1759 to 1900 The origins of GKN lie in the founding of the Dowlais Ironworks in the village of
Dowlais,
Merthyr Tydfil,
Wales, by
Thomas Lewis and
Isaac Wilkinson. John Guest was appointed manager of the works in 1767, having moved from
Broseley. In 1786, Guest was succeeded by his son, Thomas Guest, who formed the Dowlais Iron Company with his son-in-law William Taitt. Guest introduced many innovations and the works prospered. Under Guest's leadership, alongside his manager John Evans, and after his death in 1852 that of his wife
Lady Charlotte Guest, the Dowlais Ironworks gained the reputation of being "one of the World's great industrial concerns". Though the
Bessemer process was
licensed in 1856, nine years of detailed planning and project management were needed before the first steel was produced. The company thrived with its new cost-effective production methods, forming alliances with the
Consett Iron Company and
Krupp. By the mid-1860s, Clark's reforms had borne fruit in renewed
profitability. Clark delegated day-to-day management to Menelaus, his trusteeship terminating in 1864 when ownership passed to
Sir Ivor Guest. Clark continued to direct policy, building a new plant at the docks at
Cardiff and vetoing a
joint-stock company. He formally retired in 1897.
Nettlefolds Limited, a leading manufacturer of fasteners, established in
Smethwick,
West Midlands in 1854, was acquired in 1902, leading to the change of name to
Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds (GKN). In 1920
John Lysaght and Co. was acquired.
Guest Keen Baldwins Steel production remained at the core of the company, but under increasing profit margin pressure. In 1930, the company combined its steel production business with that of rival Baldwins to form
Guest Keen Baldwins, which now held: • Baldwins: Coke ovens at
Margam; Blast-furnaces and steel melting shop at
Margam; steel works and rolling mills at
Port Talbot; blast-furnaces at
Briton Ferry; lime stone quarry at
Cornelly • GKN: Dowlais Iron and Steel Works; Cardiff Iron and Steel Works; coke ovens at
Cwmbran; limestone and silica quarries In 1935, the company demolished the Cardiff works to construct a new production facility on the same site, funded by an issue of
debentures. Due to a resultant global shortage of pig iron, in 1937, the company fired-up the single remaining blast furnace at Dowlais. During the
Second World War, all of the sites were heavily bombed by
Nazi Germany's
Luftwaffe, and the required investment meant that all of these assets were nationalised as part of the Iron and Steel Act 1949, resultantly becoming part of the
Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. GKN were still highly reliant on the supply of good quality steel thus, in 1954, the business negotiated from the asset realisation company the repurchase of key assets from ISC, which were renamed
Guest Keen Iron and Steel Co. In 1961, the company's name was changed again to
GKN Steel Company.
Fasteners These mergers heralded half a century in which
GKN became a major manufacturer of
screws,
nuts,
bolts and other
fasteners. The company reflected the
vertical integration fashionable at the time embracing activities from coal and ore extraction, and iron and steel making to manufacturing finished goods.
Crankshafts After the
First World War, it became apparent that Britain was likely to follow
France and the United States in developing a large scale automotive industry.
Pressed steel wheels Another company, eventually acquired by GKN, was founded by another steel manufacturing entrepreneur,
Joseph Sankey. After training as a mechanical engineer in the late 19th century, Sankey founding a company that became a major producer of
tea trays. A pioneering motorist, Sankey became friends with figures such as
Herbert Austin, and was also a supplier of sheet steel components to the nascent British car industry. In 1951, a new subsidiary Blade Research & Development (BRD) was formed at
Aldridge,
Staffordshire, to produce aero-engine turbine blades. Following a fall in demand for turbine blades in the late 1950s, the BRD factory switched to producing constant-velocity joints and driveshafts for vehicles. In 1953, Britain's steel industry was de-nationalised by a new government; this policy only lasted for 14 years before being reversed.
1966 to 1991 At the end of April 1965, the recently elected
Labour government published a
White Paper proposing the nationalisation of 90 per cent, by output, of Britain's steel industry. GKN Steel was transferred to public ownership at the end of July 1967.
Driveline Beginning a programme of diversification into the automotive field in 1966 GKN bought BRD's much larger competitor, Birfield Ltd, which held the great bulk of the British market for CVJs, constant velocity joints, and was a company that since 1938 had incorporated both the
Sheffield based
Laycock Engineering later best known as a postwar
overdrive manufacturer, and
Hardy Spicer Limited of
Birmingham, England, also a manufacturer of
constant-velocity joints. In 1974, GKN acquired
Kirkstall Forge Engineering, a manufacturer of truck axles in
Leeds.
