receivership in 1903. The business was restructured in 1905, Dr Ferranti's shareholding being reduced to less than 10%. For the next eleven years the company was run by receiver managers and Dr Ferranti was effectively excluded from commercial financial strategies. He spent much of this period working in partnership with the likes of J P Coats of Paisley on cotton spinning machinery and Vickers on re-superheating turbines. Expansion Through the early part of the century power was supplied by small companies, typically as an offshoot of plant set up to provide power to local industry. Each plant supplied a different standard, which made the mass production of domestic electrical equipment inefficient. In 1910, Dr Ferranti made a presidential speech to the IEE addressing this issue, but it would be another sixteen years before the commencement of the National Grid in 1926. In 1912, in a move driven by A B Anderson, the Ferranti Managing Director, Ferranti formed a company in Canada, Ferranti Electric, to exploit the overseas meter market. But in 1914, two significant events happened, Anderson drowned on his return from Canada in the Empress of Ireland sinking and the outbreak of WWI signalled an opportunity for Dr Ferranti to once again get involved in day-to-day events in the company. He wanted to get involved in the manufacture of shells and fuzes but it wasn't until 1915 that he finally convinced the board to accept this. As a result of this work Ferranti were in a healthier financial position at the end of the war. High voltage power transformers became an important product for Ferranti; some of the largest types weighed over a hundred tons. Dr Ferranti's son Vincent joined the transformer department as manager in 1921 and was instrumental in expanding the work started by his father. After the death of Dr Ferranti in 1930, he became the chairman and chief executive. In 1935, Ferranti purchased a disused wire drawing mill at Moston: from here it manufactured many "brown goods" such as televisions, radios, and electric clocks. The company later sold its radio and television interests to EKCO in 1957. Production of clocks ended in 1957 and other product lines phased out in 1960 Ferranti Instruments, based at Moston, developed various items for scientific measurements, including one of the first cone and plate viscometers. Ferranti built a new power transformer works at Hollinwood in the mid 1950s at