GKN Sankey

Joseph Sankey went into partnership in the Bilston tray trade in 1854, took sole control of the business in 1861 and in 1867 built the Albert Street Works at Bilston, with steam-powered drop stamps. The firm moved from japanned hollow-ware into electrical laminations in the 1890s, was incorporated as Joseph Sankey & Sons Ltd on 18 September 1902, patented the pressed-and-welded detachable 'All Steel Wheel' in 1908 and in 1909 began stamping motor-body panels and made the first pressed-steel artillery wheel. In 1910 it bought the former Castle Car Works at Hadley, near Wellington in Shropshire, from the tramcar builders, reopening it as the Hadley Castle Works; wheel production began there in June 1910. During the First World War the works turned out field kitchens, aeroplane parts, bombs, shell bodies and steel helmets. John Lysaght & Co. took a controlling interest on 3 December 1919, and in January 1920 Lysaght and its Sankey division became subsidiaries of Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds (GKN).

Hadley built Spitfire fuselages in the Second World War, and in 1946 a new wheel shop made the works the largest steel-wheel producer in Europe. By 1947 a full range of agricultural implements was in production there, including ploughs, seed drills, tractor bodies and trailers, and the site was enlarged again in 1955-59. Sankey companies were being rebadged GKN Sankey from 1965, and the parent was formally renamed GKN Sankey in 1968; it took over Dunlop's rim production in 1971, swapping its car-wheel business the other way, and began building tractor cabs in 1974. Armoured vehicles arrived under the GKN Armoured Vehicle Division: the FV432 armoured personnel carrier was built by GKN Sankey from 1962 to 1971, about 3,000 in all, and the Warrior infantry fighting vehicle followed from a new Telford factory, the first vehicles leaving the line in December 1986 after the 1985 order for 1,053.

The trailers are what tie the company to the Land Rover. The British Army's two-wheeled cargo trailers of 750 kg capacity, the FV2361 narrow-track and FV2381 wide-track types, are known throughout the forces as 'Sankeys' after the GKN Sankey company that designed them and built some of them; the same design was also made under contract by Universal Engineering, Rootes and the Pressed Steel Company, and the wide-track Mk III went to Viking Trailers and Reynolds-Boughton. The early bodies, in ½-ton and ¾-ton form, were welded steel tubs without a tailgate, designed to be watertight and to float when fording, and the narrow-track version was sized to run behind a Series Land Rover; the wide-track type with a drop tailgate matched the Ninety and One Ten. Production of the family ceased in the mid-1980s. In October 2001 the Ministry of Defence announced the refurbishment of about 1,800 FV2381 trailers to extend their life by 18 years; by September 2004 all narrow-track trailers had been withdrawn, with the wide-track trailers scheduled to go by 2008.

In September 1998 Alvis acquired GKN's armoured-vehicle business, GKN taking a 29.9 per cent stake in Alvis, and Alvis was itself bought by BAE Systems in 2004 for £355 million. The Telford works has since been the home of BAE Systems' land-vehicle business and, from 2019, the headquarters of Rheinmetall BAE Systems Land (RBSL), which builds the Boxer and the Challenger 3 there. The wheel business on the original site continues as moveero Ltd, still at Telford. The GKN Sankey Limited company registered in 1902 (number 00074901) was renamed Sankey Holding Limited on 6 September 2021 and is in administration.