Courtaulds in Continental Europe in the 1950s and 1960s: Some Recollections and Reflections

Until about the 1960s the UK firm of Courtaulds was essentially a produccr of man-made fibres, almost wholly of the ccllulosics (viscosc and acetate), which wcrc bcing displaced in the post-1945 years by thc synthetics (nylon, acrylic and polyester). Courtaulds had entered this field in the carly 1900s and pioneered within the decade as a fibre multinational with the setting up of the American Viscosc Corporation (AVC). The invcstmcnt in thc USA was highly successful, but its sale was enforced in 1941 as part of the negotiations which preceded Lend-Lease. In Europe in 1945 Courtaulds remained one oœ the four groups which dominated the man-made fibre industry in Europe (counting the German VGF and the Dutch AKU as one group, and including also the CTA--latcr merged into Rhonc-Poulcnc~-in France, and Snia Viscosa in Italy). By the standards of the time these wcrc large corporations.