British (Guest Keen, Baldwins) Iron and Steel Co
of Cardiff and Port Talbot
1930 Company formed to amalgamate the heavy iron and steel businesses of GKN and Baldwins[1]:
- from Baldwins: the coke ovens and relative by-product plant, the blast-furnaces and steel melting shop at Margam, the steel works and rolling mills at Port Talbot, the blast-furnaces owned by the Briton Ferry Works (a subsidiary of Baldwins) and the lime stone quarry of Cornelly.
- from Guest, Keen and Nettlefords: Dowlais Iron and Steel Works, the Cardiff Iron and Steel Works, the coke ovens at Cwmbran and certain limestone and silica quarries. [2]
1935 Iron and steelmaking at Dowlais was ended; the Dowlais works were made redundant and the Cardiff East Moors steel plant and rolling mills had been dismantled to make space for construction of new works which would be funded by the parent companies and by a public offer of debentures[3].
1937 The one remaining blast furnace at Dowlais was brought back into operation in response to the shortage of pig iron[4]. Dowlais had been making pig iron for 170 years until closure in 1929
1947 Formation of Steel Company of Wales
1951 Nationalised under the Iron and Steel Act; became part of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain[5]
1954 In order to achieve control of the whole production chain, GKN reacquired British (Guest Keen, Baldwins) Iron and Steel Co, which it had previously owned 57 percent, and Guest Keen and Nettlefolds (South Wales) Ltd from the Holding and Realisation Agency; Guest Keen Baldwins was renamed Guest Keen Iron and Steel Co[6] [7].
1961 Name of Guest Keen Iron and Steel Co changed to GKN Steel Company, which would incorporate all of the steel companies in the GKN group[8]