Telford manufacturing history

 Telford is rightly known as the place where in 1708 Abraham Darby discovered the way to use coke to smelt iron ore and I wrote about this in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World. It is worth pondering that this was an environmentally friendly development since before this it is said a small iron furnace would consume 2,000 acres of woodland annually.

Iron smelting had been carried out in Telford and its surrounding for perhaps two millennia. It was perfectly placed in a gorge running down to the river Severn. High up the gorge there was limestone and coal along with iron ore. Darby leased an existing furnace from the Brook family and adapted it to his new process. The gorge had fast running water to power the bellows for blast furnace. The resulting pig iron and in due finished goods could then be taken downhill to the river for onwards transmission. In due course the banks of the Severn were lined with iron works, tile works, china works and limestone quarries.

Darby's Coalbrookdale Company continued in one form or another until 2017. It began with pig iron but then specific castings including the famous iron bridge, pillars, boilers for steam engines and rails. As a Quaker, he would not cast cannon Much later the company cast parts for Rayburn and AGA eventually being owned by Glynwed. In the meantime it extended its interests into coal mines and metal work.

The process of making coke from coal produced by-products including gas and tar, the latter being combined with the spent material from the furnaces to make asphalt. It also later provided the base material for many chemicals. Gas from coke production would, of course, light the nation's towns until North Sea gas came on stream.

There were other iron masters and other major employers. Among these, John 'Iron mad' Wilkinson was an iron master with works at nearby Broseley and at one time provided one eighth of Britain's iron output. He cast boilers for Boulton & Watt. He developed a method of casting cannon in a single solid form which would then be bored out to form the barrel. He then devised a method whereby the cannon was rotated whilst the boring tool remained fixed and this greatly improved accuracy. Later he made the first iron barge for use on the river Severn.

The Lilleshall Company founded in 1764 traded until 1964 and was the largest employer. Owned by landed gentry it sought to exploit the natural resources that lay underground. It built several iron works, a glass works, brick works, mines, canals and stretches of railway. In the mid nineteenth century Lilleshall ws producing 15,000 tons of finished iron a year as well as a million bricks and massive steam engines.

None of this would have been possible without a skilled workforce whose experience in iron working stretched back many generations. Nothing stood still. The Ketley iron works was repurposed for the production of rain water goods.

Coalport manufactured bone china. The company came about by the joining of the landowning Browne family who brought clay, coal and capital and a talented engraver Thomas Turner who had been apprenticed at the Worcester factory. Production continued from 1750 until 1926. There is now a Coalport Museum.

The Shropshire canal opened in 1797 and provided a vital link and was followed as elsewhere by railways. In and around Telford just about every large factory and mine had its own branch line; it was a wonder of modern transport. Electricity arrived in 1876 with the production of Elwell and Parker High Speed Electric Engines. Coalbrookdale installed its own power generating station in 1906.

The General Strike saw declines in both Lilleshall and Coalbrookdale and Coalport moved to the potteries. Other businesses prospered: the Horsehay Company made bridges and crains, Heybridge Steel produced miles of wire and Walkers and Corbetts made tanks and boilers. Ever Ready Batteries set up a factory and Joseph Sankey took over Briggs Bodies and made car parts especially wheels. Chad Valley had two factories making toys.

In 1939 work began on the vast Ordnance depot at Donnington and I tell its extraordinary story in War on Wheels. It remains a Ministry of Defence establishment.

Lucas automotive manufactured lighting and Rists wiring. Sankey also produced armoured vehicles at the Hadley Castle works until it became part of GKN, then Alvis and BAE Systems. It is now RBSL (owned by Rheinmetall and BAE Systems) and which now produced the Boxer fighting vehicle and Challenger 3 tanks.

Further reading

• https://www.ironbridge.org.uk/visit/coalbrookdale-museum-of-iron/
• George Evans, Telford's Living Landscape (Wellington: Vision Books, 1993)

Dudley Manufacturing History

 There is evidence of iron working in Dudley in the Domesday Book. It shared the availability of raw materials with its neighbour, Stourbridge. The source of energy for Dudley though was from the surrounding forest. This it had in common with its iron smelting rivals in the Weald in Sussex. In contrast the work coming out of blacksmiths in Dudley were more utilitarian with little evidence remaining of decorative work.

