.
Robert Whitehead worked for a metal foundry in the city of
Fiume (today
Rijeka,
Croatia), and became its manager in 1856, and changed its name to
Stabilimento Tecnico di Fiume (STF). STF produced marine steam boilers and engines, including for the
Austro-Hungarian Navy. The invention of the
self-propelled torpedo happened at that company, but it was not profitable and the company went bankrupt in 1873. The Whitehead company,
Torpedo-Fabrik von Robert Whitehead, was founded in 1875 and would produce for the first torpedoes sold all around the world. In 1890 Whitehead opened a UK manufacturing and test site in
Portland Harbour, Dorset. In 1905 the factory changed its name to
Torpedo Fabrik Whitehead & Co. Gesellschaft and before his death, Whitehead sold his shares package to
Vickers Armstrong Whitworth. In 1915, the company established a submarine subsidiary, the Ungarische Unterseebotsbau AG (known by its acronym
UBAG; ), in Fiume and Linz.
SM U-XX,
SM U-XXI,
SM U-XXII and
SM U-XXIII Type diesel-electric submarines were produced by the UBAG Corporation in Fiume. The
Wyke Regis factory continued to operate as a major anti-submarine and torpedo warfare centre in both the First and Second World Wars. It became Vickers Armstrong, Wellworthys and finally AE Piston Products. The site later became a housing estate. At the end of World War I the Fiume factory was in economic crisis and in 1924, when the
Treaty of Rome was signed and Fiume passed to Italy, Giuseppe Orlando, one of the owners of the
Cantiere navale fratelli Orlando of
Livorno, purchased the company. Whitehead Torpedo, as it became known then, started producing motorcycles and then torpedoes in their Livorno subsidiary
Società Moto Fides. With the end of World War II the Fiume factory closed and merged with
Moto Fides forming the
Whitehead Moto Fides Stabilimenti Meccanici Riuniti on 31 July 1945. The
Whitehead Moto Fides continued the production of torpedoes in their Italian locations, and was renamed several times since, currently
Leonardo Sistemi di Difesa. ==References==