GKN plc is a
multinationalA multi national corporation or enterprise , is a corporation or an enterprise that manages production or delivers services in more than one country. It can also be referred to as an international corporation...
automotiveThe automotive industry designs, develops, manufactures, markets, and sells motor vehicles, and is one of the world's most important economic sectors by revenue....
and
aerospaceAn aerospace manufacturer is a company or individual involved in the various aspects of designing, building, testing, selling, and maintaining aircraft, aircraft parts, missiles, rockets, and/or spacecraft....
components company headquartered in
RedditchRedditch is a town and local government district in north-east Worcestershire, England, approximately south of Birmingham. The district had a population of 79,216 in 2005. In the 19th century it became the international centre for the needle and fishing tackle industry...
,
United KingdomThe United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. The company was formerly known as
Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds and can trace its origins back to 1759 and the birth of the
Industrial RevolutionThe Industrial Revolution was a period from the 18th to the 19th century where major changes in agriculture, manufacturing, mining, transportation, and technology had a profound effect on the social, economic and cultural conditions of the times...
.
GKN is listed on the
London Stock ExchangeThe London Stock Exchange is a stock exchange located in the City of London within the United Kingdom. , the Exchange had a market capitalisation of US$3.7495 trillion, making it the fourth-largest stock exchange in the world by this measurement...
and is a constituent of the
FTSE 100 IndexThe FTSE 100 Index, also called FTSE 100, FTSE, or, informally, the footsie , is a share index of the 100 most highly capitalised UK companies listed on the London Stock Exchange....
.
1759 to 1900
The origins of GKN lie in the founding of the Dowlais Ironworks in the village of
DowlaisDowlais is a village and community of the county borough of Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales. As of 2001, it has a population of 6646.Dowlais is notable within Wales and Britain for its historic association with ironworking; once employing, through the Dowlais Iron Company, roughly 5,000 people, the works...
,
Merthyr TydfilMerthyr Tydfil is a town in Wales, with a population of about 30,000. Although once the largest town in Wales, it is now ranked as the 15th largest urban area in Wales. It also gives its name to a county borough, which has a population of around 55,000. It is located in the historic county of...
,
WalesWales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
by
Thomas LewisThomas Lewis was one of the founders of the Dowlais Ironworks, one of the largest ironworks in Wales.-Career:Born into a landed family from Llanishen, Thomas Lewis became an iron-master. He already owned the Pentyrch blast furnace and several small forges when he became a partner in Dowlais...
and
Isaac WilkinsonIsaac Wilkinson was an English industrialist, one of the founders of the iron industry and pioneer of the Industrial Revolution. However, his business ethics were precarious and his commercial affairs frequently chaotic. He became much addicted to litigation.-Early life:Wilkinson was born in...
.
John GuestThe Guest family are a British family of the 18th, 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries who, among other things built a huge industrial business in the Dowlais Iron Company and later in Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds.-John Guest:...
was appointed manager of the works in 1767, having moved from
BroseleyBroseley is a small town in Shropshire, England with a population of 4,912 . The River Severn flows to the north and east of the town. Broseley has a town council and is part of the area controlled by Shropshire Council. The first iron bridge in the world was built in 1779 to link Broseley with...
. In 1786, John Guest was succeeded by his son, Thomas Guest, who formed the Dowlais Iron Company with his son-in-law William Taitt. Guest introduced many innovations and the works prospered.
Under Guest's leadership, alongside his manager John Evans, the Dowlais Ironworks gained the reputation of being "one of the World's great industrial concerns".
