Hawker Siddeley

Hawker Siddeley was a group of British manufacturing companies renowned for their aircraft production.

Hawker Siddeley combined the legacies of several well-known British aircraft manufacturers, emerging through a series of mergers and acquisitions as one of only two such major British companies in the 1960s. In 1977, Hawker Siddeley became a founding component of the nationalised British Aerospace (BAe). In 1993, BAe sold their corporate jet product line to the American company Raytheon, who maintain the Hawker legacy with a line of eponymous business jets.

• 1935 Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Co was formed as a result of the purchase by Hawker Aircraft of the companies of John Davenport Siddeley, the automotive and engine builder Armstrong Siddeley and the aircraft manufacturer Armstrong Whitworth Aircraft. At this time, Hawker Siddeley also came into control of A. V. Roe and Co (Avro) and Air Training Services. The constituent companies continued to produce their own aircraft designs under their own name as well as sharing manufacturing throughout the group.

• WW2 Hawker Siddeley was one of the United Kingdom's most important aviation concerns, producing numerous designs including the famous Hawker Hurricane fighter plane that, along with the Supermarine Spitfire, was Britain's front-line defence in the Battle of Britain. During this campaign, Hurricanes outnumbered all other British fighters, combined, in service and were responsible for shooting down 55 percent of all enemy aircraft destroyed.

• 1945 Hawker Siddeley purchased Victory Aircraft of Malton, Ontario, Canada from the Canadian government, renaming the company, A.V. Roe Canada, commonly known as Avro Canada, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley. During its operation, Avro Canada produced the Avro Jetliner, Avro CF-100 and CF-105 Arrow. After the cancellation of the Avro Arrow, the company began to unravel. In 1962, the A.V. Roe Canada was dissolved and the remaining assets were transferred to the now defunct Hawker Siddeley Canada. The heavy rail manufacturing business, based in Mississauga and Thunder Bay, Ontario, have been acquired by Bombardier Transportation.

• 1948 The company named was changed to Hawker Siddeley Group. The aircraft division would become Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA) and the guided missile and space technology operations as Hawker Siddeley Dynamics (HSD).

• In 1959 the aero engine business, Armstrong Siddeley, was merged with that of the Bristol Aero Engines to form Bristol Siddeley. In the late 1950s the British government had decided that, with the decreasing number of aircraft contracts being offered, it was better to merge the existing companies, of which there were about 15 surviving at this point, into several much larger firms. Out of this decision, came the "order" that all future contracts being offered had to include agreements to merge companies.

• 1959 Folland Aircraft was acquired, followed by de Havilland Aircraft Co and Blackburn Aircraft in 1960.

• In 1963, the names of the constituent companies were dropped, with products being re-branded as Hawker Siddeley or "HS". In this period, the company developed the first operational and most successful VTOL jet aircraft, the Harrier family. This aircraft remained in production into the 1990s and remains in service.

• 1957 Hawker Siddeley purchased the Brush group of companies which included Brush Electrical Machines and Brush Traction who manufactured electromotive equipment and railway locomotives; the engine builder Mirrlees, Blackstone and Day was acquired as part of the Brush acquisition. Other railway engineering assets were acquired, including Westinghouse Brake and Signal Co. Brush Traction's Falcon locomotive was also known as HS4000 (Hawker Siddeley 4000 h.p. engine).

• 1961 Hawker Siddeley Group was split into aviation and industrial divisions; it comprised 30 major manufacturing companies. Employed 90,000 persons.

• In 1973, HS acquired the industrial electronics firm South Wales Switchgear, later known as Aberdare Holdings.

• On 29 April 1977, as a result of the Aircraft and Shipbuilding Industries Act, Hawker Siddeley Aviation (HSA) and Hawker Siddeley Dynamics (HSD) were nationalised and merged with British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) and Scottish Aviation to form British Aerospace (BAe). HSA and HSD accounted for only 25% of the Hawker Siddeley business by this time, and the non-aviation and foreign interests were retained by a holding company known as Hawker Siddeley Group Plc after 1980. The group was rationalised in the 1980s, focusing on railway engineering and signalling, industrial electronics and instrumentation and signalling equipment.

• In 1992, Hawker Siddeley Group Plc was broken-up, and the various assets sold off, some of which were acquired by BTR's Aerospace Group.

• 1991/2 South Wales Switchgear was merged with Brush Switchgear and renamed Hawker Siddeley Switchgear (HSS). It has an Australian subsidiary, Hawker Siddeley Switchgear Australia.

• Another company which retained the HS name is Hawker Siddeley Power Transformers. Orenda Aerospace, as part of the Magellan Aerospace Corporation, is the only remaining company from the Avro Canada / Hawker Siddeley Canada era, although greatly diminished in size and scope of operations.

Sources of Information

• [1] Wikipedia