Newburn Steelworks was a large

steel mill A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-finish ...

on the banks of the

River Tyne The River Tyne is a river in North East England. Its length (excluding tributaries) is . It is formed by the North Tyne and the South Tyne, which converge at Warden Rock near Hexham in Northumberland at a place dubbed 'The Meeting of the Wate ...

Newburn Newburn is a semi rural parish, former electoral ward and former urban district in western Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England. Situated on the North bank of the River Tyne, it is built rising up the valley from the river. It is situated ...

, near

Newcastle upon Tyne Newcastle upon Tyne ( RP: , ), or simply Newcastle, is a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England. The city is located on the River Tyne's northern bank and forms the largest part of the Tyneside built-up area. Newcastle is ...

North East England North East England is one of nine official regions of England at the first level of ITL for statistical purposes. The region has three current administrative levels below the region level in the region; combined authority, unitary authorit ...

History

John Spencer originally opened the works in Newburn in 1822, in a water driven mill on the Dewley Burn which he converted for file grinding. In 1867 Spencer was involved in the formation of the Throckley Coal Company (TCC). The TCC's Isabella colliery in

Throckley Throckley is a village located in Newcastle upon Tyne, North East England, approximately west of Newcastle city centre. Hadrian's Wall passed through the village, its course traced by the village's main road, Hexham Road. Throckley lies within ...

provided coal for a set of coke ovens also owned by the TCC, whose main customer was Spencer's steel works. Although the works were initially used to make springs for the railway industry, Newburn Steelworks quickly grew to become one of the most advanced steel mills in the country with the booming of the shipbuilding industry on Tyneside at the beginning of the 20th century. The works had expanded so much by 1895 that Newburn Hall, originally a fifteenth-century

pele tower Peel towers (also spelt pele) are small fortified keeps or tower houses, built along the English and Scottish borders in the Scottish Marches and North of England, mainly between the mid-14th century and about 1600. They were free-standing ...

, was embedded within it. In 1904, the works made the steel plate for the , the most famous liner ever built on Tyneside. The steel works, along with mining and railway industries, brought great prosperity to Newburn. The works employed 1,500 people, and provided steel plates and springs, amongst other products, for the railway, shipping, armaments and mining industries all over the world. However, the works fell into decline in the depression following

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, with the demand for steel falling. The works were closed in 1926 and demolished in 1933. Despite the demise of the steelworks, the company continued as John Spencer and Sons and produced railway axle and springs, as well as gun springs and barrels for

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. The company eventually folded in the 1960s. A number of buildings associated with the steelworks still stand in the Newburn area.

Haematite Iron Company

The Tyne Iron Works was established in

Lemington Lemington is an area and electoral ward of Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. History Lemington has a strong industrial history. It is famous for its brick glassworks cone, built in 1787. The River Tyne used to pass very close to Lem ...

in 1797. In 1869, John Spencer & Sons took the works over, renaming it the Tyne Haematite Iron Company when it reopened in 1871. The works then used imported Spanish ore, rather than locally mined ore. The works closed in 1886, and in 1903 the

Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company The Newcastle and District Electric Lighting Company (abbreviated to DISCo) was a pre-nationalisation, private electricity supply company, based in Newcastle upon Tyne in North East England. The company was set up in 1889 by Charles Algernon Pa ...

erected

Lemington Power Station Lemington Power Station was a small, now demolished coal-fired power station, located in North East England. It was situated on the Lemington Gut, a backwater of the River Tyne, at Lemington, west of Newcastle upon Tyne. The station's main bu ...

on its site.

Newburn power station

In 1902 the

extended its supply area to include Newburn. In 1908 they opened a power station next to the steel mill. The station generated electricity using

waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utility ...

in the form of steam available from the mill's

reciprocating engine A reciprocating engine, also often known as a piston engine, is typically a heat engine that uses one or more reciprocating pistons to convert high temperature and high pressure into a rotating motion. This article describes the common featu ...

s. Initially the station used only a single 750

kilowatt The watt (symbol: W) is the unit of power or radiant flux in the International System of Units (SI), equal to 1 joule per second or 1 kg⋅m2⋅s−3. It is used to quantify the rate of energy transfer. The watt is named after James Wa ...

(kW)

Parsons Parsons may refer to: Places In the United States: * Parsons, Kansas, a city * Parsons, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Parsons, Tennessee, a city * Parsons, West Virginia, a town * Camp Parsons, a Boy Scout camp in the state of Washingt ...

exhaust steam

turbo-alternator An alternator is an electrical generator that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy in the form of alternating current. For reasons of cost and simplicity, most alternators use a rotating magnetic field with a stationary armature.Gor ...

, but the plant was extended in 1915 with the addition of a single 2,000 kW Parsons turbo alternator, which as well as being powered by exhaust steam could be supplemented by two 20,000 lb/h boilers. The commissioning of this extension ushered the closure of

in 1919. Following the closure of the steel works in 1924 the station's plant was no longer used and the change over in the grid system to 50 cycles rendered the station useless, forcing its complete closure and dismantling.

References

{{coord missing, Tyne and Wear Buildings and structures in Newcastle upon Tyne Coal-fired power stations in England Waste power stations in England Ironworks and steelworks in England