 During World War I the company withdrew from textile machinery manufacture and became one of the largest manufacturers of munitions in the area, making hand grenades, artillery shells, field kitchens, mobile workshops, naval mines and search lights.In the recession of the 1930s, Platt Brothers, Howard and Bullough, Brooks and Doxey, Asa Lees, Dobson and Barlow, Joseph Hibbert, John Hetherington and Tweedales and Smalley merged to become Textile Machinery Makers Ltd., but the individual units continued to trade under their own names until the 1970, when they were rationalised into one company called Platt UK Ltd.In 1991 the company name changed to Platt Saco Lowell.