Private | |
Industry |
Engineering, Shipbuilding Aircraft |
Fate | Demergers Take over |
Successor | Vickers-Armstrongs |
Founded | 1847 (W.G. Armstrong Co.) |
Defunct | 1927 |
Headquarters | Newcastle upon Tyne, England |
Key people
|
William George Armstrong Founder |
Products |
Aircraft Armaments Locomotives Ships |
Subsidiaries |
Vickers Armstrong Armstrong Siddeley (Demerged) |
Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co Ltd was a major British manufacturing company of the early years of the 20th century. With headquarters in Elswick, Newcastle upon Tyne, Armstrong Whitworth engaged in the construction of armaments, ships, locomotives, automobiles and aircraft.
In 1847, engineer William George Armstrong founded the Elswick works at Newcastle, to produce hydraulic machinery, cranes and bridges, soon to be followed by artillery, notably the Armstrong breech-loading gun, which re-equipped the British Army after the Crimean War. In 1882, it merged with the shipbuilding firm of Charles Mitchell to form Armstrong Mitchell & Company and at the time its works extended for over a mile (about 2 km) along the bank of the River Tyne. Armstrong Mitchell merged again with the engineering firm of Joseph Whitworth in 1897. The company expanded into the manufacture of cars and trucks in 1902, and created an "aerial department" in 1913, which became the Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft subsidiary in 1920.
In 1927, it merged with Vickers Limited to form Vickers-Armstrongs.
and
The Armstrong-Whitworth was manufactured from 1904 (when the company took over construction of the Wilson-Pilcher designed by Walter Gordon Wilson) until 1919 (when the company merged with Siddeley-Deasy and began construction of the Armstrong Siddeley) in Coventry.