Turner & Newall

Turner & Newall (T&N) was a major British asbestos manufacturing company that became one of the largest asbestos product makers in the world during the twentieth century. It mined, milled, and sold asbestos fibers and manufactured insulation, textiles, brake linings, and asbestos-cement products under brand names such as Ferodo, Turners Asbestos Cement, and Keasbey & Mattison in the United States. The company faced decades of personal injury litigation before collapsing into administration in 2001 under the weight of asbestos liabilities.

Origin

The business traces to 1871 when Samuel Turner founded a cotton and asbestos textile firm in Rochdale, England; it was incorporated as Turner Brothers Asbestos in 1879 and merged with other firms in 1920 to form Turner & Newall Ltd. Through twentieth-century acquisitions (including Keasbey & Mattison in Ambler, Pennsylvania, and Bell Asbestos Mines in Quebec), T&N became a vertically integrated global asbestos enterprise.

Corporate history

According to the 1986 Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases, Turner & Newall acquired the Atlas Asbestos Co. Ltd. of Quebec.¹ The same book describes Turner & Newall's role at Keasbey & Mattison differently from the acquisition mentioned above: it says Keasbey & Mattison went into receivership and was for a while managed by Turner & Newall, and that it was liquidated in 1962 and its divisions sold off.²

Significance in Asbestos Context

For patients, T&N matters because its products were sold worldwide for nearly a century, and its internal records, exposed through litigation and academic research, show that company officials knew of serious health risks from asbestos as early as the 1930s but continued production and downplayed warnings for decades. If you worked with British-made insulation, asbestos cement sheeting, brake linings (especially Ferodo), or asbestos textiles, T&N or one of its subsidiaries may be a source of your exposure. After T&N's 2001 collapse, U.S. asbestos liabilities were channeled into the Federal-Mogul / T&N Asbestos Personal Injury Trust, which still pays qualifying claims today; UK claimants pursue different routes, including employer insurance and the company's UK trust arrangements.

Related Terms

Asbestos Trust Fund, Keasbey & Mattison, Federal-Mogul, Ferodo, Johns-Manville, State of the Art Defense, Corporate Knowledge, Product Identification, Asbestos Textiles, Bankruptcy Trust

Notes

• If you or a family member worked in the UK, Canada, the U.S., or any former British colony, ask about exposure to Turners, T&N, Ferodo, Keasbey & Mattison, J.W. Roberts, Newalls Insulation, or Turners Asbestos Cement products.
• Preserve any product names, brand markings, pay stubs, union records, or photographs from the worksite. Identifying a T&N brand can support a trust claim even decades later.
• Ask your legal team specifically whether a claim should be filed with the Federal-Mogul/T&N Asbestos Personal Injury Trust; trust claims are separate from lawsuits against other defendants and have their own deadlines and evidentiary requirements.
• The T&N internal documents (sometimes called the "Chase Manhattan documents" or T&N corporate files) are well-developed in the litigation record and can be used by experts to establish what the company knew and when.
• UK residents exposed before 1972 may also have rights under employer liability insurance schemes or the Diffuse Mesothelioma Payment Scheme; route depends on country of exposure.

References

1. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 158.
2. Barbara J. Peters and George A. Peters, Sourcebook on Asbestos Diseases: Medical, Legal, and Engineering Aspects, vol. 2 (New York: Garland Law Publishing, 1986), p. 159.

Units and subsidiaries

The divisions, plants, offices and companies the documents place under Turner & Newall, grouped here as one organization:

• Turners Asbestos Cement Co. (company), in 2 documents

People

People the documents tie to Turner & Newall, most often named first, with the titles the documents give them.

• W. P. Howard unreviewed

Asbestos products

3 products our documents name Turner & Newall or one of its units as making or selling. Each product's page says what the documents say about it, including its asbestos content.

• Siluminite (Turners Asbestos Cement)
• Turnall Weatherall (Turners Asbestos Cement)
• Turnall Weatherall (Turners Asbestos Cement Co. Ltd. (Turner & Newall))

Plants

Plants where asbestos products were made that the documents say Turner & Newall or one of its units ran.

• Turner & Newall and later owners plant at Widnes, Lancashire
• Turner & Newall Limited and later owners plant at Emene (Enugu), Eastern Region
• Turner & Newall Limited plant at Montreal, Quebec
• Turner & Newall plant at Rhoose, Wales
• Turners Asbestos Cement Co. plant at Dalmuir, Scotland
• Turners Asbestos Cement plant at Ballyclare, Northern Ireland

Mines

Asbestos mines the documents name Turner & Newall or one of its units as running or owning.

