GEC: Domestic Appliances
Note: This is a sub-section of GEC
1909 GEC had expanded to 7 large factories but, due to depressed trade, these were operating at less than full capacity. The Sherlock Street works in Birmingham were making heating stoves and radiators in addition to electric light fittings[1].
1925 GEC bought the washing machine designed by James Cooper Moncrieff and renamed it The Magnet
1930 Maker of domestic cooking and industrial furnaces as well as cables, including through Pirelli-General Cable Works, a 50:50 venture[2].
By 1950 owned Coldair, maker of refrigerators
1964 GEC took over Cannon Holdings Ltd[3].
1967 GEC acquired AEI
1968 GEC (Domestic Equipment) was brought together with British Domestic Appliances, GEC being the majority partner[4]
1975 Consumer Products was one 5 main groupings of UK subsidiaries[5]:
- GEC (Radio and Television) Ltd
- Spectra Rentals Ltd (80 percent)
- Cannon Industries Ltd
- Osram (GEC) Ltd
- GEC-Xpelair Ltd
- GEC Schreiber Ltd (62.5 percent) including Hotpoint Ltd and Schreiber Industries Ltd
- English Electric Consumer Products Ltd
1987 Acquired Creda from Tube Investments[6]
1989 Hotpoint, as a subsidiary of GEC, was merged into a new division of GEC, General Domestic Appliances (GDA).
1989 GEC's domestic appliance businesses included the Hotpoint range of washing machines, driers and refrigerators; Creda electric cookers, heaters and other domestic appliances; Cannon gas cookers and fires; Redring electric kettles; showers; Xpelair extractor fans, and OSRAM-GEC lamps and lighting (which was owned 51 per cent by GEC and 49 per cent by Osram GmbH, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Siemens).
1989 Other than OSRAM-GEC, these businesses were combined with GE's European consumer business in a jointly-owned European consumer group.
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Sources of Information