Though the
Bessemer processThe Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass-production of steel from molten pig iron. The process is named after its inventor, Henry Bessemer, who took out a patent on the process in 1855. The process was independently discovered in 1851 by William Kelly...
was
licenseThe verb license or grant licence means to give permission. The noun license or licence refers to that permission as well as to the document recording that permission.A license may be granted by a party to another party as an element of an agreement...
d in 1856, nine years of detailed planning and project management were needed before the first steel was produced. The company thrived with its new cost-effective production methods, forming alliances with the
Consett Iron CompanyThe Consett Iron Company Ltd was a major United Kingdom industrial undertaking based in the Consett area of County Durham. The company traded as colliery and limestone quarry owners and iron and steel manufacturers. The company was registered on 4 April 1864 as successor to the Derwent & Consett...
and
KruppThe Krupp family , a prominent 400-year-old German dynasty from Essen, have become famous for their steel production and for their manufacture of ammunition and armaments. The family business, known as Friedrich Krupp AG Hoesch-Krupp, was the largest company in Europe at the beginning of the 20th...
. By 1857 G.T. Clark and William Menelaus, his manager, had constructed the "Goat Mill", the world's most powerful rolling mill.
By the mid 1860s, Clark's reforms had born fruit in renewed
profitabilityIn accounting, profit can be considered to be the difference between the purchase price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses.-Definition:There are...
. Clark delegated day-to-day management to Menelaus, his trusteeship terminating in 1864 when ownership passed to
Sir Ivor GuestIvor Bertie Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne was a Welsh industrialist.Sir Ivor Bertie Guest was born at Dowlais, near Merthyr Tydfil, the son of Lady Charlotte Guest, translator of the Mabinogion, and Sir John Josiah Guest, owner of the world's largest iron foundry:Dowlais Ironworks...
. However, Clark continued to direct policy, in particular, building a new plant at the docks at
CardiffCardiff is the capital, largest city and most populous county of Wales and the 10th largest city in the United Kingdom. The city is Wales' chief commercial centre, the base for most national cultural and sporting institutions, the Welsh national media, and the seat of the National Assembly for...
and vetoing a joint-stock company. He formally retired in 1897.
1900 to 1966
On 9 July 1900, the Dowlais Iron Company and
Arthur KeenArthur Keen was a British entrepreneur, the Keen in engineering firm Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds, later GKN plc.-Early years:...
's
Patent Nut and Bolt Company merged to form
Guest, Keen & Co. Ltd.
Nettlefolds Limited, a leading manufacturer of fasteners, had been established in
SmethwickSmethwick is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, in the West Midlands of England. It is situated on the edge of the city of Birmingham, within the historic boundaries of Staffordshire, Worcestershire and Warwickshire....
,
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
in 1854 and was acquired in 1902 leading to the change of name to
Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds.
These mergers heralded half a century in which the name
GKN became synonymous with the manufacture of
screwA screw, or bolt, is a type of fastener characterized by a helical ridge, known as an external thread or just thread, wrapped around a cylinder. Some screw threads are designed to mate with a complementary thread, known as an internal thread, often in the form of a nut or an object that has the...
s,
nutA nut is a type of hardware fastener with a threaded hole. Nuts are almost always used opposite a mating bolt to fasten a stack of parts together. The two partners are kept together by a combination of their threads' friction, a slight stretch of the bolt, and compression of the parts...
s, bolts and other
fastenerA fastener is a hardware device that mechanically joins or affixes two or more objects together.Fasteners can also be used to close a container such as a bag, a box, or an envelope; or they may involve keeping together the sides of an opening of flexible material, attaching a lid to a container,...
s. The company reflected the
vertical integrationIn microeconomics and management, the term vertical integration describes a style of management control. Vertically integrated companies in a supply chain are united through a common owner. Usually each member of the supply chain produces a different product or service, and the products combine to...
fashionable at the time embracing activities from coal and ore extraction, and iron and steel making to manufacturing finished goods.
After the First World War it became apparent that Britain was likely to follow
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
and more recently the USA in developing a large scale auto-industry. GKN acquired another fastener manufacturer, F. W. Cotterill Ltd., in 1919: Cotterill already owned a subsidiary named J. W. Garrington, which specialised in forgings, and it was the forgings produced at the Garrington
DarlastonDarlaston is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Walsall in the West Midlands of England.-History:Archaeological evidence of the history of Darlaston has been destroyed by The de Darlaston family owned Darlaston and lived in the manor between the 12th century and 15th century. When the de...
plant, later supplemented by a large plant at
BromsgroveBromsgrove is a town in Worcestershire, England. The town is about north east of Worcester and south west of Birmingham city centre. It had a population of 29,237 in 2001 with a small ethnic minority and is in Bromsgrove District.- History :Bromsgrove is first documented in the early 9th century...
