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Birmingham steel making

Morturn

Morturn

Super Moderator
Staff member
I have been aware of these steel making crucibles for some time now. These are adjacent to the Birmingham and Worcester Canal at Kings Norton and it looks like they came from the Kings Norton Metal Works.

Crucible.jpg

Kings Norton Metal Works.JPG
There are a few sites around Birmingham where you can see others. By the golf course in Harborne is another location.

I am quite fascinated by the crucible steel making process. Although the Bessemer steel process came about around 1856, crucible steel was still being made till the 1940’s.

A lot of cutting tools were still using crucible steel; crucible steel is quite hard and good for springs.

There is quite an interesting video of the crucible steel making process on You Tube.

Enjoy
 
Thanks Alan, I am aware of the War Lane crucibles, lots of them too. I understand that they made crucible stell at Penns Hall too.

The link to the report is not working, can you have a look please
 
Mort,

It works fine here. I just need to click twice on the Skip Ad button and away it goes.

Maurice :cool:
 
Morturn said:
I have been aware of these steel making crucibles for some time now. These are adjacent to the Birmingham and Worcester Canal at Kings Norton and it looks like they came from the Kings Norton Metal Works.

View attachment 147339

View attachment 147340
There are a few sites around Birmingham where you can see others. By the golf course in Harborne is another location.

I am quite fascinated by the crucible steel making process. Although the Bessemer steel process came about around 1856, crucible steel was still being made till the 1940’s.

A lot of cutting tools were still using crucible steel; crucible steel is quite hard and good for springs.

There is quite an interesting video of the crucible steel making process on You Tube.

Enjoy
Click to expand...
Mort, thank you for sharing........VERY interesting.

I got the video to run only it jumped to the one making steel by hand. Is there a way to back it up?
 
Morturn said:
I have been aware of these steel making crucibles for some time now. These are adjacent to the Birmingham and Worcester Canal at Kings Norton and it looks like they came from the Kings Norton Metal Works.

View attachment 147339

View attachment 147340
There are a few sites around Birmingham where you can see others. By the golf course in Harborne is another location.

I am quite fascinated by the crucible steel making process. Although the Bessemer steel process came about around 1856, crucible steel was still being made till the 1940’s.

A lot of cutting tools were still using crucible steel; crucible steel is quite hard and good for springs.

There is quite an interesting video of the crucible steel making process on You Tube.

Enjoy
Click to expand...
Interesting topic, worth pursuing I think,
thanks for starting it.
 
This brings back memories! I worked at Harborne Library many years ago and was looking for a centre piece for our heritage exhibition. One night we parked up in War Lane [Harborne] and stole a pot from the wall. We mounted it on a plinth in the centre of the exhibition and asked visitors to tell us what they were used for.

Most of the replies were:
1. Phosphorus pots from Albright & Wilson or
2. Small casting pots for the brass trade

It got us a great headline in the BHam Mail: "Pots driving librarians potty!"
 
superdad3 said:
This brings back memories! I worked at Harborne Library many years ago and was looking for a centre piece for our heritage exhibition. One night we parked up in War Lane [Harborne] and stole a pot from the wall. We mounted it on a plinth in the centre of the exhibition and asked visitors to tell us what they were used for.

Most of the replies were:
1. Phosphorus pots from Albright & Wilson or
2. Small casting pots for the brass trade

It got us a great headline in the BHam Mail: "Pots driving librarians potty!"
Click to expand...
I know this should be in the Harborne thread, but how did War Lane get its name
Bob
 
Crucible Steel making in Birmingham, South Staffordshire and East Worcestershire is a complex story and includes the Steel House in Steelhouse Lane, the iron master of Penn and the Attwoods at Corngreaves.

Yet, there are several loose end such as William Blyth, a edge tool maker, and later file maker, on land adjacent to Newhall Street Mill and with wharf space alongside Whitmore Arm. His bankruptcy in 1833, opened up the land for other uses. It seems steel was brought there although a map of 1834 indicates that it was a steel works.
 
Regarding the Kings Norton Metal Company, I understand that premises were of a later time, when water power was superceded by steam power. Those works later became part of IMI

Metal Rolling, by water power, was conducted at Lifford Mill, which at one time was owned by the Davies family, who also had Harborne Mill. Mr Davies arranged for the sale of Harborne Mill on April 10th & 11th, 1843, in order to concentrate metal rolling at Lifford Mill. Whether steel was made by conversion in a crucible in the Lifford area is a matter which does need further investigation. Harborne Mill was once a blade mill, which provides a link with conversion of iron using charcoal and there was a later link, at Harborne Mill, with Thomas Millington, steel pen maker.

As to War Lane, some deeds refer to the name as Whore Lane and may have some connection with the naming of the Warstone and Warstock, which some historians have linked with an old english word for "har", "war" or "whor" to mean grey.

The early ordnance survey for Kings Norton shows water mills (2 of which are rolling mills) and the canals. There is nothing shown to indicate a mill on the site of Kings Norton Metals-KingsNorton.png
 
Last edited:
Another steel making establishment was at the Brades near Oldbury. The Steel Works were placed beside the original route of the Birmingham Canal, which was shortened a feature of the conversion process was the distinctive kiln structures. In this sketch these structures show distinct evidence of mining subsidence.


