Scunthorpe Steelworks

[7][11] Iron produced from the bed including the fossiliferous lime contained over 1% phosphorus, similar to that from the Cleveland ironstone, as well as a few per cent of manganese.

Initially ore was extracted and exported from leases on his estate, and transported by horse power to the River Trent and onwards by canal.

The new line connected with the SYR via a bridge over the River Trent at Keadby to the west, giving access to the South Yorkshire coalfield; and to the MSLR in the east at Barnetby.

[22] North Lincolnshire Iron Works,[map 3] was established by Daniel Adamson of Hyde, Manchester in 1866, supported by Lancashire capitalists; the business was supplied with ore from Winn's own mines.

[31] The last business to establish an iron works in the area was Lysaght's, built 1908–1915 when it then came on stream producing heavy steel products for the war effort, notably armour plate for warships.

The choice of the uphill site at Normanby Park, north of Scunthorpe,[22][map 6] was made by the Chief Engineer, Samuel Henry 'Harry' Meakin.

He was originally offered a site acquired by the Lysaght's at Flixborough on the River Trent, but pointed out that the geological strata were not strong enough to bear the weight of blast furnaces.

Key components of the Normanby Park Works had in practice been designed in the drawing offices of Brymbo Steelworks in Wrexham, which S. H. Meakin had redesigned during 1905–1908.

John Darby, the man in charge of that project, listened to Meakin's professional views on how a steelworks could be made even more efficient than was possible in Wrexham, told him to do the drawings anyway then keep them where they were unlikely to be found, or even understood.

In due course (in about 1907) Darby then won a contract from the Lysaght Brothers to build a brand new steelworks in Scunthorpe, which he confidently asserted would be more efficient than anything seen before.

According to Harry Meakin's son Frank: "My father – who was 32 years old at the time – then played ducks and drakes at Brymbo for six months until they were forced to sack him."

[28] In the context of the wider United Steel group, rationalisation during the 1930s led the Appleby Frodingham works to be specialised in plates and heavy sections, whilst lighter section, bars, rod and wire were produced at the group's Steel, Peech and Tozer and Samuel Fox works in Yorkshire, with rails and ferroalloys at the Workington site.

[44] In 1945 the works was the largest in Britain, with a capacity of 700 million tons pa (5.5% national production), and occupied a 1,700 acres (690 ha) site.

[46] The new 27 and 28.5 feet (8.2 and 8.7 m) furnaces were official opened in mid 1954, and older plant abandoned, with total capacity increased from 900,000 to 1,250,000 tons pa.

The AJAX furnaces functioned as a transition technology prior to the introduction of the Linz-Donawitz process (basic oxygen) for steel production by the company c. 1966.

[51] At the beginning of the 20th century John Lysaght & Co. investigated opportunities to integrate backwards by producing steel for its rolling mills in South Wales.

Discussions and agreement with Sir Berkeley Sheffield on a lease of the iron ore containing land were made in 1905, and the decision was taken to establish a steelworks, with the estimated capital cost at under £350,000.

[52] At the beginning of the Great Depression of the 1930s the works was reconstructed at a cost of £400,000 to specialise outside general mass market steels – as a result capacity utilising was at 80% compared to an industry average of nearer 50%, though with very low profit margins.

[54] The Redbourne Hill works shares were held by Monks and Hall (Warrington) in 1905, but sold to the Cwmfelin Steel and Tinplate Company (owned by a son of Richard Thomas) in 1907/8.

[57] Later in the 1930 Richard Thomas and Baldwins considered to establish a continuous strip mill at their Redbourn works, but under government pressure in the context of difficult economic conditions and unemployment in South Wales reversed their decision and instead place the development at the EbbVale ironworks sites.

[32] Scunthorpe was chosen by the corporation as one of the five main production centres,[14] formally within the Midland regional division of BSC, and designated as a general steel producers.

[62] Within the whole of BSC the 7 ft plate mill at Appleby-Frodingham (and at West Hartlepool) was closed and production transferred to Lackenby, North Yorkshire in around 1970.

[63] Under the rationalisation scheme known as the 'Heritage Programme' closures corresponding to 1.59 and 0.81 million tons of ingot steel were announced for Appleby-Frodingham and Redbourn works to take effect in 1973/4 and 1972/3 respectively.

[67] The new Anchor works including steelmaking, continuous casting and rolling mills was officially opened in 1974 by Queen Elizabeth II.

[72] The economic downturn following the 1973 oil crisis (see Steel crisis) contributed to large scale reduction in the BSC workforce overall, to under a third of the 180,000 employed in the UK industry as a whole in 1975; this in combination with loss of certain privileges and management requests for flexible working, reduction in manning, and wage cuts or wage freezes led to large scale conflict in the industry as a whole over several years.

[73] On 4 November 1975 four workers were killed at the Queen Victoria furnace, and others badly injured following an explosion in a torpedo car due to water ingress into the molten steel filled vessel.

[74][75] At the around the beginning of the 1980s BSC made significant cutbacks to operations at Scunthorpe: all the ore mines closed; and most of the Redbourn works was shut,[68] use of the Lysaght's Normanby Park site ended c. 1981.

Facilities at the works in 1983 included a 300t basic oxygen steelmaker; billet, bloom and slab continuous casters; and desulphurisation and degassing equipment.

[96] In April 2016 the long products division including the Scunthorpe works as the only primary steel producer and main employer was sold by Tata to Greybull Capital for a nominal sum of £1.

[103] According to the Environment Agency (2000), British Steel plc (Scunthorpe, Llanwern, Port Talbot, Redcar) was the biggest industrial polluter of dioxins in the United Kingdom.