12.01.2004

William Alphonse “Bill” de Vigier

News has belatedly reached us of the death on December 20th of William Alphonse “Bill” de Vigier, aged 91.

Veterans of the Crane and access industries will know his name well from all he achieved following his founding of Acrow (Engineers) Ltd which went on to dominate the UK crane Industry.

William Aphonse de Vigier was born in 1912 into an historical local family in Solothurn, Switzerland where he grew up in the grand de VigierHof house”. His father an eminent local lawyer wanted his son to respect family traditions and follow in his footsteps. His son had other ideas and signed up for an apprenticeship at Von Roll in Klus, moving on to a job at the Scintilla magneto works in Zuchwil.

The pull of the wider world and continual disagreements with his father eventually led him to pack his bags and head for England. His father was furious and warned him that he would not get a centime from him for any new venture.
In 1935, aged 24 he arrived in London with only 1,000 francs, (roughly £50) in his pocket and an idea for an adjustable scaffold prop. He soon realised that he would have to manufacture it himself, so he rented a small premises under the railway at Bow arches in east London, and approached a well known local solicitor Arthur Crow to establish the company, but the cost for doing so was £32, far more than he could pay, given that the deposit in the arches was £15 and on the offices around the corner in Charterhouse square £4!.
He persuaded Arthur Crow to give him six months credit on his fee and partly out of gratitude and partly on the basis that it would always come near the top in any directory or listing, he used the solicitors name for his new company wich became Acrow (engineers) Ltd. the name was also used for his product the “Acrow Prop” which soon became a generic name in the UK construction industry for such props.

He quickly found, as countless others have since, that introducing a new concept is not easy.. he struggled for the first few months with very few sales, but thanks to Sir Robert McAlpine & Sons and Peter Lind a Danish company, things eventually started to take off and by 1939 he had sold over 40,000 props. He was always grateful to these two forward looking companies and always made a point to give them credit for their part in his success.
In 1938 Acrow moved into their first “proper” factory in Slough and de Vigier and his company were on their way.

During the war Acrow's production was largely diverted to the war effort, making tank and aircraft parts, as well as formwork for the Mulberry harbors that were used in the D-Day landings.

After the war He took the company public and started on a wave of expansion though acquisitions, that turned Acrow into a truly global business.
New businesses included steel Bailey bridges, scaffolding and formwork and then moving on to become a world leading player in the crane business with the acquisition of the Steels group by now renamed (Coles cranes ltd) in 1972. This gave Acrow ownership of Coles cranes which incorporated Neal&Co and Taylor& Sons and Priestman brothers of Hull, the bulk of the UK crane industry.

In 1985 after several years of difficulties the Acrow group went into administration and the Crane division, by now slimmed down to one production plant in Sunderland, was picked up by Grove.

De Vigier rescued parts of the business and in the late 80's gradually sold them off, largely to employee led MBOs.

During the 1960s and 70s de Vigier was a high profile international business leader, traveling the world as an ambassador to his group companies. His businesses were regular recipients of the queens awards to Industry. He took on sevreal high profile directororships including one with British Airways he was awarded a CBE in 1998.

In recent years he has divided his time between his home in Solothurn, Switzerland and London. He has been a driving force for entrepreneurs in Switzerland and active in the local community sponsoring the local Solothurn orchestra and working with La Fondation WA de Vigier the institution he set up in 1987 to help young Swiss entrepreneurs.

De Vigier was married for 61 years to Betty Kendal Quarry, he always said that she was his “first acquisition” and she “became part of the Acrow Team”. They had two daughters, Jeanette and Anne, Jeanette became very well known in crane circles during the late 70’s and early 80’s when she used to frequent the major trade shows and travel extensively with her father.
De Vigier remarried in 2001 to Norah Bradley