British Westinghouse Electrical and Manufacturing Company was a subsidiary of the

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, USA based

Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...

. British Westinghouse would become a subsidiary of

Metropolitan-Vickers Metropolitan-Vickers, Metrovick, or Metrovicks, was a British heavy electrical engineering company of the early-to-mid 20th century formerly known as British Westinghouse. Highly diversified, it was particularly well known for its industrial el ...

in 1919; and after Metropolitan-Vickers merged with

British Thomson-Houston British Thomson-Houston (BTH) was a British engineering and heavy industrial company, based at Rugby, Warwickshire, England, and founded as a subsidiary of the General Electric Company (GE) of Schenectady, New York, United States. They were kno ...

in 1929, it became part of

Associated Electrical Industries Associated Electrical Industries (AEI) was a British holding company formed in 1928 through the merger of the British Thomson-Houston Company (BTH) and Metropolitan-Vickers electrical engineering companies. In 1967 AEI was acquired by GEC, to c ...

(AEI) in 1959. Further consolidation saw AEI taken over by GEC in 1967.

Establishment

George Westinghouse George Westinghouse Jr. (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was an American entrepreneur and engineer based in Pennsylvania who created the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry, receiving his first patent at the age of ...

established British Westinghouse in 1899 with capital from his own company and a smaller share from UK investors. The company commenced the construction of its first factory in

Trafford Park Trafford Park is an area of the Metropolitan Borough of Trafford, Greater Manchester, England, opposite Salford Quays on the southern side of the Manchester Ship Canal, southwest of Manchester city centre and north of Stretford. Until the l ...

Manchester Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The t ...

the same year. Manufacturing began in 1902, the same year as the rival British Thomson-Houston (BTH). BTH was majority owned by

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable energ ...

and the competition between BTH and British Westinghouse mirrored that of the parent companies, GE and Westinghouse in America. The Belgian

electrical engineer Electrical engineering is an engineering discipline concerned with the study, design, and application of equipment, devices, and systems which use electricity, electronics, and electromagnetism. It emerged as an identifiable occupation in the l ...

, Paul Mossay, worked for BTH in the period 1902-1906 developing

induction motor An induction motor or asynchronous motor is an AC electric motor in which the electric current in the rotor needed to produce torque is obtained by electromagnetic induction from the magnetic field of the stator winding. An induction mot ...

s. Then in 1906 he started working for British Westinghouse, creating even larger motors.

Receivership

In 1907 Westinghouse USA went into

receivership In law, receivership is a situation in which an institution or enterprise is held by a receiver—a person "placed in the custodial responsibility for the property of others, including tangible and intangible assets and rights"—especially in ca ...

with the result that executive control of the company was taken away from George Westinghouse, though he remained as president. Another effect of this was the increased independence of British Westinghouse. This was reinforced in 1910 when the board voted to remove George Westinghouse from his role as chairman. American Westinghouse did retain over half the shares however.

World War I

In 1916 British Westinghouse, following the impression that American control of the company hindered its performance during World War I, began the transition to a British owned company. Metropolitan Carriage Wagon Company bought a controlling interest in the group in 1917. The same year the board accepted collaboration with

Vickers Vickers was a British engineering company that existed from 1828 until 1999. It was formed in Sheffield as a steel foundry by Edward Vickers and his father-in-law, and soon became famous for casting church bells. The company went public in 18 ...

and the name

was chosen. Vickers assumed complete control in 1919 when Metropolitan Carriage was sold to the company.

Products

Products included

gas engine A gas engine is an internal combustion engine that runs on a gaseous fuel, such as coal gas, producer gas, biogas, landfill gas or natural gas. In the United Kingdom, the term is unambiguous. In the United States, due to the widespread use of ...

steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be trans ...

electric generator In electricity generation, a generator is a device that converts motive power (mechanical energy) or fuel-based power (chemical energy) into electric power for use in an external circuit. Sources of mechanical energy include steam turbines, gas ...

transformer A transformer is a passive component that transfers electrical energy from one electrical circuit to another circuit, or multiple circuits. A varying current in any coil of the transformer produces a varying magnetic flux in the transformer' ...

s, switchgear, meters, motors, control gear, and

arc lamp An arc lamp or arc light is a lamp that produces light by an electric arc (also called a voltaic arc). The carbon arc light, which consists of an arc between carbon electrodes in air, invented by Humphry Davy in the first decade of the 1800s, ...

s. During

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, British Westinghouse built some small petrol-electric locomotives for the

War Department Light Railways The War Department Light Railways were a system of narrow gauge trench railways run by the British War Department in World War I. Light railways made an important contribution to the Allied war effort in the First World War, and were used for th ...

. Similar locomotives were built by Dick, Kerr & Co.

References

External links

{{Westinghouse Defunct manufacturing companies of the United Kingdom Electrical engineering companies of the United Kingdom Former defence companies of the United Kingdom Westinghouse Electric Company Metropolitan-Vickers Manufacturing companies established in 1899 1899 establishments in the United Kingdom