company name	GKN plc
company logo
company type	Public limited company
traded as
foundation	1759
location	Redditch, Worcestershire, United Kingdom
key people	Roy Brown(Chairman)Sir Kevin Smith(CEO)
industry	Automotive, aerospace
products	Vehicle and aircraft components
revenue	£5,746 million (2011)
operating income	£374 million (2011)
net income	£306 million (2011)
num employees	40,000 (2011)
homepage	www.gkn.com }}

GKN plc () is a British multinational automotive and aerospace components company headquartered in Redditch, United Kingdom. The company was formerly known as ''Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds'' and can trace its origins back to 1759 and the birth of the Industrial Revolution.

GKN is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.

History[link]

1759 to 1900[link]

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, John 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, 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 1857 G.T. Clark and William Menelaus, his manager, had constructed the "Goat Mill", the world's most powerful rolling mill.

By the mid 1860s, Clark's reforms had born fruit in renewed profitability. Clark delegated day-to-day management to Menelaus, his trusteeship terminating in 1864 when ownership passed to Sir Ivor Guest. However, Clark continued to direct policy, in particular, building a new plant at the docks at Cardiff and vetoing a joint-stock company. He formally retired in 1897.

1900 to 1966[link]

On 9 July 1900, the Dowlais Iron Company and Arthur Keen's ''Patent Nut and Bolt Company'' merged to form ''Guest, Keen & Co. Ltd''.

''Nettlefolds Limited'', a leading manufacturer of fasteners, had been established in Smethwick, Birmingham in 1854 and was acquired in 1902 leading to the change of name to ''Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds''.

These mergers heralded half a century in which the name ''GKN'' became synonymous with the manufacture 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.

After the First World War it became apparent that Britain was likely to follow France and more recently the USA in developing a large scale auto-industry. GKN acquired another fastener manufacturer, F. W. Cotterill Ltd., in 1919: Cotterill already owned a subsidiary named J. W. Garrington, which specialised in forgings, and it was the forgings produced at the Garrington Darlaston plant, later supplemented by a large plant at Bromsgrove, that enabled GKN to become a major supplier of crankshafts, connecting rods, half-shafts and numerous smaller forged components to the UK auto-industry during and beyond the period of massive expansion between the two world wars.

The next year, in 1920, GKN purchased the steel company John Lysaght and their subsidiary, Joseph Sankey and Sons Ltd. Joseph Sankey was an orphan from Bilston whose career had started with an apprenticeship to a manufacturer of steel tea trays. When he went into business on his own account, Sankey himself became a major tea tray producer. He was also a pioneer motorist and a personal friend of car manufacturers in the area including, notably, Herbert Austin, becoming a supplier of sheet steel components the industry. By 1914, the company's customers for sheet steel bodies included Austin, Daimler, Humber, Rover, Star and Argyll. Sankey's most substantial contribution was probably in respect of wheels, however, and was a response to complaints from pioneer car-makers about the propensity of the wooden wheels on early cars to disintegrate on the slightest encounter with any roadside kerb. Sankey developed a pressed steel wheel, applying some of the techniques already mastered while producing pressed steel tea trays. Sankey's steel wheels went into production in 1908: early customers included Herbert Austin and William Morris. In addition to his original factory at Bilston a new plant was established near Wellington, Shropshire which was devoted to wheel production. By the time the business came into the GKN fold, the plant was supplying wheels to many UK manufacturers: within GKN the business continued to grow with the industry, so that by 1969 the by now highly automated Wellington plant was turning out some 5½ Million wheels a year at a maximum rate of approximately 30,000 per day. Nevertheless, the Sankey business was never exclusively devoted to wheels: in the 1960s they were supplying the chassis for the Triumph Herald and its derivatives. They were also at this time building the versatile GKN developed GKN FV432 armoured personnel carrier which would continue in production long after the disappearance of the Triumph Herald and its ill-starred manufacturer, BLMC.

1966 to 2000[link]

In 1966, in a programme of diversification, GKN acquired Birfield Ltd, a company that since 1938 had incorporated both the Sheffield based overdrive manufacturer, Laycock Engineering, and Hardy Spicer Limited of Birmingham, England, a manufacturer of constant-velocity joints. Historically, such joints had had few applications, even following the improved design proposed by Alfred H. Rzeppa in 1936. However, in 1959, Alec Issigonis had developed the revolutionary Mini motor car which relied on the Hardy Spicer joints for its front wheel drive technology. The massive expansion in the exploitation of front wheel drive in the 1970s and 1980s led to the acquisition of other similar businesses and a 43% share of the world market by 2002.

On the death of founder Tony Vandervell in 1967, GKN acquired the lucrative Maidenhead based Vandervell bearing manufacturer which was at the time already exporting more than 50% of its output to overseas vehicle manufacturers. This was part of a larger trend for GKN which during this period, under its Managing Director Raymond Brookes, was working to reduce its dependence on UK auto-maker customers at a time when the domestic industry was seen to be stumbling, in response to bewildering "Government interference and fiscal short-sightedness", with British new car registrations in the first four months of 1969 a massive 33% down on the corresponding period of the previous year.