, that enabled GKN to become a major supplier of
crankshaftThe crankshaft, sometimes casually abbreviated to crank, is the part of an engine which translates reciprocating linear piston motion into rotation...
s, connecting rods, half-shafts and numerous smaller forged components to the UK auto-industry during and beyond the period of massive expansion between the two world wars.
The next year, in 1920, GKN purchased the steel company John Lysaght and their subsidiary, Joseph Sankey and Sons Ltd. Joseph Sankey was an orphan from
BilstonBilston is a town in the English county of West Midlands, situated in the southeastern corner of the City of Wolverhampton. Three wards of Wolverhampton City Council cover the town: Bilston East and Bilston North, which almost entirely comprise parts of the historic Borough of Bilston, and...
whose career had started with an apprenticeship to a manufacturer of steel tea trays. When he went into business on his own account, Sankey himself became a major tea tray producer. He was also a pioneer motorist and a personal friend of car manufacturers in
the areaThe Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
including, notably,
Herbert AustinHerbert 'Pa' Austin, 1st Baron Austin KBE was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company.-Background and early life:...
, becoming a supplier of sheet steel components the industry. By 1914, the company's customers for sheet steel bodies included
AustinThe Austin Motor Company was a British manufacturer of automobiles. The company was founded in 1905 and merged in 1952 into the British Motor Corporation Ltd. The marque Austin was used until 1987...
,
DaimlerThe Daimler Motor Company Limited was an independent British motor vehicle manufacturer founded in London by H J Lawson in 1896, which set up its manufacturing base in Coventry. The right to the use of the name Daimler had been purchased simultaneously from Gottlieb Daimler and Daimler Motoren...
,
HumberHumber is a dormant British automobile marque which could date its beginnings to Thomas Humber's bicycle company founded in 1868. Following their involvement in Humber through Hillman in 1928 the Rootes brothers acquired a controlling interest and joined the Humber board in 1932 making Humber part...
, Rover,
StarThe Star Motor Company was a British car and commercial vehicle maker based in Wolverhampton and active from 1898 to 1932.Star was founded by the Lisle family who like many other vehicle makers started by making bicycles, in their case in 1893 as Sharratt and Lisle...
and Argyll. Sankey's most substantial contribution was probably in respect of wheels, however, and was a response to complaints from pioneer car-makers about the propensity of the wooden wheels on early cars to disintegrate on the slightest encounter with any roadside kerb. Sankey developed a pressed steel wheel, applying some of the techniques already mastered while producing pressed steel tea trays. Sankey's steel wheels went into production in 1908: early customers included
Herbert AustinHerbert 'Pa' Austin, 1st Baron Austin KBE was an English automobile designer and builder who founded the Austin Motor Company.-Background and early life:...
and William Morris. In addition to his original factory at
BilstonBilston is a town in the English county of West Midlands, situated in the southeastern corner of the City of Wolverhampton. Three wards of Wolverhampton City Council cover the town: Bilston East and Bilston North, which almost entirely comprise parts of the historic Borough of Bilston, and...
a new plant was established near
WellingtonWellington is a town in the unitary authority of Telford and Wrekin and ceremonial county of Shropshire, England and now forms part of the new town of Telford. The population of the parish of Wellington was recorded as 20,430 in the 2001 census, making it the third largest town in Shropshire if...