GKN Steel By 1968, GKN Steel had recreated its downline business, and started to build its upline business through aggressive building of a steel stockholding business. In 1972, it acquired Firth Cleveland, a hot and cold rolled strip business with a downline in sintered products, reinforcement steels, wire fasteners and garage equipment. In 1973, GKN Steel exchanged the remaining assets at Dowlais along with £30 million in cash to the nationalised
British Steel Corporation, in return for the previously nationalised
Brymbo Steelworks. After acquiring steel stockholding competitor Miles Druce and Co, by 1974, the company was in possession of a full integrated steel production and manufacturing business. By the late 1980s, in the face of extensive competition from Japanese firms in both the axle and constant velocity joint business, GKN Steel decided to start selling off its steel and fasteners businesses. By 1991, the firm had disposed of all of the assets within these two business lines. GKN Steel's withdrawal coincidence with the wider closure of multiple steelworks and heavy industries across Britain, which caused considerable social disruption in some areas at the time, thus becoming a topic of political debate. In 1989, GKN Steel's factory at
Bilston, in the
West Midlands, was permanently closed and subsequently demolished.
1990s Having disposed of its steel production asset, the company renamed itself
GKN in 1986. The firm focused on military vehicles,
aerospace and industrial services. During the 1990s, GKN completed a series of large acquisitions and industrial consolidations. During 1994, the firm acquired the
helicopter manufacturing business of
Westland Aircraft. In 1998, GKN's armoured vehicle business was sold to
Alvis plc; During November 1995, associate
Dana Corporation purchased GKN's axle group; at that time, GKN held 34% of the world market for constant velocity joints. Around this same time period, GKN acquired larger shares of its other driveline joint ventures with Dana in Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. From the late 1990s, the company built up a major global business in
powder metallurgy, which operates as the GKN Powdered Metallurgy group.
2000s In July 2000, GKN and Finmeccanica announced an agreement to merge their respective helicopter subsidiaries, Westland and
Agusta respectively, to form
AgustaWestland. On 20 May 2004, GKN confirmed that it was holding discussions to sell its 50% shareholding in AgustaWestland to Finmeccanica. The sale of this stake in exchange for £1 billion ($1.79 billion) from Finmeccanica was finalised later that year. In 2002, GKN acquired a significant stake in – and by 2004 took over the whole concern of – the Japanese manufacturer of differentials and driveline torque systems Tochigi Fuji Sangyo K.K, based in
Tochigi, Tochigi. GKN went on to acquire Monitor Aerospace Corp in
Amityville, New York and Precision Machining in
Wellington, Kansas in 2006, part of the
Airbus plant at
Filton near
Bristol for £150 million in 2008 and all of
Getrag's axle business and axle manufacturing facilities in 2011.
2010s During December 2011, GKN Aerospace Engineering services division was acquired by product engineering firm Quest Global. The sale was accompanied by an agreement for QuestGlobal to provide engineering resources to GKN Aerospace; this cooperation was presented as a long-term strategy. In July 2012, GKN agreed to acquire the Swedish aerospace components manufacturer
Volvo Aero from
AB Volvo for £633 million (US$986 million). The takeover was seen as presenting good opportunities for the expansion of Volvo Aero's range of engine component production range via GKN's experience in producing aerostructures. In October 2015, GKN acquired Dutch aerospace company
Fokker Technologies through a €706 million deal. GKN Aerospace chief Kevin Cummings stated that the Fokker purchase enhances GKN's global manufacturing footprint and brought new technology to the company. Throughout the 2010s, there was strong demand for GKN's aerostructures; earlier, the company had secured manufacturing contracts to produce elements of the
Boeing 787,
Airbus A350 XWB,
Airbus A400M Atlas, and
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II, in addition to numerous other aircraft. During early 2011, it was announced that GKN and
EADS would cooperate on developing radical
additive layer manufacturing technology for aerospace purposes. That same year, the
Honda Aircraft Company picked GKN to produce the whole composite fuselage of its
Honda HA-420 HondaJet at the latter's facility in
Alabama. In late 2012, it opened a new composite manufacturing facility in
Mexicali,
Mexico. During the same year, GKN was contracted to provide fuselage components for the
Bell 525 Relentless helicopter. During January 2018,
Melrose Industries announced plans to purchase GKN and its restructuring thereafter; that same month, GKN's management rejected the initial bid made. In March 2018, Melrose submitted a revised £8.1 billion bid for the company; this bid was controversial and was subject to criticism, being branded by some press agencies as a hostile takeover. Melrose's offer received shareholder support and was accepted. Following a formal review of the purchase, including of various objections put forward by GKN workers and
trade unions, the UK Government allowed the transaction to proceed in April 2018; Melrose agreed to comply with several national security measures. Since the takeover by Melrose plc, the GKN legacy group of businesses were decentralised in a move toward maximizing profitable sales in favour of focusing on pure growth of sales numbers. By the end of 2019, GKN had been restructured into three core divisions: GKN Aerospace, GKN Automotive and GKN Powder Metallurgy.
2020s On 9 July 2021, 422 workers of GKN's factory in
Florence, Italy were notified that the factory was to be closed the next Monday. The same day, the unions organized a demonstration in front of the factory, and then
occupied it. A workers' collective was formed with the objective of taking a shareholding in the business. In March 2023, Melrose announced that it would demerge GKN Automotive and GKN Powder Metallurgy as
Dowlais Group. On 29 January 2025, it was announced that
American Axle had made an offer worth US$1.4 billion to acquire Dowlais. The transaction was approved by the shareholders of American Axle on 15 July 2025 and by the shareholders of Dowlais Group on 22 July 2025. It was expected to complete during the fourth quarter of 2025. ==Operations==