The business began in Sheffield in 1828 as a steel foundry and became known for its church bells, going on to make shafts and propellers for ships, armour plate and then artillery.

Financial problems following the death of the Vickers brothers were resolved in 1927 by separating Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company and Metropolitan-Vickers, then merging the remaining bulk of the original business with Armstrong Whitworth to form Vickers-Armstrongs.

With these acquisitions, Vickers could now produce a complete selection of products, from ships and marine fittings to armour plate and a suite of ordnance.

The new business was incorporated and named The Wolseley Tool and Motor Car Company and works were purchased at Adderley Park, Birmingham.

In 1911 a controlling interest was acquired in Whitehead & Company, a torpedo manufacturer based in Fiume, Croatia and at Portland Harbour, Dorset.

His review gave the activities of the main groups of operations divided under five main heads: – these two activities were carried on mainly at works in Sheffield, Barrow, Erith, Dartford and Weybridge This internal review led to the retention of the rolling stock group (Metropolitan Carriage Wagon and Finance Company and The Metropolitan-Vickers Company) and the disposal of: Subsequently, Vickers carried through a financial reconstruction scheme which, after making additional reserves for contingent liabilities, reduced their assets by £12.5 million and their total balance sheet from £34.7 to £22.2 million.

Vickers produced the machine gun in dozens of cartridge sizes and sold it all over the world.

The Vickers A1E1 Independent tank design was never put into production but credited with influencing other nations.

Vickers began work on Britain's first rigid airship (for the Admiralty) in mid-1909 in Cavendish Dock, Barrow.

Further designs and difficulties followed, although non-rigid machines including "Sea Scouts" (popularly called blimps) proved generally less troublesome than the larger rigid examples.

The last airship built at the Walney Island hangar was a small non-rigid reconnaissance machine for the Japanese government that first flew on 27 April 1921.

The R100 first flew on 16 December 1929 and made a successful flight to Canada in July and August 1930, before the airship scheme was stopped following the disastrous crash of the R101 in France in October of that year.

An example of the latter became the first aircraft to cross the Atlantic Ocean non-stop, a converted Royal Air Force bomber (see 1919 in aviation.)

Vickers was a pioneer in producing airliners, early examples being converted from Vimy bombers.

Canadair was founded shortly after by former Canadian Vickers employees and later absorbed into Bombardier Aerospace.