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Concept
Vickers-Armstrongs
Summary
Vickers-Armstrongs Limited was a British engineering conglomerate formed by the merger of the assets of Vickers Limited and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Company in 1927. The majority of the company was nationalised in the 1960s and 1970s, with the remainder being divested as Vickers plc in 1977.
It is one of Britain's most prominent armaments firms.
Vickers merged with the Tyneside-based engineering company Armstrong Whitworth, founded by William Armstrong, to become Vickers-Armstrongs. Armstrong Whitworth and Vickers had developed along similar lines, expanding into various military sectors and produced a whole suite of military products. Armstrong Whitworth were notable for their artillery manufacture at Elswick and shipbuilding at a yard at High Walker on the River Tyne.
1929 saw the merger of the acquired railway business with those of Cammell Laird to form Metropolitan Cammell Carriage and Wagon (MCCW); Metro Cammell.
In 1935, before rearmament began, Vickers-Armstrongs was the third-largest manufacturing employer in Britain, behind Unilever and ICI.
In 1956 Dorothy Hatfield became the first female engineering apprentice at Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft), Brooklands, followed in 1958 by Janet Gulland who was the first female graduate apprentice at the company.
In 1960 the aircraft interests were merged with those of Bristol, English Electric and Hunting Aircraft to form the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). This was owned by Vickers, English Electric and Bristol (holding 40%, 40% and 20% respectively). BAC in turn owned 70% of Hunting. The Supermarine operation was closed in 1963 and the Vickers brand name for aircraft was dropped by BAC in 1965. Under the terms of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 1977 BAC was nationalised to become part of British Aerospace (later BAE Systems).
The Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act also led to the nationalisation of Vickers' shipbuilding division as part of British Shipbuilders.
Official source
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