For around 100 years, Turner & Newall was one of the key players in the asbestos industry. In the years before asbestos was found to be dangerous to human health, many companies incorporated it into their manufacturing, but not all ceased to use it once its hazards became known. These infamous companies brazenly covered up medical findings in the pursuit of profits over the safety of their workers. One such company was Turner & Newall.

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A brief history of Turner & Newall

Founded in 1871, Turner & Newall first began trading in Rochdale, England. Eight years later, having adopted the use of asbestos in its manufacturing, its name was changed to Turner Brothers Asbestos Company. The company later reverted back to Turner & Newall, despite continuing to use asbestos well into the 1970s and possibly beyond.

Pre-WWI

Before the first World War, T&N ran an asbestos manufacturing plant, making tiled asbestos cement sheets called Trafford tiles, with other products including insulation, heat-resistant boards and spray asbestos products.

From there, key changes included:

1920 – Merging with Washington Chemical Company and J.W. Roberts

1920 – Listing on the London Stock Exchange

1920s-1930s – Further expansion into the U.S. through various mergers and acquisitions

1934 – Purchasing asbestos construction product manufacturers Keasbey & Mattison Co.(Keasbey & Mattison Co. was subsequently purchased by CertainTeed in 1962)

1953 – Already maintaining a number of South African asbestos mines, T&N purchased a major asbestos-product manufacturing company in Zimbabwe

1998 – T&N is purchased by U.S. company, Federal-Mogul

Interestingly, Federal-Mogul was already facing financial issues at the time of the purchase due to ongoing asbestos-related litigation.

Vast applications of T&N asbestos

During its many decades of trading, T&N manufactured and distributed a fireproofing and insulating spray-on product called ‘Sprayed Limpet Asbestos.’ This asbestos product was used in vast quantities across America, including over 22,000 sq. ft. of Seattle’s Space Needle Restaurant, and New York’s Chase Manhattan Bank.

Both JFK Airport and the World Trade Center contained Turner and Newall asbestos.

Furthermore, a wide variety of T&N products were used in the construction of many huge and iconic structures, such as John F. Kennedy Airport and the ill-fated World Trade Center – sadly, much of the dust covering those caught up in the chaos of 9/11 contained asbestos, much of which likely originated from T&N products.

Turner and Newall continued to operate even when the dangers of asbestos were more widely known.

Through the years, despite successfully claiming a significant chunk of the American market, T&N continued to operate in England. Asbestos was not regulated in England until 1970, leaving the T&N asbestos factories free to release asbestos dust, covering the surrounding streets and rooftops; it was reportedly commonplace for children to play with the dust, making faux-snowballs, and playing in the factory’s yard amongst asbestos bales.

If you may have been exposed to asbestos, speak with your healthcare provider about tests and screening to help detect the presence of asbestos fibers and asbestos-related damage.

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Deadly asbestos cover-up by Turner & Newall

By the 1920s, physicians were becoming increasingly aware of the sickness that asbestos exposure can cause, with asbestosis (asbestos-related lung disease) starting to feature in British medical journals.

Insurance companies across the U.S. and Canada also stopped offering life insurance products to asbestos workers around the same time, and by the 1930s, safer asbestos substitutes were emerging, but that didn’t stop T&N; with substantial profits to protect, they chose to minimize and bury medical advices and continue putting their workers’ health at risk in favor of the big bucks.

Turner & Newall and Nellie Kershaw, the first asbestos victim to file a lawsuit

The case of Nellie Kershaw, an English textile worker, whose death was cited as being due to occupational asbestos exposure by Dr. William Edmund Cooke, represents the first published account of asbestos-related disease, and led to the first Asbestos Industry Regulations being set in 1931. Nellie had worked for Turner Brothers Asbestos, who accepted no liability and even refused to pay for her funeral, stating that to do so would create a precedent.

Despite the fact that the deadly effects of asbestos exposure were becoming fairly well understood at this time, T&N continued to ignore the evidence, challenge and/or disregard the opinions of the medical professionals, and keep raking in the money – at the expense of its workers – for many decades.

Turner & Newall declared bankruptcy and created a trust to compensate asbestos victims.

Not long after Federal-Mogul acquired T&N in 1998, it was forced to file for bankruptcy in 2001 due to an overwhelming flurry of asbestos claims.

The 1999 journal article, “Too little, too late? The home office and the asbestos industry regulations, 1931: a reply,” summarizes a variety of damning evidence regarding the shameful cover-up, as well as the many ways in which T&N failed to satisfactorily uphold asbestos regulations once they did come into effect.

This negligence and T&N’s willful attempts to suppress vital warnings regarding the dangers of asbestos extended to arrangements for workers’ medical examinations in 1932. T&N director, Robert Turner, reportedly said to a fellow industrialist, “I am in complete agreement with your suggestion that we should endeavor to have the asbestos industry removed from the schedule of dangerous occupations.”

Turner & Newall resisted and even ignored asbestos regulations designed to protect workers.

The article goes on to address the “woefully deficient” way in which T&N enforced asbestos industry regulations. For example, JW Roberts (a wholly-owned subsidiary of T&N) had a long history of failing to uphold dust control measures, as evidenced by the chilling recollections of children playing in the deadly dust.

By 1995, the accumulated evidence against T&N as presented by Chase Manhattan Bank was so damning that T&N’s defense team didn’t even attempt to contest its past failures in adhering to dust control regulations.

Victims and claimants

As we now know, the development of lung diseases and mesothelioma (an aggressive form of asbestos-related cancer) often takes many years or decades to become apparent, and claims continue to arise as a result of T&N’s disgraceful neglect to prioritize the health and wellbeing of its workers and the communities surrounding its factories.

In Leeds, England, there has been a particularly high rate of deaths from cancers linked to T&N factories, with asbestos having been stored in open sacks and bales stacked outside the factory premises on public roads.

Turner & Newall and asbestos bankruptcy trusts

Federal-Mogul established an Asbestos Personal Injury Trust in December 2007, and its T&N sub fund began accepting claims in 2010. The current payment percentage is 8.5%, with the trust clarifying that this percentage is set to ensure that there are sufficient funds remaining for present and future claimants. The report also states that $44 million was paid to claims throughout 2021, contributing to the near $448 million that has been paid out by the Trust since it was established.

The claimants generally eligible for the T&N fund are those workers who either manufactured the asbestos-containing products, spouses and family/household members of the workers (through secondary exposure) and other workers at risk of exposure to T&N asbestos-containing products, such as boilermakers, insulators, pipefitters, factory workers and so on.

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