With all the resources of
technical skill and manufacturing facilities it was
not surprising
that Metropolitan-Vickers was called
upon, and not in vain, for the extensive special services.
In the war of 1939 - 1945
in particular these resources were almost entirely to the war effort.
The most extensive enterprise, was
the building of heavy bomber aircraft. Starting
with a
project for merely assembling,
the Company soon undertook the complete manufacture of
aircraft except for the engines.
The first product was the
twin-engined "Manchester", but this was almost
immediately
superseded by the four-engined
"Lancaster", of which more than a thousand were completed
before the end of the war.
For this work a new factory was
built in 1939, having main bays 100 feet wide for the aircraft
assembly; in the following year
it was trebled in size giving a total floor area of 800,000 sq. ft.
to meet the demand for thirty bombers
a month.
After the war, the Mosley Road Works
was re-planned, mainly for large-scale manufacture
of industrial motors. In
1958, whilst serving my apprenticeship, I assembled Type MDX
Motors in the Motor
Assembly Department at Mosley Road.
The manufacture of
Motors at Mosley Road continued until Metropolitan-Vickers
was
taken over by Associated Electrical
Industries Limited, later to be followed by GEC. When
GEC took over, work ceased at Mosley
Road and the factory was sold to Schriber Furniture.
When I drove past the factory to
photograph the Metro-Vick Foundation Stone at the Heritage
Centre recently, I noticed that
the factory had been completely rebuilt and a large number of
"Hotpoint" container vehicles were
parked in the factory grounds. |