Dudley took the lead over Sussex by virtue of its reserves of coal, once the secret of smelting with coal had been discovered.

The Earl of Dudley and his son, known as Dud, were strongly influential in the way the iron industry and industry generally developed in the area between the towns of Dudley and Stourbridge. Dud claimed to have used coal to smelt iron, but nothing came of it until Abraham Darby succeeded in Telford in 1765. From then on the town of Dudley's future was mapped out until reserves of raw materials ran out.

In the early days it was nails that the men and women of Dudley made. Many of them worked for Richard Foley who had discovered the Swedish method of splitting which revolutionised the industry. Along with nails, chains were made and locks and tools. The coming of the canal both enabled Dudley to export coal to other areas particularly for glass making but also to find a larger market for its produce.

Of course the reserves of raw materials did run out but the companies of Dudley adapted.

Michael Grazebrook took over some collieries and an old blast furnace at Netherton. He installed a Boulton & Watt steam engine and then electricity and the internal combustion engine. In the 1930s he established welding and foundry shops. In the Second World War he made block buster bombs. Anther business with which eventually bought Grazebrook was Hingleys which specialised in chain making and file manufacture. Hingleys installed a Naysmyth steam hammer allowing the manufacture of large anchors. Hingleys were bought by metal workers FH Lloyd which eventually became part of Triplex Lloyd.

Samuel Lewis is another company still in business making pressings, forgings, farm harrows and hand made chains. Files are still manufactured at Vaughan's Hope Works.

National businesses came to Dudley attracted by the skills base. John Thompson of Wolverhampton came to make boilers, chimneys and tanks. Ewarts made motor accessories and we can glory in brass petrol taps, bonnet fasteners, caps and nuts. Dudley became a centre for the covering of metal tanks with protective material. Metallisation Ltd is still in operation. Nearby Brierley Hill was home to the Round Oak Steel Works which became part of Tube Investments.

Further reading:

G. Chandler and I.C. Hannah, Dudley - As it was and as it is today (London: Batsford, 1949)

Scunthorpe manufacturing history

 The iron ore fields of north Lincolnshire attracted iron smelting to Frodingham and Appleby, two villages within what became Scunthorpe. Both companies added steel making, but Frodingham's pig iron production from the north Lincolnshire ore greatly exceeded its steel making capacity. This attracted Harry Steel, managing director of the Sheffield firm, Steel, Peech and Tozer, who, in the aftermath of the First World War, anticipated some consolidation in the industry. The two works and others were brought together in what became the United Steel Company. In the thirties both of these Scunthorpe plants were further expanded.

Lincolnshire ore was also exploited by Richard Thomas of South Wales at the Redbourn works. However, a plan to extend this into a major tinplating plant was shelved in preference for renewed investment in South Wales. Scunthorpe received further investment from John Lysaght at its Normanby Park steelworks in order to provide steel supplies for their other metal activities. John Brown of Sheffield had bought the Trent Ironworks in Scunthorpe and after the First World War moved their steel foundry to the town.

The nationalisation of the steel industry brought the Scunthorpe plants under a single umbrella. In 1972 the British Steel Corporation embarked on a ten year plan of modernisation and Scunthorpe was one of the centres identified for further investment.

In 1999 British Steel merged with the Dutch steel maker Koninklijke Hoogovens to form Corus. In 2007 Corus was bought by Tata Steel of India creating one of the world’s largest steel makers. British Steel Scunthorpe was bought from Tata Steel in 2016 and sold on to the Chinese Jingye Group in 2020.

Away from steel, Lebus Furniture built a 250,000 square foot factory in the town. I write about British furniture manufacturers in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Further reading:

J.C. Carr and W. Taplin, History of the British Steel Industry (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)

Consett manufacturing history

 There is evidence of metalurgical activity in the Derwent valley in County Durham from early times. There was a rich deposit of coal under a thick layer of limestone from which lead could be extracted. Iron ore was abundant and led to the manufacture of swords at Shotley Bridge.

