Ebbw Vale Steelworks
In agreement with two business partners, his son-in-law Charles Cracroft and iron master Jeremiah Homfray of the Penydarren Ironworks at Merthyr Tydfil, Watkins leased land at Pen y Cae farm in the parish of Aberystruth from John Miles.
Needing additional supplies of iron, the company, now owned by the Harfords family trust, bought and integrated the Sirhowy Ironworks and colliery.
He then conducted experiments in converting iron into steel, but the company was eventually forced to adopt the patented process of Henry Bessemer.
The capital injection allowed investment in the most powerful blowing engine in the world to serve four of the Ebbw Vale furnaces, new rolling mills and a Bessemer converter shop which produced the first steel ingots, including high carbon spiegel-eisen (mirror iron).
The oncoming economic depression led to the works being shut down; this resulted in huge redundancies, with minimal maintenance applied to the residual infrastructure.
[9] In 1935, the UK Government forced the shareholders of EVSICC to sell the site to tin plate manufacturer Richard Beaumont Thomas.
He chose to import the UK's first continuous hot rolling mill from the United States, and totally redeveloped the site into a modern steelworks using this technology.
[9] Most occupations inside the steel works were considered reserved trades, so employees were able to opt out of the compulsory call-up for World War II military service.
[1] When British Steel announced its 10-year integrated production plan for South Wales, it therefore proposed to stop iron and steel-making operations at Ebbw Vale, and to redevelop the site as a specialist tinplate manufacturer.
[1] The closure of the coke ovens in March 1972 allowed work to commence on removing the 19th century "drill ground" tip, which contained 500,000 tons of waste material.
This was now able to supply sufficient capacity of rolled steel to a new tinplate complex, the development of which started in 1974 with the commissioning of a newly built hydrochloric acid pickle line.
[1] With staff redeployed to the developing tinplate plant, on 17 July 1975 both the converter shop and all remaining blast furnaces closed, having produced 16,916,523 tons of iron.
[1] By 1981, demolition and clearance of the former iron and steel plants was completed, and the southern boundary of the residual tinplate works was moved inwards.
With much tinplate consumption moving to the newly expanding Asian market, on 1 February 2001 Corus announced the complete closure of the Ebbw Vale site, and the resultant loss of 780 jobs.
[1] In July 2002, the Ebbw Vale steel works site closed; a skeleton staff deconstructed the remaining sold plants and handled shipping of residual finished product until December 2002.
Outline planning permission was granted for a mixed use redevelopment, including housing, retail, offices, wetlands and a learning campus.
[16] HM Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the General Offices as part of her Diamond Jubilee Tour on 3 May 2012, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh.
