Nuffield Organization was the unincorporated umbrella-name or promotional name used for the charitable and commercial interests of owner and donor,

William Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield William Richard Morris, 1st Viscount Nuffield, (10 October 1877 – 22 August 1963) was an English motor manufacturer and philanthropist. He was the founder of Morris Motors Limited and is remembered as the founder of the Nuffield Foundation, ...

. The name was assumed following Nuffield's gift made to form his

Nuffield Foundation The Nuffield Foundation is a charitable trust established in 1943 by William Morris, Lord Nuffield, the founder of Morris Motors Ltd. It aims to improve social well-being by funding research and innovation projects in education and social pol ...

in 1943, it linked his business interests to his existing very generous philanthropy. The same enterprises had previously been referred to as the Morris Organizations and at first described itself as The Nuffield Organization, A Cornerstone of Britain's Industrial Structure."Morris Motors Limited and its associated companies, which together form what is now generally known as the Nuffield Organization."
Morris Motors Limited. Statement by the Vice-Chairman, Sir Miles Thomas, D.F.C. circulated with the report and accounts. ''The Times'', Saturday, 7 June 1947; pg. 7; Issue 50781 Statue Of Viscount Nuffield-Guys Hospital-London

Statue Of Viscount Nuffield-Guys Hospital-London

Productive members of the Nuffield Organization

The productive businesses were owned by Morris Motors Limited and this corporate structure appears to have been retained until the formation of

British Leyland British Leyland was an automotive engineering and manufacturing conglomerate formed in the United Kingdom in 1968 as British Leyland Motor Corporation Ltd (BLMC), following the merger of Leyland Motors and British Motor Holdings. It was partly ...

in 1968. :In 1945 the principal businesses among them were: * Morris Motors Limited - Morris vehicles which was also the Nuffield Organization's holding company for: * Wolseley Motors Limited – Wolseley cars * Riley (Coventry) Limited – Riley cars * The M.G. Car Company Limited – MG cars * Morris Commercial Cars Limited – producing vans and trucks * The S.U. Carburetter Company Limited :and included: * Nuffield Acceptances Limited – Arranged finance in connection with hire-purchase agreements for the purchase of motor cars * Nuffield (Australia) Pty Limited * Nuffield Exports Limited * Nuffield Mechanizations Limited – produced tanks during the war * Nuffield Metal Products Limited * Nuffield Tools and Gauges Limited – production equipment for the other companies * The Nuffield Press Limited – publishing handbooks, owners' magazine etc.

Morris-Austin merger

An agreement was reached between Morris and The Austin Motor Company in October 1948 amounting to amalgamation in everything but financial structure. The terms included the constant interchange of information on production methods, research, design, buying and almost every other aspect of their work. It also envisaged the pooling of factory resources. In July 1949 Morris and Austin announced the end of their scheme, no further steps would be taken to pool production resources and no merger of any kind was contemplated.Morris-Austin Merger. Our Motoring Correspondent. ''The Times'', Saturday, 24 November 1951; pg. 6; Issue 52167 "Nuffield and Austin broke off arrangements for the exchange of confidential information in 1949 following the revival of long-standing hostilities between their chief executives and the Labour Party's decision not to include the industry in its plans for future nationalisation."

Leonard Lord Leonard Percy Lord, 1st Baron Lambury KBE (15 November 1896 – 13 September 1967) was a captain of the British motor industry. Background and education Leonard Percy Lord was born on 16 November 1896 and was the youngest child in his family ...

, chief of Austin, had been with Morris from 1923 to 1936, the last four years as Morris's chief executive. They had parted on extremely bad terms. The motoring correspondent of ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' ( ...

'' said the two concerns were fundamentally different in their structure. The Nuffield Organization under the control of Morris Motors made three Morris models with Wolseley (two), Riley (two), MG (two) as well as Morris Commercial trucks,

Nuffield Universal The Nuffield Universal was a tractor produced from 1948 by the Agricultural Division of Morris Motors, later a subsidiary of The British Motor Corporation Limited. When William Morris the founder of Morris Motors was honoured with a title a ...

tractors and marine engines. The main factory was at

Cowley, Oxford Cowley () is a residential and industrial area in Oxford, England. Cowley's neighbours are Rose Hill and Blackbird Leys to the south, Headington to the north and the villages of Horspath and Garsington across fields to the east. Internationally ...

, there were more at

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a city in the West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its city status until the Middle Ages. The city is governed b ...

and Abingdon. The Austin business, Austin of England, was highly concentrated both in its huge Longbridge factory at Birmingham and in its products: six Austin car models, Austin trucks and marine engines and battery electric vehicles. The nine different cars made by Nuffield using six engines and five (and a half) car bodies of which the "specialist" three were obsolescent, the rest very closely related if not identical. File:Morris Six first reg July 1953 2215cc.JPG, Morris Six
2215 cc File:Morris Oxford MO Saloon.jpg,

Morris Oxford Morris Oxford is a series of motor car models produced by Morris of the United Kingdom, from the 1913 ''bullnose'' Oxford to the ''Farina'' Oxfords V and VI. Named by W R Morris after ''the city of dreaming spires'', the university town in which ...

1476 cc File:1949 Morris Minor.jpg,

Morris Minor The Morris Minor is a British economy family car that made its debut at the Earls Court Motor Show, London, in October 1948. Designed under the leadership of Alec Issigonis, more than 1.6 million were manufactured between 1948 and 1972 in ...

