Lawrence Farrar Gjers
Lawrence Farrar Gjers (1858-1918), chairman and managing director of Gjers, Mills and Co and a director of South Garesfield Colliery Co, Otto Coke Oven Co, and the Bowesfield Steel Co
son of John Gjers
1919 Obituary [1]
LAWRENCE FARRAR GJERS died at his residence, Busby Hall, Carlton-in-Cleveland, Yorkshire, on February 14, 1918. He was Chairman and Managing Director of Messrs. Gjers, Mills & Co., Ltd., Ayresome Iron Works, Middlesbrough.
He was born in 1858 and was the son of the late Mr. John Gjers, one of the pioneers of the Cleveland district, and inventor of the "soaking-pit." After studying at King's College, London, he entered the works of Messrs. Hopkins, Gilkes & Co., Middlesbrough. On completing his apprenticeship at these works he spent two years with Messrs. Pattinson & Stead, the well-known analytical chemists of Middlesbrough. He was then associated with Mr. George Barrow for a short period on a geological survey of the Cleveland district.
Shortly afterwards he took a position in the steel-making department of the Darlington Iron Company, and obtained valuable experience in the manufacture and treatment of steel. In 1883 he joined his father in the management of the Ayresome Iron Works, and in course of time assumed sole control. He took out several patents for improvements in engineering and metallurgical matters. One was for the equalisation of hot-blast temperatures in regenerative stoves, which he described conjointly with Mr. J. H. Harrison in papers read before the Institute in 1900 and 1902. This was accomplished by interposing between the stoves and the furnace a chamber filled with chequer-work firebricks, which took up heat from the blast when it was above the average temperature, and gave it out again when the blast temperature fell below the average. Another invention was the spraying nozzle for water-cooling.
He was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1882.