This MedLibrary.org supplementary page on Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group is provided directly from the open source Wikipedia as a service to our readers. Please see the note below on authorship of this content, as well as the Wikipedia usage guidelines. To search for other content from our encyclopedia supplement, please use the form below:
Related Sponsors
 |
|
| Fate | Assets split and majority nationalised |
|---|---|
| Successor | Vickers plc British Aircraft Corporation (est.1960) British Shipbuilders British Steel |
| Founded | 1927 |
| Defunct | 1977 |
| Headquarters | Vickers House, Westminster, London |
| Parent | Vickers Limited Armstrong Whitworth |
| Subsidiaries | Metropolitan-Vickers Canadian Vickers Whitehead & Company John Brown & Company Sociedad Española de Construcción Naval Supermarine Aviation Works (est.1928) |
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.
Contents |
History
Vickers merged with the Tyneside based engineering company Armstrong Whitworth, founded by W. G. Armstrong, to become Vickers-Armstrongs, Ltd. 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.
Break-up
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 1977 Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act 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. This division was privatised as Vickers Shipbuilding and Engineering Ltd (VSEL) in 1986, later passing to the GEC group as part of Marconi Marine and survives to this day as part of BAE Systems; BAE Systems Submarines.
Vickers Container and Packaging Machinery Division, including the Vickers Stitcher and Vickers Hardness Machine business, was bought by Fords Industrial Products, part of Barry Wehmiller in 1986. In 1991 the Vickers Hardness Machinery business was bought by the then field engineers, and continues today as UK Calibrations Limited based in Kidderminster. The Vickers Stitcher was still being manufactured in India as recently as 2005.
The steelmaking division became part of British Steel and the remaining interests were divested as the public company Vickers plc, whose various components were later split. The Vickers name ceased to exist in 2003 when Rolls-Royce renamed its acquisitions Vinters plc.
Businesses
Armaments
Vickers-Armstrongs inherited the Vickers machine gun from Vickers Limited. There were other Vickers machine guns aside from the regular water-cooled model (known universally as the "Vickers") such as the Vickers "K" 7.7 mm aircraft machine gun and the Vickers "S" 40 mm aircraft gun.
Vickers produced larger weapons such as the Ordnance QF 2 pounder gun used on tanks. In 1948 Vickers bought the Australian business of Charles Ruwolt Ltd for 750,000 pounds following Ruwolt's death in 1946. During WW2 Ruwolt's firm produced armaments for the Australian Government, including field artillery such as mortars and howitzer cannon. See Australian Dictionary of Biography. [1]
Shipbuilding
After the 1927 merger, the company possessed a major yard on each coast of Britain; the Naval Construction Yard of Vickers at Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria and the Naval Yard of Armstrong Whitworth at High Walker on the River Tyne. Vickers-Armstrongs was one of the most important warship manufacturers in the world. These interests were renamed as Vickers-Armstrongs Shipbuilders in 1955, changing again to Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group in 1968. The Barrow yard later passed into the hands of the nationalised British Shipbuilders, was privatised as VSEL and remains in operation to this day as BAE Systems Submarines.
Military vehicles
The company was also known for its tank designs, starting with the widely used Vickers 6-Ton. It also produced the influential, if never actually produced, Independent A1E1 tank. One of the company's most important designs was the Valentine Infantry Tank, produced in the thousands in World War II. The military vehicle manufacturing interests were divested into Vickers plc, and would later pass to Alvis Vickers, now part of BAE Systems Land and Armaments.
Notable Vickers-Armstrongs military vehicles include;
- Carden Loyd tankette
- Cruiser Mk I
- Cruiser Mk II
- Vickers 6-ton
- Valentine
- Vickers MBT (and under licence in India as Vijayanta)
Aviation
Vickers formed their Aviation Department in 1911. The aircraft interests of Armstrong Whitworth were not acquired in the merger and later passed to the Hawker Aircraft group. In 1928 the Aviation Department became Vickers (Aviation) Ltd and soon after acquired Supermarine Aviation Works, which became the Supermarine Aviation Works (Vickers) Ltd. In 1938, both companies were re-organised as Vickers-Armstrongs (Aircraft) Ltd, although the former Supermarine and Vickers works continued to brand their products under their former names. In 1960 the aircraft interests were one of the founding companies merged to form BAC.
