Carroll Group
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| Privately held | |
| Industry | Property development |
| Founded | c. 1920s |
| Founder | John E. "Jock" Carroll |
| Headquarters | London |
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Key people
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The Carroll Group was a family-owned group of businesses formed in the early twentieth century that expanded rapidly in the 1980s when it was taken over by Gerald Carroll, grandson of the founder. At that time it was one of the largest private businesses in Britain, but it collapsed in the early 1990s under the weight of its debt and amid accusations of fraud. Gerald Carroll has since campaigned to have the collapse of the group recognised as a fraud but without apparent success.
The Carroll Group was a three generation family-owned private business founded by John E. "Jock" Carroll who was descended from the Irish O'Carroll clan. Jock may have had a role in the purchase by the Ford Motor Company in 1924 of the land in Essex on which the company built its Dagenham car plant. The plant produced its first vehicle in 1931 and Jock Carroll also built homes for the workers at the plant, using similar mass production building techniques to Ford under the slogan "a house a day, a street a week". The business was then taken over by Jock's son John Carroll (born around 1929) and in the late 1970s by his grandson Gerald Carroll (born 1951) after which it began to expand rapidly.
In addition to pre-existing Carroll businesses, Gerald Carroll was active as a businessman in his own right. He claimed in a 2001 Sky News interview to be a self-made man. He launched a bid for quoted car dealership Frank G. Gates in 1985 but specialised in spotting property development sites and obtaining planning permission for them. In 1986, 85 group companies and the Carroll family art collection were placed in a trust, The Carroll Foundation, which was estimated to have net assets worth £250m, and which from then on became the principal vehicle through which the Carroll Group operated.
The group described itself as "An integrated holdings group with global capacity" operating in Australasia, Europe, North America and the U.S.S.R. Its businesses included meat processing and sheep farming in Australia, financial services in the Caribbean, and commercial property holdings in Ireland. The group at one time owned 5% of the Manchester Ship Canal. It redeveloped the Farnborough airfield for the Ministry of Defence and the Carroll Aircraft Corporation held the licence for civil operations there.
Directors of group companies included British establishment figures such as Air Marshal Sir Barry Duxbury, Air Marshal Sir Ivor Broom, Sir Ewen Broadbent, Group Captain Peter Townsend, Sir Curtis Keeble (a former UK ambassador to the Soviet Union), and former environment minister Sir Eldon Griffiths. Conservative Party organiser Sir Anthony Garner was a director of the Carroll Anglo-American group, the Carroll Aircraft Corporation and the Farnborough Aerospace Development Corporation.
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