1920–2001
In 1920 it merged with the Washington Chemical Company, Newalls Insulation Company (founded as Magnesia Coverings by Frederick Newall) and J. W. Roberts to become Turner & Newall and became listed on the London Stock Exchange in that year.[2]
The third (Sir) Samuel Turner (1878–1955) was chairman from 1929 to 1944: he endowed a School of Industrial Administration at Manchester Municipal College of Technology as well as a Dental School at the Victoria University of Manchester (the Dental School and Hospital donation was £99,000[4]) The company's development under the third Samuel was rapid: it acquired Bells' United Asbestos Companies and several asbestos insulation companies in the UK.[5]
The company operated a plant in Leeds where the Armley asbestos disaster occurred and which only closed in 1959.[6]
From 1939 until 2001, the company operated an asbestos mine at Havelock in Bulembu in the Kingdom of Eswatini, Southern Africa. Since the company left, former employees have experienced sickness in their lungs because they lacked safety-wear to protect them from the hazardous material. The miners of Havelock have recently failed in their efforts to bring a legal action in Britain against the company. The attitude of management, combined with the absence of trade unions or an effective regulatory authority meant that work conditions at Havelock were harsh.[7]
It moved its Head Office from Rochdale to Manchester in 1949.[2] After World War II it diversified into components for the automotive industry including gaskets.[8]
In 1953, the company bought Porters Cement Industries Ltd, a major producer of chrysotile asbestos products, based in Salisbury and Bulawayo in Southern Rhodesia, and changed its name to Turnall Fibre Cement (Pvt) Ltd.[9] Turnall Fibre Cement Ltd still operates in Zimbabwe but as an independent company, mainly producing asbestos cement sheets and pipes. According to the company, "there is not an industrial, agricultural or residential area of Zimbabwe that does not have one or more of the company's many [asbestos cement] products in use or on display".[9]
