Early years The business was founded by
George Wimpey and Walter Tomes as a stone working partnership in 1880 in
Hammersmith.
The Mitchell Era During 1913, George Wimpey died at the age of 58; his family put the business up for sale six years later.
Godfrey Mitchell, who had served in the
Royal Engineers during the
First World War, purchased the firm and decided to retain the Wimpey name. Mitchell would serve as George Wimpey's executive chairman for over 50 years and prove to be decisive in the company's fortunes during this time. In the
interwar period, Mitchell built up a fleet of
steamrollers and took contracts for both public and private paving jobs, a considerable proportion of this work coming from new
housing estates. Mitchell observed that the company could make more money as a developer than just as a contractor; having first tested this with his own money, Mitchell initiated the company's first residential development, the Greenford Park Estate, during 1928. In the immediate
post war period, building controls prevented any substantial return to private housebuilding and Wimpey turned instead to the
local authority market and, by the early 1950s, Wimpey was building 18,000 houses per year on behalf of various local authorities. Wimpey was pre-eminent in the use of no-fines
concrete construction (concrete made without sand) in both high and low rise housing; this technique was particularly valuable amid a shortage of bricks and several other standard building materials. Although Wimpey experienced rising profits in the 1970s, which was largely attributed to its
Middle East contracting, the group was beginning to lose direction. While Godfrey Mitchell retired as Chairman in 1973, he remained a director and a dominant figure in the company's operations until his eventual retirement from the Board in 1981 following his 90th birthday. A reorganisation of Wimpey's structure, centred around key business areas, rather than geographic regions, was conducted. Furthermore, a few non-core businesses, such as its
waste management activities, were divested while various properties held by the firm were
written down or sold, decreasing the size of the group somewhat. Two more major housing acquisitions followed, both divisions of contractors seeking to focus on their core contracting business. In August 2001, McAlpine Homes was acquired from
Alfred McAlpine, bringing with it a 4,000 houses per year business; during the following year, Wimpey also bought the 1,200 houses per year Laing Homes from
John Laing. In March 2007, the company announced plans for a £6 billion nil premium merger with
Taylor Woodrow, to be called
Taylor Wimpey. The merger was effected by means of a scheme of arrangement, leaving the original Taylor Woodrow shareholders with 51% of the new Taylor Wimpey. Taylor Woodrow provided the new chairman and finance director, while the chief executive and the managing director came from Wimpey. ==Tudor Trust==