Pilkington Automotive history

1829: Company is renamed Greenall & Pilkington.

1894: Company is incorporated as Pilkington Brothers Ltd.

Another died of tuberculosis, and his twin brother, Austin Pilkington, who was himself an able manager, fell ill with tuberculosis in 1907 and, in a last attempt to save his life, was sent from the smoke and chemical fumes of St Helens to live in the dry, thin air of Colorado, where he recovered.

Cozens-Hardy had moved north and taken Austin Pilkington's place at PB in 1908, but had stayed on after his brother-in-law's return.

PB secured a license for this process in 1929.

The latter had acquired the U.K. and British Empire rights to glass fiber manufacture from 1930 and had long specialized in optical glass.

Austin and Cecil Pilkington retired from day-to-day management of the company at a critical moment in 1931, when PB recorded its first loss.

By 1939 it had already acquired nearly half of Chance's shares.

The float glass process was invented by Alastair Pilkington in 1952.

For similar reasons, PB sheet glass manufacture had to be started in Canada in the same year and in India, with local as well as Pilkington capital, in 1954.

Beginning in 1957, on the initiative of Lawrence Pilkington, optical and ophthalmic glass began production at a specially built works at St Asaph in north Wales, which soon became the largest producer of unpolished spectacle discs in Europe.

He became a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1969 and was knighted the following year.

1980: Majority stake in Flachglas AG, the leading German flat glass maker, is acquired.

In 1986, LOF sold its glass business and the Libbey Owens-Ford name to Pilkington.

1987: Revlon's Barnes-Hind and Coburn Vision Care companies are acquired; company is renamed Pilkington plc.

As the company entered the 1990s, only one Pilkington remained on the board--the chairman, Sir Antony Pilkington, son of Arthur Pilkington, knighted for his service to U.K. business in 1990.

During this leadership transition, Pilkington made the clear decision to refocus on its core flat and safety glass operations, to bolster these operations through new investment and acquisitions, and to begin disposing of noncore activities. It was more than symbolic, then, that in 1992 Roger Leverton become the first outsider named Pilkington chief executive.

In 1993 Coburn Optical was divested, then Sola was sold that same year for £200 million.

Antony Pilkington remained chairman but retired in 1995 and was succeeded by Nigel Rudd, the first non-Pilkington chairman; Rudd took the position as a nonexecutive chairman, leaving Leverton the distinct head of operations.

At the same time Scaroni began seeking opportunities for growth through acquisition and the establishment of joint ventures, following the company's return to profitability in the 1999 fiscal year.