Dossier ARM/1/1 - Armstrong Review

The company began early in the 19th century when Gordon Armstrong opened the East Riding Engineering Works in Beverley. He then started a firm manufacturing shock absorbers in the 1920s. His William took over in 1945, establishing a research and development department in Fulford.

William Armstrong opened the York factory in 1949, to manufacture a new type of suspension unit for Ford cars and to establish the company's range of telescopic shock absorbers. The company later opened factories in Australia, Canada, the United States and South Africa. By the 1960s, Armstrong's had three manufacturing divisions and the York factory expanded in 1965.

But just six years later, Armstrong Patents warned that 250 of its 1,300 employees could be laid off due to Ford and postal strikes. After years of UK-wide industrial strife, and as foreign-built cars grew in popularity, the company announced another 400 redundancies in York in 1980. A year later, the Beverley factory closed.

Fears the York factory would close in 1986 were averted but then in 1989, after losing a £3.3m contract with Nissan, the company was sold to the American firm Tenneco and the York factory became Monroe's. Further redundancies followed, and the factory closed in 2000 with the loss of the remaining 392 jobs.