Rylands Brothers:1935 Review
Note: This is a sub-section of Rylands Brothers
Visit of the Iron and Steel Institute to the Iron, Steel and Engineering Industries of Manchester and District
Rylands Brothers Limited, Warrington.
The firm of Rylands Brothers Limited was founded in the seventeenth century by John and William Rylands, the first named having been born in 1619. They and their immediate descendants employed weavers in the neighbourhood of Culcheth, near Warrington, to weave linen thread into fabrics which were sold in Manchester, even then the leading English market for Linen cloth.
In the year 1805, Mr. John Rylands of this firm, which was then known as John Rylands and Son, introduced the manufacture of wire into Warrington on the site of the present works. The business later passed into the hands of Mr. John Ryland's three sons, and finally in 1868 the firm was converted into a private limited company under its present style of Rylands Brothers Limited.
The production of wire in Great Britain is an ancient industry, and up to the latter half of last century was largely drawn from puddled iron. The invention of the acid and basic processes for the production of mild steel was followed by a continuous and indeed amazing increase in its use. The world's consumption of steel in the early seventies of last century was less than two million tons per annum, a figure which grew steadily during the following 4c, years to over seventy million tons. and in the year year 1929 reached nearly 120 million tons per annum.
An increased consumption of wire was associated with this development. Its wide use for fencing and other purposes, and the peculiar suitability of mild steel for its production, provided a tempting field for expansion to the great steel producing countries of the world. It is estimated that the world's capacity to-day for the production of wire may fall but little short of to million tons per annum.
In Great Britain the production of wire preceded this great development in the steel industry, and was in the hands of a large number of comparatively small firms not associated in any way with the production of the steel itself.
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