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The Performance of the British Machine-Tool Industry in the Interwar Years*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Derek H. Aldcroft
Derek H. Aldcroft
Affiliation:
Lecturer in Economic History, University of Glasgow
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Abstract

The modest growth of the British machine-tool industry between the World Wars is here traced to competitive weaknesses in production methods and marketing arrangements.

Type
Articles
Information
Business History Review , Volume 40 , Issue 3 , Autumn 1966 , pp. 281 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1966

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References

1 Engineering (January 29, 1926), 130–31.

2 Hugh Smith Minute Book, February 11, 1937.

3 Cole has constructed an export price index for machine tools, but unfortunately this only goes back as far as 1920. Cole, H. J. D., “Machinery Prices between the Wars,” Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Statistics (March, 1951)Google Scholar. This would seem to indicate that the most serious discrepancy occurs in the later 1930's when the price index rose by 38.5 per cent (1935–1938). As far as the 1920's are concerned, it is almost certain that the 1913 level of production in real terms was not exceeded before 1926, and though the figure for 1929 may be on the high side it seems fairly clear, in the light of subjective evidence, that by the latter date the pre-war level of output had been surpassed.

4 Exports to Russia in 1932 amounted to 19,234 tons and 10,109 tons in 1938 compared with total exports of 23,826 tons and 24,167 tons respectively. In the 1930's trade with Russia was facilitated by the export credit insurance facilities of the Board of Trade. See Aldcroft, D. H., “The Early History and Development of Export Credit Insurance in Great Britain, 1919–1939,” Manchester School (January, 1962), 82Google Scholar.

5 Machine Tool Trades Association, Report of the Future of the British Machine Tool Industry (August, 1945), 10.

6 Engineering (March 10, 1922), 301 (March 23, 1923), 369.

7 £5,338 as against £43,829. Hugh Smith Minute Book, 1903–1935. For most of the decade the return on capital was negligible especially since the capital of the Company had been doubled in 1919.

8 Engineering (January 29, 1926), 130–31.

9 In 1930, for example, two long-established Scottish firms closed down.

10 Hugh Smith Minute Book, February 11, 1937.

11 Such as large presses, high-speed bevel generators, continuous millers, hobbing machines, hydraulic chucking machines, thread grinders, worm grinders, and hydraulic vertical broaching machines.

12 Machinery (February 18, 1932), 652.

13 See Engineering (April 7, 1933), 387 (April 3, 1936), 376.

14 Quoted in Machinery (April 28, 1932), 104.

15 For a general review, see Herbert, A., “Machine Tool Practice” Engineering (May 3, 1935), 22.Google Scholar

16 See Times Trade and Engineering Supplement (January 27, 1934), xxxiii.

17 British Machine Tool Engineering, 1957, 2–3.

18 Hydraulic Operation of Machine Tools, Machinery's Yellow Back Series, 10 (1937), 9–11.

19 Times Engineering Supplement (May 28, 1915); Report of the Departmental Committee on the Engineering Trades after the War, Cd. 9073 (1918), 8 and Report of the Engineering Trades (New Industries) Committee, Cd. 9226 (1918), 18.

20 See Saul, S. B., “The American Impact on British Industry, 1895–1914,” Business History (December, 1960), 26Google Scholar; also Allen, G. C., The Industrial Development of Birmingham and the Black Country, 1860–1929 (1929), 303.Google Scholar

21 Cd. 9073 (1918), op. cit., 10.

22 For the rapid progress made by American manufacturers in techniques of production see the excellent account by Rosenberg, N., “Technological Change in the Machine Tool Industry, 1840–1910,” Journal of Economic History (December, 1963)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23 Official History of the Ministry of Munitions (1924), III, Pt. III, 66.

24 Ibid., 66–67.

25 See SirHerbert, Alfred, “Machine Tools,” in Engineering (March 14, 1919), 355–58Google Scholar.

26 Allen, op. cit., 417.

27 The Ministry of Munitions Journal (December, 1918), 371.

28 Cd. 9073 (1918), op. cit., 8.

29 The most progressive firm, A. Herbert & Co. of Coventry, remained outside the group, however.

30 Archdale Machine Tools 1868–1948 (James Archdale & Co., Ltd., 1948), 22–23.

31 Times Trade Supplement (August 21, 1920), 605 (February 4, 1922), 15.

32 See Machinery (December 13, 1928), 351 (March 7, 1929), 732.

33 Political and Economic Planning, “The Machine Tool Industry,” Planning, XV, No. 292 (December, 1948), 180Google Scholar; Beesley, M. E. and Troup, G. W., “The Machine Tool Industry,” ch. IX in Burn, D. (ed.), The Structure of British Industry: A Symposium, I (1959), 374–76Google Scholar.

34 Leak and Maizels define the three largest units in terms of units of control that is on the criterion of legal control through a majority shareholding. Leak, H. A. and Maizels, A., “The Structure of British Industry,” Journal of Royal Statistical Society, 108, Parts 1 and 2 (1945)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

35 Direct comparisons are not possible, but the average size of American firms, though relatively small, was larger than the British. See Brown, W. H., “Innovation in the Machine Tool Industry,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (August, 1957), 407Google Scholar.

36 British Productivity Council, Metal Working Machine Tools (1953), 49.

37 Jackson, J. M., “British Exports and the Scale of Production,” Manchester School (January, 1954), 107–108Google Scholar.

38 Report on Economic Conditions in the Argentine Republic (H.M.S.O., 1935).

39 Engineering (February 15, 1935), 164.

40 See Engineering (February 13, 1931), 218 (May 16, 1924), 644.

41 Engineering (September 7, 1928), 297–98.

42 Report on the Future of the British Machine Tool Industry, August, 1945, 10.

43 Machinery (March 20, 1930), 808.

44 Machinery (October 4, 1928), 4 (February 5, 1931), 609.

45 Ibid. (March 10, 1932), 755 (November 16, 1933), 200–201.

46 Engineering (March 2, 1928), 249.

47 Engineering (September 7, 1928), 298.

48 Ibid. (January 31, 1947), 116. Many machine tool firms were still dominated by family cliques.

49 This point is confirmed for the mechanical-engineering industry as a whole by Lomax, K. S., “Production and Productivity Movements in the United Kingdom since 1900,” Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, A122 (1959), Pt. 2, 201Google Scholar.