As a result of the large number of mergers, Abram Games was commissioned to developed a new corporate identity in 1969 when the distinctive angular GKN symbol was created and the new company colours of blue and white introduced.

During the 1980s, GKN sought to invest its earnings from constant-velocity joints in developing other nascent technologies. However, little success attended these efforts and in 1991 the company resolved to abandon further research and to redivert its development efforts towards its constant-velocity joint business in which it was facing increasing competition from Japan. During the same period, the company finally withdrew from the manufacture of fasteners and from steel production. Changing its name to ''GKN plc'', it diversified into military vehicles, aerospace and industrial services.

In 1994, GKN acquired the helicopter manufacturing business of Westland Aircraft. In 1998 the armoured vehicle business was sold to Alvis plc, and subsequently incorporated into Alvis Vickers Ltd. In July 2000 Finmeccanica and GKN agreed to merge their respective helicopter subsidiaries to form AgustaWestland. In 2004 GKN completed the sale of its 50% shareholding in AgustaWestland to Finmeccanica.

From the late 1990s, the company built a major global business in powder metallurgy, which operates as the GKN Sinter Metals group.

2000 to present[link]

In 2006 GKN acquired Monitor Aerospace Corp in Amityville, New York and Precision Machining in Wellington, Kansas.

In 2008 the company acquired part of the Airbus plant at Filton near Bristol for £150 million.

On 28 July 2011, GKN made public a deal with Getrag in which GKN would acquire all of Getrag's axle business and axle manufacturing facilities.

Operations[link]

The company is organised as follows: Aerospace

*Aerostructures

*Engine Products

*Propulsion Systems

Driveline

*Driveshafts

*Freight Services

*Autostructures

*Cylinder Liners

*Emitec Joint Venture

Land Systems

*Aftermarket Services

*Power Management

*Wheels and Structures

Powder metallurgy

*Sinter Metals

*Hoeganaes

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

James, B. Ll. (2004) "Clark, George Thomas (1809–1898)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, accessed 21 August 2007

External links[link]

Official site

Heritage site

Category:Companies based in Worcestershire Category:Companies established in the 18th century

de:GKN (Unternehmen) fr:GKN ko:GKN it:GKN (azienda) ja:GKN no:GKN pt:GKN

name	Peter Watkins
birth date	October 29, 1935
birth place	Norbiton, Surrey
occupation	Film director, Documentarian, Screenwriter
yearsactive	1956 - present
imdb	0914386
spouse	}}

Peter Watkins (born 29 October 1935) is an English film and television director. He was born in Norbiton, Surrey, lived in Sweden, Canada and Lithuania for many years, and now lives in France. He is one of the pioneers of docudrama. His movies, pacifist and radical, strongly review the limit of classic documentary and movies. He mainly concentrates his works and ideas around the mass media and our relation/participation to a movie or television documentary.

Nearly all of Watkins' films have used a combination of dramatic and documentary elements to dissect historical occurrences or possible near future events. The first of these, ''Culloden'', portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1745 in a documentary style, as if television reporters were interviewing the participants and accompanying them into battle; a similar device was used in his biographical film ''Edvard Munch''. ''La Commune (Paris, 1871)'' reenacts the Paris Commune days using a large cast of French non-actors.

In 2004 he also wrote a book, ''Media Crisis'', an engaged essay about the media crisis, the monoform and, foremost, the lack of debate around the construction of new forms of audiovisual media.

Life[link]

After studying acting at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Watkins began his television and film career as an assistant producer of short TV films and commercials; and in the early 1960s was an assistant editor and director of documentaries at the BBC. All of his films have either been documentary or drama presented with documentary techniques, sometimes portraying historical occurrences and sometimes possible near future events as if contemporary reporters and filmmakers were there to interview the participants. Watkins pioneered this technique in his first full-length television film, ''Culloden'', which portrayed the Jacobite uprising of 1746 in a style similar to the Vietnam War reporting of the time. In 1965, he won a Jacob's Award for ''Culloden'' at the annual presentation ceremony in Dublin.

The scope and formal innovation of ''Culloden'' drew immediate critical acclaim for the previously unknown director, and the BBC commissioned him for another ambitious production, the nuclear-war docudrama ''The War Game'', for ''The Wednesday Play'' series. The production was subsequently released to cinemas and won the 1966 Academy Award for Documentary Feature, eventually being screened by the BBC on 31 July 1985 after a 20 year ban.

His reputation as a political provocateur was amplified by ''Punishment Park'', a story of violent political conflict in the United States that coincided with the Kent State Massacre. Opposition to war is a common theme of his work, but the films' political messages are often ambiguous, usually allowing the main characters to present violently opposing viewpoints which in many cases are improvised by the cast: in ''Punishment Park'', the soldiers and dissidents were played by nonprofessional actors whose political opinions matched those of their characters so well that the director said he feared actual violence would break out on set. He took a similar approach in his Paris Commune reenactment ''La Commune'', using newspaper advertisements to recruit conservative actors who would have a genuine antipathy to the Commune rebels. Watkins is also known for political statements about the film and television media, writing extensively about flaws in television news and the dominance of the Hollywood-derived narrative style that he refers to as "the monoform".