,
ShropshireShropshire is a county in the West Midlands region of England. For Eurostat purposes, the county is a NUTS 3 region and is one of four counties or unitary districts that comprise the "Shropshire and Staffordshire" NUTS 2 region. It borders Wales to the west...
which was devoted to wheel production. By the time the business came into the GKN fold, the plant was supplying wheels to many UK manufacturers: within GKN the business continued to grow with the industry, so that by 1969 the by now highly automated Wellington plant was turning out some 5½ Million wheels a year at a maximum rate of approximately 30,000 per day. Nevertheless, the Sankey business was never exclusively devoted to wheels: in the 1960s they were supplying the chassis for the
Triumph HeraldThe Triumph Herald was a small two-door car introduced in 1959 by the Standard-Triumph Company of Coventry. Body design was by the Italian stylist Michelotti and the car was offered in saloon, convertible, coupé, van, and estate models....
and its derivatives. They were also at this time building the versatile GKN developed
GKN FV432The FV432 is the armoured personnel carrier variant of the British Army's FV430 series of armoured fighting vehicles. Since its introduction in the 1960s it has been the most common variant, being used for transporting infantry on the battlefield...
armoured personnel carrier which would continue in production long after the disappearance of the Triumph Herald and its ill-starred manufacturer, BLMC.
1966 to 2000
In 1966, in a programme of diversification, GKN acquired Birfield Ltd, a company that since 1938 had incorporated both the
SheffieldSheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
based overdrive manufacturer,
Laycock EngineeringOverdrive is a term used to describe a mechanism that allows an automobile to cruise at sustained speed with reduced engine RPM, leading to better fuel economy, lower noise and lower wear...
, and Hardy Spicer Limited of
BirminghamBirmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England, a manufacturer of
constant-velocity jointConstant-velocity joints allow a drive shaft to transmit power through a variable angle, at constant rotational speed, without an appreciable increase in friction or play. They are mainly used in front wheel drive and all wheel drive cars...
s. Historically, such joints had had few applications, even following the improved design proposed by
Alfred H. RzeppaAlfred Hans Rzeppa was an engineer working at Ford Motor Company who invented a version of constant-velocity joint in 1926. He proposed an improved design in 1936....
in 1936. However, in 1959,
Alec IssigonisSir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, CBE, FRS was a Greek-British designer of cars, now remembered chiefly for the groundbreaking and influential development of the Mini, launched by the British Motor Corporation in 1959.- Early life:Issigonis was born into the Greek community of Smyrna ...
had developed the revolutionary
MiniThe Mini is a small car that was made by the British Motor Corporation and its successors from 1959 until 2000. The original is considered a British icon of the 1960s, and its space-saving front-wheel-drive layout influenced a generation of car-makers...
motor car which relied on the Hardy Spicer joints for its front wheel drive technology. The massive expansion in the exploitation of front wheel drive in the 1970s and 1980s led to the acquisition of other similar businesses and a 43% share of the world market by 2002.
On the death of founder Tony Vandervell in 1967, GKN acquired the lucrative
MaidenheadMaidenhead is a town and unparished area within the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead, in Berkshire, England. It lies on the River Thames and is situated west of Charing Cross in London.-History:...
based Vandervell bearing manufacturer which was at the time already exporting more than 50% of its output to overseas vehicle manufacturers. This was part of a larger trend for GKN which during this period, under its Managing Director Raymond Brookes, was working to reduce its dependence on UK auto-maker customers at a time when the domestic industry was seen to be stumbling, in response to bewildering "Government interference and fiscal short-sightedness", with British new car registrations in the first four months of 1969 a massive 33% down on the corresponding period of the previous year.
As a result of the large number of mergers,
Abram GamesAbram Games OBE, RDI was a British graphic designer.Born Abraham Gamse in Whitechapel, London on the day World War I began in 1914, he was the son of Joseph Gamse, a Latvian photographer, and Sarah, a seamstress born on the border of Russia and Poland. His father anglicized the family name to...
was commissioned to developed a new
corporate identityIn Corporate Communications, a corporate identity is the "persona" of a corporation which is designed to accord with and facilitate the attainment of business objectives...
in 1969 when the distinctive angular GKN symbol was created and the new company colours of blue and white introduced.
