By 1781, the population was recorded as '150 dwellings', and by 1840 the population of Mountsorrel had reached 1,900. During World War II, in 1942, Alvis, an armoured vehicle manufacturer based in Coventry, acquired a factory previously used to produce cardboard boxes in the village after their factory in Coventry was bombed by the Luftwaffe. Alvis built a new factory on the site of an old brickworks, which DeHavilland, an aeroplane propeller manufacturer, briefly used after the war until Rolls-Royce Limited acquired the site in 1945. The site has since closed and is now covered by housing (see below).