In his book, Thread of Iron, Douglas Vernon traces the history of the industry and notes the date of 1839 as the point when entrepreneur, Jonathan Richardson took the plunge and formed The Derwent Iron company to take advantage of local coal, the rights to which he bought, local iron ore which he discovered and importantly the Consett to South Shields Railway which could bring the resulting iron to a national and international market hungry for it. Once finance was raised, the beginning was a period of success with quality iron winning prizes at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Already both the amount and quality of local ore was being called into question and a cheaper source was found in the nearby Cleveland Hills. Transport presented a challenge with a gorge to be crossed. Initially this was address by an ingenious system of pulleys; later a magnificent viaduct was built. Ore was also brought in by train from the northwest.

Consett was big, having fourteen furnaces compared to four at Bolckow and Vaughan at Witton, Middlesbrough. Interestingly it joined with Krupp of Germany and the Dowlais Iron Company in exploiting iron ore reserves discovered in northern Spain.

The works survived financial crises, one of which resulted in the formation of a new company, the Consett Iron Company, and a period of highly profitable growth. This company entered the late nineteenth century ready to embrace the move to steel. I wrote about Bessemer and Siemens and steel making in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World but also in my blog pieces on Middlesbrough and Sheffield. In Consett, investment was made in Siemens open hearth furnaces and the plant expanded and prospered with some six thousand employees working in coal mines, mills, foundries, melting shops, a brick works and an engine and wagon shops. Consett survived the First World War despite problems with raw materials and shortages of labour, but it was a weakened company which entered the economic storms of the twenties. It was then part of the reconstruction of the national steel industry of which I wrote in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Years after the Second World War saw the strongest growth ever in the British steel indsutry from 13 million tons in 1939 to 24 million in 1960. Nationalisation meant that Consett lost both its coal mines, power stations and its rail and rolling stock. For a previously integrated business, this loss was devastating. Nevertheless improvements were commissioned including a new ore handling system. Nationalisation of the steel industry followed only to be reversed by the next Conservative government. I write about the subsequent passage of the steel industry in Vehicles to Vaccines.

Consett Iron Co closed in 1980 and here is a link to a comprehensive blog of its history.

Further reading:

• Douglas Vernon, Thread of Iron (Knebworth: Able Publishing, 2003)
• J.C. Carr and W. Taplin, History of the British Steel Industry (Oxford: Blackwell, 1962)
• How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World and Vehicles to Vaccines.

Newcastle and Gateshead manfacturing history

 Coal was at the heart of the economy of Tyneside which, with its long navigable estuary, was able to ship many of the millions of tons produced by the Northumberland coalfield. The presence of so many mines attracted talented engineers who rose to the challenge of tackling flooding and poor ventilation that made mining so dangerous. They also addressed the economic imperative of cost effective transport. The answer was steam as I wrote in How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World (HBSTMW) and men like George and Robert Stephenson. It is well known that the eminent scientist Humphrey Davy invented the safety lamp, but George Stephenson produced a lamp equally safe only a few weeks later and this was widely used. Stephenson with his son Robert did go on to produce the Rocket and many more railway locomotives. Again, I cover this at some length in HBSTMW.

Shipbuilding was at the heart of the Tyne with the river in the mid nineteenth century 'positively bristling with ship yards'. Of these the most famous were T&W Smith, Wood Skinner, Wigham Richardson, William Cleland & Co, John Couts, Andrew Leslie & Co and one of the most successful, Charles Mitchell, with his yard at Walker. Mitchell added to his success by marrying Anne Swan through whom he acquired two brothers in law Charles and Henry Swan. Charles Swan merged with the Sunderland George Hunter, to form Swan Hunter; Henry later took over the Mitchell yard.

William Armstrong trained as a solicitor but was irresistibly drawn by the power of water which he had witnessed in his walks across Northumberland. He went into business first in hydraulics and then became a master of the technology of big guns which he manufactured at Elswick working closely with Mitchell on naval vessels. The two companies eventually merged in 1882. He was rightly included as one of the 'Deadly Triumvirate'. He later merged with Joseph Whitworth of Manchester and together they joined with Vickers of Sheffield. I write about all three at some length in HBSTMW. The Newcastle works built tanks, made presses for the newspaper and motor industry, and rolling mill equipment for the steel industry.

