Wickman Ltd, machine tool specialists
1947 A. C. Wickman Limited became part of the John Brown Group [2], although A C Wickman continued to report as a public company until at least 1951 after which it reported as Wickman. Subsidiaries included:
- Hard Metal Tools Ltd of Coventry
- Powderloys Ltd of Coventry
- Applied High Frequency Ltd
- Arc Manufacturing Ltd of Shepherds Bush and Glasgow
1953 Webster and Bennett was jointly owned by John Brown and Co and Wickman Ltd [3].
1957 The manufacturing activity was transferred to Wickman Machine Tool Manufacturing Co so that the parent company could concentrate on selling and design of applications for the wide variety of machines sold at home and abroad[4]
1961 Manufacturers and distributors of multi-spindle automatic high production machines, tungsten carbide tools, diamond wheels and electro-erosion products. [5]
1961 Acquired Coventry Machine Tool Works of Halifax[6]
1962 Wickman became a holding company with the trading activity carried out by its subsidiary companies[7]
1964 Another subsidiary making machine tools was Wickman Scrivener. Wickman's made a bid for John Lang and Sons of Johnstone, which would enable expansion of production capacity; Lang's lathes would usefully extend the company's product range[8]
1965 Wickman Lang in Renfrewshire was not attracting enough business to support the capital investment. Wickman's acquired Taylor and Challen but there was not enough work to keep its factory fully employed[9]
1966 English Electric acquired Wickman's 50 percent interest in English Electric-Arc Welding Co[10]
1966 Wickman's subsidiaries were[11]:
- Wickman Machine Tool Sales
- Wickman Machine Tool (Overseas)
- Wickman Machine Tool Manufacturing Co
- Wickman Wimet.
- Wickman Scrivener
- John Stirk and Sons
- A. Kitchen-D. Walker Ltd
- Taylor and Challen
1968 The manufacturing load was close to capacity[12]
1969 Machine tools (largely Wickman) were said to be the most (successful) business of the John Brown group[13]
1972 Received support for a project on lathes and grinding machine from a government programme for the machine tool industry [14]
1977 The Canadian subsidiary was sold[15]
1982 Wickman Automated Assembly.
1984 John Brown and Co sold the Coventry-based machine tool operations of Wickman Ltd and Webster and Bennett to a consortium headed by Ketlon Ltd who renamed the business Wickman Bennett. The Halifax-based machine tools business was sold to James H. Vickery[16] [17]
See Also
Sources of Information
- ↑ Oxford Junior Encyclopaedia. Volume VIII. Engineering. Oxford University Press, 1955.
- ↑ [1] National Archives
- ↑ The Times, 26 September 1953
- ↑ The Times, Sep 09, 1957
- ↑ 1961 Dun and Bradstreet KBE
- ↑ The Times, Aug 11, 1961
- ↑ The Times, Aug 17, 1962
- ↑ The Times, Aug 14, 1964
- ↑ The Times, Jul 26, 1966
- ↑ The Times, Mar 22, 1966
- ↑ The Times, Jul 26, 1966
- ↑ The Times, Aug 16, 1968
- ↑ The Times, Jun 27, 1969
- ↑ The Times, Mar 15, 1972
- ↑ The Times, Jun 27, 1977
- ↑ The Times Jun 19, 1984
- ↑ Wickman Group website