English Electric
English Electric ( EE ) was a British company founded in 1918 and based in Preston , Lancashire . It initially gained importance through the manufacture of electric motors . Products included railroad and tram vehicles , airplanes and computers . In 1968 the company was taken over by the General Electric Company (GEC).
history
In 1917, the Scottish locomotive builder Dick, Kerr & Co. acquired the United Electric Car Company in Preston, from which the English Electric Company emerged in 1918. Until 1919, the company was supplemented by further acquisitions.
The aircraft construction taken over by the predecessor companies initially ended in 1926. In contrast, the company benefited in the 1930s from the electrification of the railway network of the Southern Railway in the south of England.
In 1939 the group started an aircraft factory at Samlesbury Airfield in Lancashire, in which Handley Page bombers were manufactured . In 1942, English Electric acquired the aircraft engine manufacturer Napier & Son .
After the Second World War , aircraft were built based on their own designs. This 1958 in the English Electric Aviation Ltd. Combined activities formed part of the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) since 1960 , in which English Electric held forty percent.
In 1946, English Electric acquired the Marconi Company . In the following years, the railway sector was supplemented by acquisitions, such as the Vulcan Foundry, which had been developing diesel locomotives for British Rail together with English Electric since 1945 .
English Electric LEO was founded in 1963 , originally a joint venture with J. Lyons and Co. , and enabled entry into the computer industry. After the merger with parts of Marconi, English Electric Leo Marconi (EELM) was created, which in 1967 was merged into International Computers Limited (ICL).
In 1966 Ruston & Hornsby were bought , and in 1968 English Electric was taken over by the rival General Electric Company .
Aircraft manufacturing
The predecessor companies Dick, Kerr & Co. and Phoenix Dynamo were already producing aircraft from other manufacturers during the First World War, including the Short 184 torpedo bomber . In the 1920s, the company created its own models, whose production had to be stopped in 1926 due to a lack of demand.
When the Second World War broke out, English Electric built a new aircraft factory on behalf of the British government and began manufacturing the Handley Page Hampden and Halifax bombers . By the end of the war, production rose to around 3,000 aircraft.
After the war, over 1,300 copies of the de Havilland DH.100 Vampires were made . With the Lightning interceptor and the Canberra bomber , the company went back to manufacturing its own models.
