Thorn Electrical Industries would secure sheet metal supplies for Thorn's domestic appliance business
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ London Gazette Issue 27 December 1935
- ↑ The Times, Apr 09, 1947
- ↑ The Times, 29 July 1935
- ↑ The Times, 29 July 1935
- ↑ London Gazette Issue 27 December 1935
- ↑ 1937 The Aeroplane Directory of the Aviation and Allied Industries
- ↑ The Times, 14 August 1943
- ↑ The Times, Apr 09, 1947
- ↑ The Times, Sep 09, 1948
- ↑ The Times, Sep 18, 1950
- ↑ The Times, Sep 04, 1952
- ↑ The Times, Jan 21, 1955
- ↑ The Times, Jul 03, 1957
- ↑ The Times, Jul 11, 1957
- ↑ The Times, Oct 10, 1956
- ↑ The Times, Jul 09, 1958
- ↑ The Times, 8 July 1959
- ↑ The Times, 8 July 1959
- ↑ The Times, 16 August 1960
- ↑ 1961 Guide to Key British Enterprises
- ↑ The Times, 1 July 1967
- ↑ The Times, 7 August 1967
- ↑ The Times, 1 January 1968
- ↑ The Times, 15 September 1967