Our heritage: 1945-1964​

The group emerged from the war as Britain’s biggest steel producer, and strengthened its position even further in 1948 by buying the Brymbo special steels plant in Wrexham, North Wales. But even as it completed the deal, the company was becoming embroiled in a long battle against the Attlee Labour government’s determination to nationalise the steel industry.

In the end, GKN lost the battle. Labour nationalised the industry just before it lost the 1951 General Election to Sir Winston Churchill’s Conservatives. It paid GKN total compensation of £18.7m for its assets. Four years later, the group – now led by Kenneth Peacock – was able to buy them back for just under £12m.

Peacock was a gentleman industrialist, like many who filled Britain's boardrooms at that time. He was a great motor sport enthusiast, and raced at Le Mans. Through the Fifties, as the new Prime Minister Harold Macmillan declared: "You've never had it so good", Peacock led GKN in an expansion splurge, at home and throughout the Commonwealth countries, into a host of steel-related businesses, including vehicle components such as crankshafts and propeller shafts.

But at the turn of the decade, UK industry began to catch the British disease of inflation, strikes and poor productivity while coming under increasing pressure from overseas competitors. GKN, now a sprawling steel-based conglomerate with 70 subsidiaries, suffered along with the rest of UK plc. Peacock called 1961-63, "the Lean Years". Of the group's two main businesses, Steel had become a political football and the Fasteners operations were waning in the face of intense price competition from Asia.