British Thomson-Houston
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British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, known primarily for their electrical systems and steam turbines. They were merged with the similar Metropolitan-Vickers company in 1928, but the two maintained their own identities until 1960. The holding company, Associated Electrical Industries (AEI), would later merge with GEC which exists today as Marconi Corporation plc.
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History
The company started as Laing, Wharton and Down in 1886, in order to sell products from the American Electric Company. They soon won a contract for electrical lighting for the east end of London. The American firm became Thomson-Houston in 1883, Laing, Wharton and Down became part of British Thomson-Houston when it was formed in May 1896. Armed with production licenses for the American firm's products, BTH soon started setting up factories in the British midlands. For much of the late 19th century they competed for electrical generation and distribution contracts with British Westinghouse, mirroring the same company's battles in the US between their parents, General Electric (created by the merger of Thomson-Houston and Edison Electric in 1892) and Westinghouse.
BTH became mainly associated with Rugby, Warwickshire, due to its good accessibility by rail and a local coal supply. Land was purchased there in 1900, and their new factory was running in 1902. In 1906 they obtained a license to produce the Curtis steam turbine, which became one of their major products. They supplied major coal-fired steam generators to London 1909 in order to power an electric trolley system that was being set up. In 1911 they added licenses for all of General Electric's drawn-wire light bulbs, which they produced under the Mazda trademark.
Consolidation
World War I led to the company's expansion into naval electrical equipment, supplying the Royal Navy with various lighting, radio and signalling gear. In the post-war period BTH expanded dramatically, adding or expanding factories at Willesden, Birmingham, Chesterfield and Lutterworth. In 1926, Gerard Swope, president of General Electric, proposed that BTH, Westinghouse, GEC and English Electric should amalgamate. Lord Hirst of GEC was not interested in Swope’s scheme, but a new holding company was formed, Associated Electrical Industries (AEI}, who bought BTH and Metropolitan-Vickers in 1928, later adding Edison Swann (Ediswan) and Ferguson Pailin, who BTH had been in the process of buying at the time.
BTH was based in Rugby, Warwickshire although it had factories in Coventry, Birmingham, Willesden and later Larne in Northern Ireland.
British Thomson-Houston played a major role in the development of the jet engine—Frank Whittle's Power Jets company built the world's first prototype jet engine at the BTH works in Rugby in 1937. Development was later moved to the Lutterworth works, which were falling into disuse at the time. However the company directors seemed skeptical of the design and offered little assistance, eventually deciding in 1940 that they were not really interested in a production role due to their commitment to electrical equipment. Rover was soon selected for manufacturing, who in turn passed on the work to Rolls-Royce in 1943, and the Lutterworth Power Jets work was later nationalized in 1944.
Holography was also invented at the BTH site in Rugby, by the Hungarian scientist Dennis Gabor in 1947.
In the post-war era Oliver Lyttelton took over AEI in 1945, and started a massive expansion process. This led to the building of the massive new £8 million turbine works at Larne, Northern Ireland, which opened in 1957. This led to a contract to build the Buenos Aires power station, valued at £35 million, as well as an intensification of the rivalries with Metrovick. Lyttelton continued to try to reduce this friction, leading to several unsuccessful reorganizations and slipping profits. AEI eventually decided the only solution was to remove the use of the names BTH and Metrovick on January 1st, 1960. This led to a huge falling-off in sales because no-one had ever heard of "AEI" before, and in turn, a massive drop in AEI's stock price.
GEC takeover
Continued attempts to streamline what was two separate management structures continued to fail, and by the mid-60's the entire AEI empire was in financial trouble. They were purchased outright by GEC in 1967. The heavy engineering interests of GEC were merged into GEC Alsthom, now Alstom. The remaining parts of GEC are now known as Marconi plc.
External links
- A detailed history of BTH (http://www.marconi.com/html/about/britishthomsonhoustonhistory.htm)
- The industrial history of Rugby (http://www.rugby-local-history.org.uk/indus.html)