Armstrong-Siddeley had its earliest beginnings under John Davenport Siddeley when he turned from importing Peugeot cars (1892) to building his own cars as the Siddeley Autocar Company from 1902 using Peugeot chassis and engines. From 1905 to 1909 the cars were rebranded Wolseley-Siddeley because John Siddeley had taken the post of General Manager at Wolseley, where briefly Herbert Austin was also employed. Siddeley went on the move again in 1909 to become General Manager of the Deasy Motor Car Manufacturing Company after Henry HP Deasy quit the company that he had transformed from the Iden Motor Company in 1906. Siddeley joined his own name to Deasy to form Siddeley-Deasy in 1912. Meanwhile the Armstrong Mitchell & Company shipbuilding company on the River Tyne had merged with Joseph Whitworth in 1897 to form Armstrong-Whitworth and extend their range from ships and into cars, lorries and aircraft by 1920. Armstrong-Whitworth took over Wilson-Pilcher automobile designs from 1904, which included their preselector gearbox and advanced designs of flat-four and flat-six engines. The Armstrong and Siddeley companies developed a working relationship during the First World War and in 1919 Armstrong-Whitworth bought out Siddeley-Deasy. When Vickers merged with Armstron-Whitworth to form Vickers-Armstrong in 1927, JD Siddeley took the initiative and in 1928 he de-merged the automobile business to create Armstrong Siddeley. Interest in Aircraft production continued and in 1935 Siddeley was bought out of his company to form a new Hawker Siddeley conglomerate which included the aircraft brands of Hawker, Gloster and Armstrong Siddeley, and Avro. In postwar Britain the government pushed for merger and conglomeration of the aircraft businesses until it finally became British Aerospace. The car business ceased production in 1960.