Charles Bagnall (1827-1884)
1884 Obituary [1]
CHARLES BAGNALL was born at West Bromwich, Staffordshire, in 1827, and died on the 25th February 1884. He was educated at King's College, London, and afterwards entered the works belonging to his family in South Staffordshire, where he was employed till the dissolution of partnership of the then existing firm took place in 1857.
In 1862 Mr. Bagnall commenced the erection of blast furnaces at Grosmont, near Whitby, in North Yorkshire - a locality which, although nominally included in the so-called Cleveland district, is yet a good many miles from the banks of the Tees. The Grosmont Ironworks consisted of three blast furnaces, which drew their supplies of ore from workings in the neighbourhood. They were carried on until his decease by Mr. Charles Bagnall, in conjunction with his brother, Mr. Thomas Bagnall.
Mr Bagnall was a Justice of the Peace for the North Riding of Yorkshire and the county of Staffordshire. In 1865 he was returned as Member of Parliament for Whitby, and ne sat for that constituency until 1868.
On the establishment of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1868, Mr. Bagnall at once joined its ranks. In 1870 he was elected a member of Council of the Institute, and he continued to act in that capacity until his death. A man of literary tastes and habits, and a fluent and effective speaker, Mr. Bagnall's voice was, nevertheless, seldom to be heard at the meetings of the Institute, the only two discussions in which he took part being that on the development of heat in blast furnaces in 1871, and that on the Frodingham iron-field in 1876.