 At the end of 1918 it became a principal constituent of a brand new enterprise English Electric Company Limited.After World War II the works made electricity-generating machinery and heavy machine tools.The company, the Coventry Ordnance Works Limited, was formed in July 1905 by a consortium of British shipbuilding firms John Brown 50%, Cammell Laird 25% and Fairfield 25% with the encouragement of the British government, which wanted a third major arms consortium to compete with the duopoly of Vickers Sons & Maxim and Sir W G Armstrong Whitworth & Co to drive down prices.