Barrow Hematite Steel Co

1901.

of Barrow-in-Furness

1864 The company was incorporated 1864 with the (7th) Duke of Devonshire as Chairman, Sir James Ramsden as MD and Josiah T. Smith as General Manager. The company was registered on the 1 April. ^[1]

1865 It was erected alongside iron works of Schneider and Hannay which were bought by them. Ten blast furnaces gave an output of 5,000-5,500 tons a week - recognised as largest ironworks in world.

1866 Steel works commenced operations in 1866. Laid out with 18 5-ton Bessemer converters.

1879 Reduced to 11 larger converters in 1879 - and eight larger converters from later date. Steel poured in 2-ton ingot moulds. Converters fed from 250-ton metal mixer sited between blast furnaces and converters.

By 1903 four 18-ton converters were in use making 70 casts every 24 hours - or a capacity of 7,000 tons a week.

Large proportion of output used for rolling steel rails. Mills originally of the three-high type driven by beam engines with 42 1/2 ins. diam x 6-ft stroke at 55 lbs pressure, 28 strokes per minute. 11 steam hammers up to 1880 when replaced by cogging mills.

In 1900 the rail mill consisted of a 36-in cogging mill driven by a pair of 40x60 horizontal reversing engines, with a 28 in roughing mill with a pair of 48x54 in direct-acting horizontal reversing engines, and a 28 in finishing mill with similar 50x54 engines.

The Bessemer process was eventually supplanted by Siemens furnaces at Barrow though rails continued to be rolled.

The company controlled some local iron ore mines, including Park (output 375,000 tons in 1872) and Stank.

The ironworks and the steelworks formed two physically separate units, separated by the FR main line of the early 1860s. By the beginning of WW2 the steelworks was closed and 'mothballed', but the ironworks was still operating.

1942 The steelworks was acquired by the Ministry of Supply in 1942 and the works went back into production.

After the early 1960s no 'new' steel was produced, the works depending entirely on the remelting of scrap.

Barrow Steelworks operated until 1983, and the site is now partly occupied by an industrial estate.

After the steelmaking side of Barrow Hematite was acquired by the MoS in 1942, the ironworks continued to operate, still using the title of The Barrow Hematite Steel Co Ltd.

In 1948 the iron works was acquired by Barrow Ironworks Ltd, although BHSCo continued to exist in a 'holding' capacity for the former subsidiaries who operated the Stainton Limestone Quarries and the Pennington Ore Mill.

Barrow Ironworks Ltd were acquired by the Millom concern (Millom & Askam Hematite Iron Co Ltd until 1959, then Millom Hematite Ore & Iron Co Ltd). The Barrow works, still using its BIW name, closed on 31/3/1963.

In the year 1859 an event took place which set the seal on the future prosperity of the Furness Railway. This was the establishing at Barrow of the Ironworks of Messrs. Schneider & Hannay. In the previous year (1858) this firm had bought land from the Furness at Hindpool on which to build their plant. This eventually became the steelworks and blast furnace plant of the Barrow Haematite Steel Company. With the setting up of the smelting plant at Hindpool the Furness Railway lost most of the shipment traffic in iron ore, wince the bulk of this was now smelted locally; but this loss was more than offset by the pig iron and coke traffic which resulted from the establishment of Messrs. Schneider & Hannay's works. There were three furnaces in blast at the beginning of 1960. ^[2]

[edit] Sources of Information

↑ The Stock Exchange Year Book 1908
↑ [1] Barrow Steel Web Site
↑ British Steam Locomotive Builders by James W. Lowe. Published in 1975. ISBN 0-905100-816