James Duffield
James Duffield (c1835-1915)
Born c1835 in Tipton, Staffordshire
1851 Census – Probably, labourer, res Park Lane, Tipton, with parents Abraham and Elizabeth.
1856 Married Mrs Selina Cooper (widow) on 24 Mar 1856 at Sheffield Cathedral,[1] Described as a pudler.
1861 Census – of Brightside, Sheffield. Iron pudler.
1871 Census – of 129 Normanton Street, Brightside, Sheffield. Pudler.
1881 Census – of Station Road, Dore, Derbyshire. Manager of steelworks.
1883 Start-up of new steelworks for Charles Cammell and Co. at Workington, James Duffield manager.[2]
1889 Jointly with Andrew Johnston, took over the interests of the late William Dalzell in Moorside Colliery, Arlercdon.
1891 Census – of Ashfield, High Street, Workington. Ironworks Manager.
1893 Mayor of Workington.
1894 Directory entry – County Magistrate. Res Ashfield, High Street, Workington.
1897 Elected a director of Charles Cammell and Co while continuing as General Manager of the Cumberland works.[3]
1901 Census – of Tallentire Hall, Cockermouth. Iron master.
1904 Retired from his position as a director of Cammell, Laird and Co., and as manager of that company’s Derwent Iron and Steel Works.[4]
1911 Census – of Tallentire Hall, Cockermouth. Private means.
Died 7 Mar 1915 at his grandson’s home in Rotherham (of Tallentire Hall).[5] He left a considerable fortune of £454,734 gross.
Biography published in his retirement.
Carlisle Journal - Tuesday 26 January 1904
With thanks to the British Newspaper Archive
Born in Tipton, South Staffordshire, Mr. Duffield at the age of seven began to work in one of Earl Dudley's pits, his job being to open the ventilation doors and his earnings being 1s. 3d. per week. Mr. Duffield's father and four brothers were killed in the pits, and at the age of sixteen he found himself the principal support of his mother and his younger brothers. Leaving the coalmine, he secured employment first at the Shelton Bar Ironworks, near Hanley, and then as a puddler at Cammell and Company's puddling forge at Sheffield. When he was 26 years old he became night foreman, and five years later he was promoted to the managership of the armour plate mills and puddling forge. Every spare moment was devoted to study, and in 1871, when the Dronfield Steelworks were started, Mr. Duffield was selected as manager from forty competitors. When ten years later it was decided to move to the coast, Mr. Duffield was selected to determine the site. The removal of the works was completed in six months and two weeks, and ever since then Mr. Duffield has been manager. Mr. Duffield has been thrice Mayor of Workington.
1915 Obituary [6]
JAMES DUFFIELD, of Tallantire Hall, Cockermouth, died on March 7, 1915, at Rotherham, at the age of eighty. The son of, a collier, he started work, at the age of seven, in a Staffordshire coal-pit, and worked regularly in that occupation until he was sixteen years old.
He never went to school, and it was not until he reached the age of twenty that he began to educate himself by means of handbooks and attendance at classes. After leaving the pit he found work as under-puddler with a firm in Staffordshire.
Two years later he went to the Princes End Works of Barron & Hall, where the manufacture of bar-iron and boiler-plates was carried on. Shortly after, he was engaged at the Parkgate Ironworks at Sheffield, where he developed great skill in puddling iron for armour-plates at the time when the Admiralty were beginning to replace wooden ships by iron vessels.
When Cammell, Laird & Co. began to manufacture armour-plate, he secured a position with that company, and puddled the iron for their first armour-plate. Owing to his considerable practical knowledge of metallurgy, he was able to afford invaluable help to Cammell, Laird & Co. in applying commercially the Bessemer process. He had his reward in being appointed manager of the works which the firm built at Dronfield. This position he retained for eleven years.
When it became necessary to remove the Dronfield works to the coast, he personally selected the site at Workington, and directed the work of transferring the plant and erecting new furnaces and mills, which now belong to the Workington Iron & Steel Co., Ltd.
He was the author of several inventions connected with the manufacture of armour-plate, and when the Admiralty required compound armour, he devised a successful process for combining steel and iron for that purpose. About twelve years ago he resigned the position he had attained as a director of Cammell, Laird & Co., and also the management of their works at Workington, but he still maintained his connection with various manufacturing concerns, and at the time of his death be was the principal shareholder of Moorwoods, Ltd., Harleston Ironworks, Sheffield.
He was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1891, and was a constant attendant at its meetings for many years.