• Bell Asbestos mine, Thetford Mines, Quebec
• Dublin Consolidated amosite facility, near Pietersburg, Northern Transvaal, Transvaal
• Dublin Consolidated crocidolite workings, Vryburg District, Cape Province
• Havelock mine, about 12 miles south-southeast of Barberton, Eswatini
• Mashaba mines (Gath's and King), Zimbabwe
• Montana Asbestos Mine, Malipsdrift Area, Transvaal
• Shabani mine, Zimbabwe

Court cases

10 court decisions in our case-law library name Turner & Newall or one of its units as a defendant, newest first.

• In re Federal-Mogul Global, Inc. (2005)
• Peerman v. Georgia-Pacific Corp. (1994)
• Coates v. AC and S, Inc. (1994)
• Hoffman v. Allied Corp. (1990)
• Campo v. Asbestospray Corp. (1990)
• District of Columbia v. Owens-Corning Fiberglas Corporation (1989)
• Campo v. Asbestospray Corp. (1988)
• Joyce v. AC and S., Inc. (1986)
• Hargrave v. Fibreboard Corp. (1983)
• Grabowski v. Turner & Newall (1980)

In the Union Carbide documents

Turner & Newall is named in 15 Union Carbide documents dated 1967 to 1986 (15 mentioned), from asbestos lawsuits over Union Carbide's Calidria asbestos. 14 of them are published in our collection.

• HM Factory Inspectorate, Problems arising from the use of Asbestos: Memorandum of the Senior Medical Inspector's Advisory Panel (1967) UC-4295 (mentioned)
• H. C. Lewinsohn and S. Holmes, 'Occupational health factors in the United Kingdom,' CIBA-GEIGY Review (1972) UC-1634 (mentioned)
• CIBA-GEIGY Review 1972/2: Special Issue on Asbestos (Nature, Mining, Textiles, Building Products, Plastics, Occupational Health) UC-5399 (mentioned)
• W. P. Howard (Asbestos Information Committee) to F. J. Solon Jnr. (Johns Manville) Enclosing Draft Turner & Newall Article on Television and the 2 Fibre Asbestos Standard (1974) UC-241 (mentioned)
• Glenda J. Spencer to H. W. Renshaw (A. E. Staley) Sending Calidria Asbestos Literature, with Literature Checklist, CIBA-GEIGY Asbestos Review Cover and Renshaw Letter to H. B. Rhodes (1978) UC-503 (mentioned)
• Asbestos, Volume 1: Final Report of the Advisory Committee on Asbestos, Health and Safety Commission, Great Britain (1979) UC-1462 (mentioned)
• Hilton C. Lewinsohn (Raybestos-Manhattan) Statement to House Subcommittee on Labor Standards on Asbestos-Related Diseases and H.R. 2740 (1979) UC-4098 (mentioned)
• G. L. Vessels to J. L. Meyers Listing Asbestos Shipments to Harrisons and Crosfield, Portland, Oregon (1979) UC-1032 (mentioned)
• G. L. Vessels to J. L. Meyers on Asbestos Shipments to Harrisons and Crosfield, Portland, Oregon (1979) UC-2922 (mentioned)
• Handwritten Notes on a NOVA Program about Asbestos Hazards, 'By John Willis, England' (1983) UC-2942 (mentioned)
• Sir Neville Stack to AIA Medical Advisory Panel Circulating Comments on the Medical Surveillance of Asbestos Workers (1984) UC-3317 (mentioned)
• Summary of Doll and Peto, 'Effects on Health of Exposure to Asbestos', with Critical Comments by Dr. K. Browne (1985) UC-4088 (mentioned)
• Curriculum Vitae of Hilton Cecil Lewinsohn, Union Carbide Medical Director, Chemicals & Plastics Group Union Carbide 25 (mentioned)
• Biographical Sketch of Hilton C. Lewinsohn, Assistant Corporate Medical Director, Union Carbide UC-4856 (mentioned)

Names in the documents

The spellings documents use for Turner & Newall, OCR misreadings included, so a search for any of them finds this page: Turner & Newall Ltd · Turner and Newall · Turner-Newall · Turner & Newall PLC · Turner and Newall Ltd · Turner and Newall Limited.

Where this comes from

This page brings together every document in our library that names Turner & Newall, across collections. Titles and affiliations are taken from the documents themselves, and units and subsidiaries are grouped under the company they belong to.