Pilkington is a Japanese-owned glass-manufacturing company which is based in Lathom, Lancashire, United Kingdom. In the UK, it includes several legal entities and is a subsidiary of Japanese company NSG Group. Prior to its acquisition by NSG in 2006, it was an independent company listed on the London Stock Exchange and for a time was a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index. History The company was founded in 1826 as a partnership between members of the Pilkington and Greenall families, based in St Helens, Lancashire (now Merseyside). The venture used the trading name of St Helens Crown Glass Company. On the departure from the partnership of the last Greenall in 1845, the firm became known as Pilkington Brothers. In 1894, the business was incorporated under the Companies Act 1862 as Pilkington Brothers Limited. Pilkington was floated as a public company on the London Stock Exchange in 1970. It was for many years the biggest employer in the northwest industrial town. The distinctive blue-glass head office tower block on Alexandra Business Park, off Prescot Road, used as the firm's world HQ, and completed in 1964, still dominates the town's skyline. Between 1953 and 1957, Alastair Pilkington and Kenneth Bickerstaff invented the float glass process, a revolutionary method of high-quality flat glass production by floating molten glass over a bath of molten tin, avoiding the costly need to grind and polish plate glass to make it clear. Pilkington then allowed the Float Process to be used under licence by numerous manufacturers around the world. Pilkington, with its subsidiary Triplex Safety Glass, in which it gradually acquired a controlling interest, also became a major world supplier of toughened and laminated safety glass to the automotive, aerospace and building industries. During the 1960s and 1970s, Pilkington used the flow of Float royalties to invest in float glass plants in several countries including Argentina, Australia, Canada and Sweden, and also to acquire major existing flat and safety glass producers and plants in the United States (Libbey Owens Ford), Germany and France. A Monopolies Commission report in 1967, concluded that Pilkington and Triplex operations were efficient and entrepreneurial and, despite their high share of the UK glass trade, operated in a manner suited to consumers' best interests. A rank-and-file strike in 1970, sparked off by an error in wage packets, brought 8,000 workers out for nearly two months. The General and Municipal Workers Union and Trades