The Reconstruction of Armstrongs and the Rationalisation of the Heavy Armament Business in 1927 and 1928

Abstract

In the course of 1926 and 1927 Armstrong Whitworth shed some of its subsidiaries. Taylor and Garnsey had argued for the need to jettison Pearson Knowles ‘for the good of the whole’, but this proved impossible for another four years. Cromptons was sold, and so too, to Armstrongs’ short-term gain in the form of realised assets, were two profitable concerns, Walmsleys and, above all, the automobile and aircraft interests of Armstrong-Siddeley. In July 1927, International Power and Paper took their Newfoundland embarrassments off their hands. In other respects the situation remained bleak, 1926 closing in uncertainties and fearful anticipations. On 23 December, Montagu Norman ended a letter to Southborough on a supportive note: ‘let me assure you that it has indeed been and continues to be our desire to assist in placing our old friends Armstrong Whitworth and Company on a reconstructed and firm basis … wishing you a happy Christmas and an early return to health.. .1’ Frater Taylor was writing somewhat less buoyantly to Peacock, ‘There is a tendency on the part of some of my associates to take an optimistic view. I do not share such.’ The year 1927, he thought, might prove better than 1926, but ‘beyond 1927 one dare not prophesy.’ The decline in public confidence was continuing.