GKN

Guest Keen Baldwins

Steel production remained at the core of the company, but under increasing profit margin pressure. In 1930 the company combined its steel production business with that of rival Baldwins to form Guest Keen Baldwins, which now held:^[11]

• Baldwins: Coke ovens at Margam; Blast-furnaces and steel melting shop at Margam; steel works and rolling mills at Port Talbot; blast-furnaces at Briton Ferry; lime stone quarry at Cornelly
• GKN: Dowlais Iron and Steel Works; Cardiff Iron and Steel Works; coke ovens at Cwmbran; limestone and silica quarries

In 1935 the company demolished the Cardiff works to construct a new production facility on the same site, funded by an issue of debentures.^[12] Due to a resultant global shortage of pig iron, in 1937 the company fired-up the single remaining blast furnace at Dowlais.^[13]

All of the sites were heavily bombed by the Nazi Luftwaffe during the war, and the required investment meant that all of these assets were nationalised as part of the 1951 Iron and Steel Act, resultantly becoming part of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain.^[14]

GKN were still highly reliant on the supply of good quality steel, so in 1954 negotiated from the asset realisation company the repurchase of key assets from ISC, which were renamed Guest Keen Iron and Steel Co. In 1961 the company's name changed again to GKN Steel Company.^[15]

Fasteners

Display showing products of Guest Keen & Nettlefolds Ltd. in decorative form.

These mergers heralded half a century in which GKN became a major manufacturer of screws, nuts, bolts and other fasteners. The company reflected the vertical integration fashionable at the time embracing activities from coal and ore extraction, and iron and steel making to manufacturing finished goods.^[16]

Crankshafts

After the First World War it became apparent that Britain was likely to follow France and more recently the United States in developing a large scale auto-industry.^[17] GKN acquired another fastener manufacturer, F. W. Cotterill Ltd., in 1919. Cotterill owned a subsidiary named J. W. Garrington, which specialised in forgings. The forgings produced at the Garrington Darlaston plant, later supplemented by a large plant at Bromsgrove, enabled GKN to become a major supplier of crankshafts, 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.^[17]

Pressed steel wheels

In 1920, GKN purchased steel company John Lysaght and their subsidiary, Joseph Sankey and Sons Ltd.^[17] After training as an engineer, Sankey founded a major tea tray producer. A pioneer motorist, he became friends with Herbert Austin, becoming a supplier of sheet steel components to the industry.^[17] By 1914, the company's customers for sheet steel bodies included Austin, Daimler, Humber, Rover, Star and Argyll.^[17]

Due to complaints from motor manufacturers about the propensity of the then-wooden wheels on early cars to disintegrate on the slightest encounter with any roadside kerb,^[17] using his experience from tea trays Sankey developed an alternate pressed-steel wheel.^[17] Production started in 1908, with customers including Herbert Austin and, later, William Morris.^[17] In addition to his original factory at Bilston a new plant was established near Wellington, Shropshire, which was devoted to wheel production.^[17]

By the time the business was acquired by GKN, the plant was supplying wheels to many UK manufacturers. By 1969 the highly-automated Wellington plant was producing over 5½ million wheels a year at a maximum rate of approximately 30,000 per day.^[17] The business also undertook other automotive related works, including supplying the chassis for the Triumph Herald and its derivatives.^[17] They were also at this time building the versatile GKN developed GKN FV432 armoured personnel carrier.^[17]

Nationalisation of Steel

The postwar government nationalised the steel industry under Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. The act of parliament of 1949 took effect in February 1951.^[18]

In 1951, a new subsidiary Blade Research & Development (BRD) was formed at Aldridge, Staffordshire, to produce aero-engine turbine blades. Following a fall in demand for turbine blades in the late 1950s, the BRD factory switched to producing constant-velocity joints and driveshafts for vehicles.^[19]

In 1953 Britain's steel industry was de-nationalised by a new government but that lasted only 14 years.^[20]

Driveline

Beginning a programme of diversification into the automotive field in 1966 GKN bought BRD's much larger competitor, Birfield Ltd,^[23][24] which held the great bulk of the British market for CVJs, constant velocity joints, and was a company that since 1938 had incorporated both the Sheffield based Laycock Engineering later best known as a postwar overdrive manufacturer, and Hardy Spicer Limited of Birmingham, England, also a manufacturer of constant-velocity joints.^[17] Historically, such joints had few applications, even following the improved design proposed by Alfred H. Rzeppa in 1936. However, in 1959, Alec Issigonis had developed the revolutionary Mini motor car that 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.^[8]

On the death of founder Tony Vandervell in 1967, GKN acquired the lucrative Maidenhead-based Vandervell bearing manufacturer that was at the time exporting more than 50% of its output to overseas vehicle manufacturers.^[17] This was part of a larger trend for GKN that 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.^[17]

As a result of the large number of mergers, Abram Games was commissioned to develop a new corporate identity in 1969 when the distinctive angular GKN symbol was created and the new company colours of blue and white introduced.^[25] In 1974, GKN acquired Kirkstall Forge Engineering, a manufacturer of truck axles in Leeds.^[26]

GKN Steel

By 1968, GKN Steel had recreated its downline business, and started to build its upline business through aggressive building of a steel stockholding business. In 1972 it acquired Firth Cleveland, a hot and cold rolled strip business with a downline in sintered products, reinforcement steels, wire fasteners and garage equipment. In 1973 it exchanged the remaining assets at Dowlais along with £30 million in cash to the nationalised British Steel Corporation,^[27] in return for the previously nationalised Brymbo Steelworks.^[28] After acquiring steel stockholding competitor Miles Druce and Co, by 1974 the company had created a full integrated steel production and manufacturing business.^[29]

By the late 1980s, with extensive Japanese competition in the axle and constant velocity joint business, the company started selling off its steel and fasteners businesses. By 1991, it had disposed of all of the assets within these two business lines. This included the closure of its Bilston factory in the West Midlands in 1989. The factory buildings were demolished soon after. The offices (built in the late 1950s) were not demolished until 1995.^[30]