During the 1980s, GKN sought to invest its earnings from constant-velocity joints in developing other nascent technologies. However, little success attended these efforts and in 1991 the company resolved to abandon further research and to redivert its development efforts towards its constant-velocity joint business in which it was facing increasing competition from Japan. During the same period, the company finally withdrew from the manufacture of fasteners and from steel production. Changing its name to
GKN plc, it diversified into military vehicles,
aerospaceAerospace comprises the atmosphere of Earth and surrounding space. Typically the term is used to refer to the industry that researches, designs, manufactures, operates, and maintains vehicles moving through air and space...
and industrial services.
In 1994, GKN acquired the
helicopterA helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
manufacturing business of
Westland AircraftWestland Aircraft was a British aircraft manufacturer located in Yeovil in Somerset. Formed as a separate company by separation from Petters Ltd just before the start of the Second World War, Westland had been building aircraft since 1915...
. In 1998 the armoured vehicle business was sold to
Alvis plcAlvis Ltd. was created when United Scientific Holdings plc acquired the Alvis division of the nationalised vehicle manufacturer British Leyland in 1981. United Scientific maintained its own name until 1992 when the group was renamed Alvis plc. Alvis acquired Swedish armoured vehicle manufacturer...
, and subsequently incorporated into Alvis Vickers Ltd. In July 2000
FinmeccanicaFinmeccanica S.p.A. is an Italian conglomerate. Finmeccanica is the second largest industrial group and the largest of the hi-tech industrial groups based in Italy. It works in the fields of defence, aerospace, security, automation, transport and energy...
and GKN agreed to merge their respective helicopter subsidiaries to form
AgustaWestlandAgustaWestland is an Anglo-Italian helicopter design and manufacturing company. It was formed in July 2000 when Finmeccanica S.p.A. and GKN plc agreed to merge their respective helicopter subsidiaries to form AgustaWestland with Finmeccanica and GKN each holding a 50% share.AgustaWestland is now a...
. In 2004 GKN completed the sale of its 50% shareholding in
AgustaWestlandAgustaWestland is an Anglo-Italian helicopter design and manufacturing company. It was formed in July 2000 when Finmeccanica S.p.A. and GKN plc agreed to merge their respective helicopter subsidiaries to form AgustaWestland with Finmeccanica and GKN each holding a 50% share.AgustaWestland is now a...
to
FinmeccanicaFinmeccanica S.p.A. is an Italian conglomerate. Finmeccanica is the second largest industrial group and the largest of the hi-tech industrial groups based in Italy. It works in the fields of defence, aerospace, security, automation, transport and energy...
.
From the late 1990s, the company built a major global business in
powder metallurgyPowder metallurgy is the process of blending fine powdered materials, pressing them into a desired shape , and then heating the compressed material in a controlled atmosphere to bond the material . The powder metallurgy process generally consists of four basic steps: powder manufacture, powder...
, which operates as the GKN Sinter Metals group.
2000 to present
In 2006 GKN acquired Monitor Aerospace Corp in
Amityville, New YorkAmityville is a village in the town of Babylon in Suffolk County, New York, in the United States. The population was 9,441 at the 2000 census.-History:...
and Precision Machining in
Wellington, KansasWellington is a city in and the county seat of Sumner County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 8,172.-19th century:...
.
In 2008 the company acquired part of the
AirbusAirbus SAS is an aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS, a European aerospace company. Based in Blagnac, France, surburb of Toulouse, and with significant activity across Europe, the company produces around half of the world's jet airliners....
plant at
FiltonFilton is a town in South Gloucestershire, England, situated on the northern outskirts of the city of Bristol, about from the city centre. Filton lies in Bristol postcode areas BS7 and BS34. The town centres upon Filton Church, which dates back to the 12th century and is a grade II listed building...
near
BristolBristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
for £150 million.
On 28 July 2011, GKN made public a deal with Getrag in which GKN would acquire all of Getrag's axle business and axle manufacturing facilities.
Operations
The company is organised as follows:
- Aerospace
- Aerostructures
- Engine Products
- Propulsion Systems
- Driveline
- Driveshafts
- Freight Services
- Autostructures
- Cylinder Liners
- Emitec Joint Venture
- Land Systems
- Aftermarket Services
- Power Management
- Wheels and Structures
External links