Like a number of other cities, Newcastle boasted its Lit and Phil Society, founded in 1793. One lecturer was Joseph Swan who demonstrated the electric light bulb at the same time as Edison was revealing his work on the other side of the Atlantic. Pragmatism prevailed and the two came together in the company known as Ediswan.

The shipbuilding and engineering industries were fertile ground for CA Parsons who invented the revolutionary steam turbine, equally useful in propelling ships and powering electricity generators. German born John Merz married into the Wigham Richardson family and with his brother championed the production of cheap electricity to power the growing city and its industries.

Over the river in Gateshead iron foundries prospered and the production of Alkali using the Leblanc process was championed by local entrepreneur William Losh. This was followed by soap works and a chemical plant run by Christian Allhusen which covered a massive 137 acres of the south shore. By the time of the electrical revolution the highly polluting Leblanc process was replaced by that invented by Solvay but this gravitated towards the Cheshire salt fields. Tyneside would get their own back when cheap electricity attracted Castner Kellner from Cheshire. Gateshead was also home to the workshops of the North Eastern Railway Company which at one time employed 3,300 men before it moved to Darlington. R&W Hawthorn manufactured steam locomotives. Clarke Chapman built steam engines and later nuclear generation plant, and, together with Hebburn engineers A Reyrolle & Co, CA Parsons and others, joined to become Northern Engineering Industries which was bought first by Rolls-Royce and then by the German Siemens. I write about these energy companies in Vehicles to Vaccines.

In the early twentieth century the Wigham Richardson yard specialised in cable laying ships, Armstrong Whitworth focused on the Russian market and, at their naval yard, produced warships not only for the Royal Navy but also for Norway and Japan. Swan Hunter and Wigham Richardson built the renowned RMS Muretania at their Wallsend yard. I write of their contribution to the First World War effort in Ordnance.

The interwar years saw the demand for coal plummet which drew the response of reduced wages and lay offs which in turn partly provoked the National Strike of 1926. Tragically the strike handed export markets to competing coal producing countries, Germany and Poland, and so the decline of coal began. Along with coal, ship building suffered. Jarrow was home to Palmers shipyard which closed in 1936 creating mass unemployment and triggering the Jarrow march. Some help was provided through the Special Areas (Development and Improvement) Act of 1934, but the days of being the workshop of the world would never return. I write of the post-war story of British shipbuilding in Vehicles to Vaccines.

At nearby Fawdon, Rowntree manufactured Fruit Gum, Pastilles and Jelly. Imperial Tobacco built a factory at Heaton in the forties to make Wills cigarettes. There were, and are, many independent smaller manufacturing businesses, not least Jackson the Taylor which merged with Burtons. 

In South Shields, Plessey built a factory to manufacture electronic telephone exchanges. In the nineties, the German Siemens set up a plant to manufacture semi-conductors but, with falling demand, it closed after two years.

Further reading

Alistair Moffat and George Rosie, Tyneside - A History of Newcastle and Gateshead from Earliest Times (Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2005) 

How Britain Shaped the Manufacturing World

Vehicles to Vaccines

Ordnance

Henrietta Heald , William Armstrong, Magician of the North

Anthony Slaven, British Shipbuilding 1500-2010 (Lancaster: Crucible, 2013)

The building blocks of manufacturing: coal and metals

 Coal had ‘tentacles in every part of this changing society’. Landowners loved it, for it lay under their land; farmers benefitted from its use in burning lime for fertiliser; textile manufacturers used its heat in bleaching and dyeing; houses were built from brick and glass both made by the heat of coal; many small workshops across the land, as we shall see, used it to enhance their productivity. Metal was not only needed for large machines, but also for small machines, clocks, guns, instruments and ‘toys’  - small decorative items to delight the growing middle class. Shipbuilders began to explore the use of metal for ships. 

Read more by following the link.

Key to the effective use of coal and metals were the canals.