918 cc File:MG Type YA Saloon.jpg, MG 1¼-litre saloon
1250 cc File:MG 1950 - Flickr - mick - Lumix.jpg,

MG TD The MG T-Type is a series of body-on-frame open two-seater sports cars that were produced by MG from 1936 to 1955. The series included the MG TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, and MG TF Midget models. The last of these models, the TF, was replaced by th ...

1250 cc File:Wolseley 6-80.jpg,

Wolseley 6/80 Wolseley may refer to: People *Sir Charles Wolseley, 2nd Baronet (c. 1630–1714), English politician *Sir Charles Wolseley, 7th Baronet (1769–1846), English landowner and political agitator * Frances Garnet Wolseley, 2nd Viscountess Wolseley ( ...

2215 cc File:Wolseley 4-50 front.jpg,

Wolseley 4/50 The Wolseley 4/50 and similar 6/80 were Wolseley Motors' first post-war automobiles. They were put into production in 1948 and were based on the Morris Oxford MO and the Morris Six MS respectively. The 4-cylinder 4/50 used a 1476 cc versio ...

1476 cc File:Jodrell Bank (5960779768).jpg,

Nuffield Radio Astronomy Laboratories Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astron ...

Jodrell Bank File:1.5 litres Riley.jpg, Riley RMA 1½ Litre
1496 cc File:1950 Riley 2.5L RMD AL-58-52 p5.jpg, Riley RMB 2½ Litre
2443 cc ;The matrix of images shows the links between the models. *The four images on the left hand side are the mid-size and large Morrises with the matching Wolseleys beneath them. *The four images on the right hand side are two MGs — sharing one engine used in two bodies and two Rileys — two different engines sharing one body *The long-lived Morris Minor is top centre and

Lovell Telescope The Lovell Telescope is a radio telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory, near Goostrey, Cheshire in the north-west of England. When construction was finished in 1957, the telescope was the largest steerable dish radio telescope in the world at ...

at Jodrell Bank, to which Lord Nuffield provided part of the funding. The specialist MGs and Rileys were to be the last of their separate-chassis line — except for the MG Midget TF and MGA, which latter lasted until the

monocoque Monocoque ( ), also called structural skin, is a structural system in which loads are supported by an object's external skin, in a manner similar to an egg shell. The word ''monocoque'' is a French term for "single shell". First used for boats, ...

MG MGB The MGB is a two-door sports car manufactured and marketed from 1962 until 1980 by the British Motor Corporation (BMC), later the ''Austin-Morris'' division of British Leyland, as a four-cylinder, soft-top sports car. It was announced and its det ...

of 1962. The bigger Morris and Wolseley cars shared an identical monocoque structure aft of their engine compartments and almost all mechanicals, the Minor's structure was a smaller version of the same monocoque design. However, on Friday 23 November 1951 a joint statement announced plans for a merger. The two companies would retain their separate identities and would not produce the same models. Forty years later the merger was recognised to have been a political decision in the face of American competition and the absence of heirs for either Morris or Austin.

British Motor Corporation

Morris Motors Limited merged with The Austin Motor Company Limited in The British Motor Corporation Limited in 1952. The two groups were very evenly matched, not only in financial terms, each had produced and sold in the previous year an almost identical number of vehicles. By an agreement between the Nuffield and Austin groups announced in November 1951 a new company was incorporated in February 1952 and named The British Motor Corporation Limited. On 29 February 1952 it offered to buy all the shares in Morris Motors Limited giving in exchange shares in BMC. Holders of the ordinary shares in either Morris or Austin received the same number of new ordinary shares in BMC.Morris-Austin Merger. ''The Times'', Saturday, 1 March 1952; pg. 9; Issue 52249 Holders of

preferred share Preferred stock (also called preferred shares, preference shares, or simply preferreds) is a component of share capital that may have any combination of features not possessed by common stock, including properties of both an equity and a debt inst ...

s, because of the four different classes in Austin's capital received various apportionments of new 5% cumulative preference shares related to their market valuations. If BMC's offer had been accepted in full the capital of BMC would have been £9.2 million in preference shares with £4.8 million in ordinary shares. The effective date for exchange of the shares was to be 31 March 1952. On 10 April 1952 it was announced that sufficient acceptances had been received to satisfy the conditions of the offer of 29 February. The first published balance sheet of BMC, 31 July 1952 showed: ::Current assets £54.8 million ::Current liabilities £28.0 million :::Net current assets £26.8 million :::Fixed assets £17.5 million :::Issued capital and reserves £44.3 million On 8 September 1952 the British Motor Corporation advertised that it included: * Morris Motors Limited * Morris Commercial Cars Limited * Nuffield (Australia) Pty Limited * Nuffield Exports Limited * Nuffield Metal Products Limited *

Riley Motors Limited RileyInformation extracted from ''Notice issued in compliance with the Regulations of the Committee of The Stock Exchange, London'' (with regard to the issue of 150,000 Preference Shares of £1 each on 17 January 1934). :The Company was incorpo ...

* The M.G. Car Company Limited * The S.U. Carburetter Company Limited * Wolseley Motors Limited as well as: * The Austin Motor Company Limited * Austin Motor Export Corporation Limited * The Austin Finance Company Limited *

Vanden Plas Vanden Plas is the name of coachbuilders who produced bodies for specialist and up-market automobile manufacturers. Latterly the name became a top-end luxury model designation for cars from subsidiaries of British Leyland and the Rover Group, ...

(England) 1923 Limited * The Austin Motor Company (Canada) Limited * The Austin Motor Company Limited (England) * The Austin Motor Company (Australia) Limited * The Austin Motor Company (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited * The Austin Motor Company (Rhodesia) Limited

Continuing identity

The Nuffield Organization and its members retained their individual identities until the formation of

Notes

References