Description |
xxxi, 557 pages, 16 unnumbered leaves of plates : illustrations ; 25 cm |
Summary |
This is the story, through good times and difficult ones, of one of Britain's leading manufacturers, Pilkington Brothers Limited. It is told with full and free access to the compnay's accounts and other business records. Intimate financial and other details of what was probably Britain's largest private family company are revealed for the first time down to 1939, and subsequent continued growth is chronicled in an epilouge chapter. It aims to be an honest history in that it deals with the company's mistakes as well as its successes. Professor Barker shows how, from a small factory in St Helens in the 1820s, the first two generations of the glassmaking family built up the export as well as the home sales of the firm until, by the beginning of the present century, it had emerged as one of the major producers of plate and window glass in the world. Since 1900, and especially since 1945, it has become a leading international company with factories in all five continents. World status has involved technical and commercial competition and colaboration with the few survivng manufacturers of world class, and there is much to be found in these pages about international glassmaking diplomacy. The float process, which the company developed after the early 1950s, the most important single technical advance in the whole history of this branch of the glass industry, greatly strengthened Pilkington's bargaining position. The book will be read with interest in the United States and on the continent of Europe as well as in Britain and the Commonwealth. (Inside cover) |
Notes |
First published in 1960 under title: Pilkington Brothers and the glass industry |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
Subject |
Pilkington Brothers, Ltd.
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Pilkington Brothers
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Glass manufacture -- Great Britain.
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LC no. |
78310708 |
ISBN |
029776909X |
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