Alfred Harvey
Alfred Harvey (1856-1930)
1856 Born in Wolverhampton, son of William Harvey and his wife Mary[1]
1871 Office boy, living in West Ham with William Harvey 41, manager in iron works, Mary 38 Alfred 14, Ernest 12, Philip 10, Arthur G Hanley 6[2]
1881 Assistant in steel works, living in Wishaw with Clara Annie Harvey[3]
1891 Steel works manager, living in Cwmavon with Clara Annie Harvey 35, William John Harvey 9, Frank Harvey 3[4]
1930 Obituary [5]
ALFRED HARVEY died rather unexpectedly on November 12, 1930, at the age of seventy-four.
He was well known in the iron and steel industry and in the glass trade, having been engaged for many years in the building and setting to work of melting and reheating regenerative gas furnaces.
From 1875 to 1880 he was engaged at the original telegraph wire and cable works of Messrs. W. T. Henley, North Woolwich, where he gained practical experience in puddling iron, reheating and rolling iron and steel for wire and sheets, and melting steel in four 8-ton open-hearth furnaces.
About that period he succeeded in melting steel in the Crampton furnace at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich.
He then spent two years in Govan as manager of a steel-melting furnace, after which he held a similar position for several years at the Newborn works of Messrs. John Spencer & Sons.
He was then appointed steelworks manager at the Cwm Avon Tinplate Works, South Wales, where he built several steel-melting furnaces and a reversing mill for rolling bars for tinplate.
Subsequently he was one of the founders of the Albion Steelworks at Briton Ferry; there he superintended the erection of several steel-melting furnaces, gas reheating furnaces, and rolling-mills.
In 1899 he joined the firm of Frederick Siemens as outside engineer, to take charge of the installation of Siemens furnaces. In 1917 the firm was converted into Messrs. Harvey-Siemens Furnaces, Ltd., and he was appointed a director; when his brother, Mr. E. W. Harvey, retired in 1923 he became a joint-managing director.
Later, this company was taken over by Messrs. Gibbons Bros., Ltd., of Dudley, and he continued to act as principal manager of the Harvey-Siemens business; he was actively engaged in the affairs of the firm to within a few days of his death.
He was a keen supporter of the Iron and Steel Institute, which he joined in 1888, and made a point of attending the May Meeting functions.