Deconstructing Nuffield: The Evolution of Managerial Culture in the British Motor Industry

Abstract

For most of the period between I922 and I952, when the Nuffield organization merged with the Austin Motor Company Ltd. to form BMC, the motor companies owned by W. R. Morris, later Lord Nuffield, were the largest producers of cars and commercial vehicles in Britain. They maintained the biggest market share and were the most profitable British company in the industry. Yet the relative decline of Nuffield's companies' share in production and markets during the I930s and the difficulties later experienced in rationalizing and repositioning the British-owned motor industry after the I952 merger to form BMC warrant further consideration. This article explores two issues: one is Nuffield's personal role in the industry after the initial spectacular breakthrough into volume production and sales in the early I920S; the other is the extent to which his effect on the managerial culture of the Nuffield organization was a factor which contributed to the industry's long-term difficulties, at least until merger with the Leyland Motor Company Ltd. in i967. Unique among British business leaders, Nuffield has been the subject of biographies by Andrews and Brunner in I954; by Jackson (i964), by Overy (I975), and by Adeney (I993).' Perhaps it is not surprising that the official biography conveyed an unqualified impression of Nuffield in the heroic mould, for the project, initiated by the Warden of Nuffield College, had a hidden agenda.2 Few business archives and personal papers relating to Nuffield and his companies have survived, and this explains why Andrews and Brunner's work has been the major source for all subsequent biographies. Though they vary in emphasis, all these biographies have been positive.

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