1430145.jpg
 
Heartland said:
Another steel making establishment was at the Brades near Oldbury. The Steel Works were placed beside the original route of the Birmingham Canal, which was shortened a feature of the conversion process was the distinctive kiln structures. In this sketch these structures show distinct evidence of mining subsidence.


View attachment 150364
Click to expand...
Heartland, a wonderful sketch that clearly shows the kiln profile. The sketch captures very well the feeling of a steel producing environment!
Thank you!
 
Heartland said:
Regarding the Kings Norton Metal Company, I understand that premises were of a later time, when water power was superceded by steam power. Those works later became part of IMI

Metal Rolling, by water power, was conducted at Lifford Mill, which at one time was owned by the Davies family, who also had Harborne Mill. Mr Davies arranged for the sale of Harborne Mill on April 10th & 11th, 1843, in order to concentrate metal rolling at Lifford Mill. Whether steel was made by conversion in a crucible in the Lifford area is a matter which does need further investigation. Harborne Mill was once a blade mill, which provides a link with conversion of iron using charcoal and there was a later link, at Harborne Mill, with Thomas Millington, steel pen maker.

As to War Lane, some deeds refer to the name as Whore Lane and may have some connection with the naming of the Warstone and Warstock, which some historians have linked with an old english word for "har", "war" or "whor" to mean grey.

The early ordnance survey for Kings Norton shows water mills (2 of which are rolling mills) and the canals. There is nothing shown to indicate a mill on the site of Kings Norton Metals-View attachment 150103
Click to expand...

Thanks for this. Do you have a date for this map?
 
Looking at the crucibles in the early post has led me to think if they did not have another function, that is other than steel. In 1842 the Lifford Chemical works was offered for sale and that sale mentioned a retort house.

I have yet to find any examples of steel making close to the Worcester & Birmingham Canal.
 
I believe similar ceramic containers were used in the manufacture of Phosphorus. Somewhere I have seen an old photo of an old wall made up of rows of these on their sides, similar to the photo on this thread. I cannot remember, and cannot at the moment find, the photo
 
Eric Gibson said:
One of my school trips was to the Round Oak steelworks where we watched the steel being poured from the blast furnace, turned into ingots then rolled white hot into long lengths like railway tracks.
So where was Round Oak? ;)
Click to expand...
Eric, I just looked this up. It was in Brierly(sp) Hill West Midlands. Wikipedia has a good discussion and illustration.
I am most interested in steel making in Birmingham et Al thank you for the name! I plan to continue to follow this.
Good memory by the way!
 
Yes Richard good memories, our school (Peckham Road secondary modern) science master F H Payne was an industrialist at heart and arranged quite a few trips out, I also went down the coal mines at Kingsbury and Pooley Hall and did a day tour of the BSA works.
 
Eric Gibson said:
Yes Richard good memories, our school (Peckham Road secondary modern) science master F H Payne was an industrialist at heart and arranged quite a few trips out, I also went down the coal mines at Kingsbury and Pooley Hall and did a day tour of the BSA works.
Click to expand...
Our science master (William Murdoch, Mr Franklin) was a great teacher and gave me a grounding and interest in science, physics but nothing like the tours you had. We did go to a coal mine but were not allowed to go down.
The hands on visits you had are outstanding!
 
Round Oak Steelworks was the last industrial development on the site at Brierley Hill. The closure of the steel works led to demolition and its replacement with the Merry Hill Shopping Centre.
 
The aspect of steel making in central Birmingham probably deserves further research. Joseph McKenna in his Streets of Birmingham mentions that Steelhouse Lane was previously known as Prior's Coneygree Lane(- the lane leading to Prior's rabbit warren) and later Whitehall. later still it became Steelhouse Lane, this last name was derived from Kettles steelhouses which were erected at the end of the 17th century for converting iron into steel, they were situated near Newton Street and were worked until about 1797.

There is no reference in the Birmingham Archives catalogue to the Kettle family involvement with a steel house and so it might be of value to see where records do exist.
 
I have traced my family history back to iron making in Gloucestershire and Forest of Dean along the River Severn in the late 16th and early 17th Centuries. Then the family moved to Maddeley, Dudley, Sedgley and Bilston areas further up the River Severn . Coalbrookdale of course was the sight of the birth of the Industrial Revolution by Abraham Derby III ( the great grand nephew of the Earl of Dudley ) who built the world's first cast iron bridge in 1781 at Iron Bridge.

Between 1866 -1883 Alfred HIckman merged 5 blast furnaces to form the Bilston Steelworks which by 1900 employed 2000 people and produced 3,000 tons of iron per year and 1,500 tons of steel per year operating rolling mills. By grandfather started working on the hot rolling mills in the Bilston and Wolverhampton area before some of the production moved to Newport in South Wales in 1899 . By 1911 he again moved to Stockton & Middlesborough working in the steel mills.

There were several 'iron masters' in the Birmingham area including John George Swan who lived in Handsworth and William Henry Dawes who lived at Moseley Hall in the late 1800's
 
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