Military Aircraft
Vickers became renowned as a manufacturer of large aircraft. In the inter-war years the company produced the Wellesley using the geodesic airframe principle of structural engineer Barnes Wallis. This would later evolve into the famous Wellington bomber, a mainstay of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command and Coastal Command during World War II. The cold war-era Valiant V bomber was another Vickers product.
Among the Vickers-Armstrongs military aircraft are:
- Vickers FB 5
- Vickers F.B.12
- Vickers F.B.14
- Vickers FB19
- Vickers Vampire
- Vickers Vimy
- Vickers VIM
- Vickers Viking
- Vickers Vendace
- Vickers Vixen
- Vickers Valparaiso
- Vickers Venture
- Vickers 131 Valiant
- Vickers Type 143 (Bolivian Scout)
- Vickers Type 163
- Vickers Type 177
- Vickers Vespa
- Wibault Type 121 Scout
- Vickers Viastra
- Vickers Vellore
- Vickers Vellox
- Vickers Virginia
- Vickers Vanox
- Vickers Valentia prototype
- Vickers Type 264 Valentia
- Vickers Vernon
- Vickers Victoria
- Vickers Vildebeest
- Vickers Vincent
- Vickers Wellesley
- Vickers Wellington
- Vickers Warwick
- Vickers Windsor
- Vickers Valetta
- Vickers Varsity
- Vickers Valiant
- Victory Bomber
Vickers also competed for work with fighter designs offering designs such as:
- Vickers Type 432 - WW2 high altitude interceptor
- Vickers Type 559 - 1950s high altitude supersonic interceptor
Missiles and other weapons
- "Upkeep" and "Highball" bouncing bombs
- Tallboy bomb
- Grand Slam bomb
- UB.109T - Company designation Vickers 825.
- Blue Boar - Air-to Surface project from the 1950s.
- Green lizard - Surface-to-air missile project from the 1950s.
- Orange William - Anti-tank missile project from the late 1950s.
- Red Dean
- Red Hebe - Air-to-air missile project.
- Vickers Vigilant
Civilian aircraft
Vickers was a pioneer in producing airliners, early examples being converted from Vimy bombers. Post , and went on to manufacture the piston-engined Vickers VC.1 Viking airliner, the Viscount and Vanguard turboprop airliners and (as part of BAC) the VC10 jet airliner, which remains in RAF service as an aerial refuelling tanker.
- Vickers Vimy Commercial
- Vickers Vulcan (1920s)
- Vickers VC.1 Viking
- Vickers Viscount
- Vickers Vanguard
- Vickers V-1000
- Vickers VC10
Marine engines
Vickers-Armstrongs was one of the few British manufacturers of marine diesel engines, notably for Royal Navy S, T-class and Estonian Kalev class submarines during World War II.
In fiction
The role of Vickers-Armstrongs in the Chaco War is parodied as Viking Arms Co. Limited in Tintin's comic-book The Broken Ear.
References
- Andrews, C F Vickers Aircraft since 1908Putnam. 1969
- Scott, J.D. (1962), Vickers: A History, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London
External links
|
||||||||||||||
Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 8 October 2008, at 14:09.
Wikipedia Authorship and Review
Wikipedia content provided here is not reviewed directly by MedLibrary.org. Wikipedia content is authored by an open community of volunteers and is not produced by or in any way affiliated with MedLibrary.org.
Wikipedia Usage Guidelines
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article on "Vickers Limited Shipbuilding Group".
The URL for this specific entry is:
All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License. (See Copyrights for details). Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.