After the banning of ''The War Game'' and the poor reception of his first non-television feature, ''Privilege'', Watkins left England and has made all of his subsequent films abroad: ''The Gladiators'' in Sweden, ''Punishment Park'' in the United States, ''Edvard Munch'' in Norway, ''Resan'' (a 14-hour film cycle about the threat of nuclear war) in ten different countries, and ''La Commune'' in France. ''Freethinker: The Life and Work of Peter Watkins'', is a forthcoming biography by Patrick Murphy, a Senior Lecturer in Film and Television at York St John University and Dr John Cook. It is being compiled with Watkins' active help and participation.

Influence[link]

Citing their 1969 Bed-in efforts and Peace Concert, an interviewer asked John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Is there any one particular incident that got you started in this peace campaign?". John answered, "...the thing that really struck it off was a letter we got from a guy called Peter Watkins who made a film called The War Game. It was a very long letter stating just what's happening - how the media is really controlled, how it's all run, and everything else that people really know deep down. He said 'People in your position have a responsibility to use the media for world peace'. And we sat on the letter for about three weeks thinking 'Well, we're doing our best. All you need is love, man.' That letter just sort of sparked it all off. It was like getting your induction papers for peace!" (p.144, The Beatles - A Celebration by Geoffrey Giuliano)

Films[link]

by Peter Watkins[link]

1956 : ''The Web'' - 20 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white

1958 : ''The Field of Red'' - Great Britain - English - black and white

1959 : ''The Diary of an Unknown Soldier'' - 20 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white

1961 : ''Forgotten Faces'' - 17 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white

1964 : ''Culloden'' - 69 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white

1965 : ''The War Game'' - 48 min. - Great Britain - English - black and white Filmed in a documentary fashion and looks at the possible effects of nuclear war on England. Notable for its intense power and imagery. It later won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, as well as the 1967 Best Documentary Feature award in Great Britain. 1967 : ''Privilege'' - 103 min. - Great Britain - English - colourA performing singer placed in a futuristic totalitarian state, Steven Shorter (Paul Jones), is an intense character who sympathizes with the youth of the nation. He becomes very popular, yet realizes that his life is also controlled by the government. In 1978, Patti Smith recorded one of the film's songs, "Set Me Free" (as "Privilege (Set Me Free)") on her album ''Easter''. The recording charted on the Top-100 lists in the UK (#72) and Ireland (#13). 1969 : ''Gladiators'' (''The Peace Game'') - 69 min. - Sweden - English - colour Views war as a futuristic sporting event where it seems as if games are being played for a television audience. 1971 : ''Punishment Park'' - 88 min. - United States - English - colourBased on the "siege mentality" of police force during the 1970s. Protesters are given a choice for sentencing, and "Punishment Park" is one of the choices, in which the protesters must endure a three-day long contest in a barren desert without food, while being pursued by armed National Guardsmen.

1975 : ''The Seventies People'' - 127 min. - Denmark - Danish - colour

1975 : ''Fällan'' - 65 min. - Sweden - Swedish - colour

1976 : ''Edvard Munch'' - 210 min. - Sweden and Norway - English and Norvegian - colourMunch's life, emphasising his early years.

1977 : ''Eveningland'' (''Aftenlandet'') - 109 min. - Denmark - Danish - colour

1988 : ''The Journey'' (''Resan'') - 873 min. - Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, USSR, Sweden, Norway - English, French - black and white, colour

1994 : ''The Freethinker'' - 276 min. - Sweden - Swedish - colour

2000 : ''La Commune (Paris, 1871)'' - 375 min. (full-length version) - France - French - black and white

about Peter Watkins[link]

2001 : ''The Universal Clock: The Resistance of Peter Watkins'' is a 77-minute documentary film about Watkins and the making of ''La Commune''. The film is directed by Geoff Bowie and produced by the National Film Board of Canada. The universal clock refers to the synchronisation and the global movement of the televisions in the world, calibrated to be diffused anywhere around the globe, at any time.

2001 : ''Peter Watkins - Lituania'', Rebond for la Commune and Peter Watkins

References[link]

Bibliography[link]

Montero, José Francisco & Paredes, Israel. ''Imágenes de la Revolución''. 2011. Shangrila Ediciones

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Peter Watkins' official site

BFI: Peter Watkins

Peter Watkins—Notes and Questions: (3) Edvard Munch – interview by John Gianvito at Cinema Scope

Notes on The Media Crisis An essay by Peter Watkins. MACBA, 2010.

Category:1935 births Category:Alumni of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Category:Living people Category:English film directors Category:Jacob's Award winners Category:People educated at Christ College, Brecon Category:People from Kingston upon Thames (district)

de:Peter Watkins es:Peter Watkins fr:Peter Watkins gl:Peter Watkins it:Peter Watkins pt:Peter Watkins ru:Уоткинс, Питер sv:Peter Watkins