Speaking from the Chair
THE GROWTH OF A GROUP
IN the Hawker Siddeley Group are many of the oldest and most famous aircraft companies in the world. The Sopwith company and, later, Hawker Aircraft Ltd., which succeeded it in 1920, have built a long line of fighters from the first-war Camel to the second-war Hurricane and today's Hunter. A. V. Roe and Co., founded in 1910, were responsible for the war-winning Lancaster bomber and now build Bomber Command's most potent weapon, the Vulcan. Other companies include Gloster Aircraft, builders of the first Allied jet aircraft; Armstrong Whitworth Air- craft, makers of Britain's only ship-to-air guided missile and of a new and adaptable civil transport aeroplane, the AW 650 Freightercoach; Arm- strong Siddeley Motors, whose Sapphire and Double Mamba aero engines are as famous as their motor-cars; and Air Service Training, Britain's air university.
The Group's Canadian members are much younger but just as vigorous. In eleven years Avro Aircraft and Orenda Engines have designed and
SIR THOMAS 0. M. SOPWITH, CBE, FRAcS Chairman, Hawker Siddeley Group
built aeroplanes and aero engines which have won a leading place in aviation. Belgium recently bought $43,000,000 worth of Avro Aircraft CF-100 twin-jet interceptors, and the Orenda Iroquois turbo-jet engine, possibly the most powerful in the world, is now to be built under agreement by the Curtiss-Wright Corporation in the US. This engine is due to power the advanced Avro Aircraft Arrow supersonic delta-wing fighter which has just been unveiled in Canada.
The latest news is that A. V. Roe Canada Ltd. are to obtain a controlling interest in the Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation, one of North America's leading steel manufacturers with wide interests outside this field, and of our acquisition in England of the Brush Group, a foremost British manufacturer of diesel engines and diesel-electric generators. The Dominion Steel acquisition, by the way, will make A. V. Roe Canada the largest industrial network in that country. The Hawker Siddeley Group has two stakes in the field of nuclear power, in the form of Hawker Siddeley Nuclear Power Company Ltd. and Hawker Siddeley John Brown Nuclear Construction Ltd., a company formed jointly by the Group and John Brown's, the famous ship- builders, to study the application of nuclear power to marine propulsion. These moves form part of the Group's policy of diversification. Although we are proud of our history we keep one eye firmly on the future.
With these new acquisitions the Hawker Sid- deley Group now contains more than eighty com- panies which design and manufacture a vast range of aircraft, jet engineS, electrical equipment, fac- tory buildings and industrial equipment, apart altogether. from being concerned with basic industries such as steel, coal and ore production in Canada. How then, I am often asked, can the Group headquarters in St. James's Square manage to keep a strict control over the company's activities? The answer is—we don't.
The Group's strength has grown from the fact that every company in it is entirely independent in everything but finance, The Group provides overall guidance, but each company has made its own decisions. The important thing, however, is that all the knowledge and resources of the com- panies are pooled. For example, no single com- pany could afford all the equipment needed to design and build a modern high-performance air- craft. But among' them, the aircraft companies of the Group have everything they require. Thus, in the Group's modest headquarters, formerly a town house, you will find a total staff of less than fifty.
Two of the avenues of Group co-operation are the Management Council and the Design Council. The Management Council, consisting of Group directors and Company managing directors, deals with questions of production, management, employment, training and promotion. The Design Council is concerned with technical problems and with staffing and equipment.
Every Group company has the benefit of assis- tance and advice from all the others. But it is, nevertheless, the initiative of the individual com- panies themselves which makes the Hawker Siddeley Group such a success.
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