George Cohen, Sons and Company

George Cohen, Sons and Company was a scrap metal merchant with offices in Commercial Road, London. The company was founded by George Henry Cohen (d.1890) as Messrs. George Cohen & Co. in 1834 and changed its name to George Cohen, Sons and Co. in 1883 on the appointment of Michael Cohen, son of the founder. After the First World War the company won a number of large contracts to dispose of surplus munitions including "400,000 tons of high explosives and other shells". The company also engaged in demolition work, with projects including the towers of Crystal Palace, which had survived the great fire, the Dome of Discovery and Skylon at the Festival of Britain, and London's tram system. In 1940 the company moved its head offices to Hammersmith.
In 1956 a holding company, 'The George Cohen 600 Group Limited', was formed to control the original company and its many subsidiaries. The '600 Group' name, derived from the company first address, 600 Commercial Road, had been in informal use since 1945 or earlier.
In 1970 the '600 Group' set up a joint venture, 'Six Hundred Metal Holdings', with Thorn Electrical Industries to operate the two companies' metal-handling businesses. In 1975 the company name was changed to 'The 600 Group Limited', and in 1981 to 'The 600 Group PLC'.
In 1987 George Cohen, Sons and Company was renamed to GCS (Steels) Limited, part of the 600 Group. The scrap metal business was acquired by Monks Ferry (Ship Breaking) Ltd. of St. Helens near Warrington in Merseyside..
The head office of GCS Steels was based at Stanningley Works, off Town Street in Stanningley Leeds. This site operated up until its closure in 1999. The site covered approximately of land and had also been the base of several other companies that operated under the banner of the 600 Group. In the heyday of the metals trades the site had its own siding to transport large quantities of steel products. 
In 2013 GCS Steels (Gosport) closed, and GCS Steels became a subsidiary of Pyramid Trading Limited.
Subsidiary companies.
The following companies were members of the '600 Group' at some time. This information was obtained from the company's annual reports published in "The Times" newspaper.