Epilogue

Abstract

What light does the study of Armstrong’s eighty-year independent history throw on the debate about the causes of Britain’s industrial decline? The answer to this question may be summarised briefly under four headings - the material legacy in the form of plant, equipment and location; the institutional framework of the relations between capital and labour; the role of government; the quality of management. In each aspect there were weaknesses which contributed to the crisis which overwhelmed Armstrongs in the mid-1920s. The most vital was the last, the centre of initiative, of decision taking, of reaction in relation to each of the others.