The Round Oak Steelworks was a steel production plant in
Brierley Hill
Brierley Hill is a town and electoral ward in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England, 2.5 miles south of Dudley and 2 miles north of Stourbridge. Part of the Black Country and in a heavily industrialised area, it has a pop ...
,
West Midlands
West or Occident is one of the four cardinal directions or points of the compass. It is the opposite direction from east and is the direction in which the Sun sets on the Earth.
Etymology
The word "west" is a Germanic word passed into some ...
(formerly
Staffordshire),
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
. It was founded in 1857 by Lord Ward, who later became, in 1860,
The 1st Earl of Dudley, as an outlet for
pig iron made in the nearby
blast furnaces. During the
Industrial Revolution
The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
, the majority of iron-making in the world was carried out within 32 kilometres of Round Oak. For the first decades of operation, the works produced wrought iron. However, in the 1890s, steelmaking was introduced. At its peak, thousands of people were employed at the works. The steelworks was the first in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
to be converted to
natural gas
Natural gas (also called fossil gas or simply gas) is a naturally occurring mixture of gaseous hydrocarbons consisting primarily of methane in addition to various smaller amounts of other higher alkanes. Low levels of trace gases like carbo ...
, which was supplied from the
North Sea
The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the ...
. The works were nationalized in 1951, privatized in 1953 and nationalized again in 1967 although the private firm Tube Investments continued to part manage the operations at the site. The steelworks closed in December 1982.
History
The Round Oak Iron Works
The
Ward
Ward may refer to:
Division or unit
* Hospital ward, a hospital division, floor, or room set aside for a particular class or group of patients, for example the psychiatric ward
* Prison ward, a division of a penal institution such as a pris ...
family, Lords of
Dudley Castle
Dudley Castle is a ruined fortification in the town of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Originally a wooden motte and bailey castle built soon after the Norman Conquest, it was rebuilt as a stone fortification during the twelfth century but su ...
, came to own and control a wide range of industrial concerns in the Black Country of the nineteenth century. The family owned land in the region as well as extensive mineral rights. In 1855, the Dudley Estate commenced the construction of the Round Oak Iron Works at Brierley Hill under the supervision of the estate's mineral agent,
Richard Smith.
The site was next to the
Dudley Canal
The Dudley Canal is a canal passing through Dudley in the West Midlands of England. The canal is part of the English and Welsh connected network of navigable inland waterways, and in particular forms part of the popular Stourport Ring narrowboat ...
and two railway systems: the public railway run by the
Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway
The Oxford, Worcester and Wolverhampton Railway (OW&WR) was a railway company in England. It built a line from Wolvercot JunctionThe nearby settlement is spelt ''Wolvercote'' and a later station on the LNWR Bicester line follows that spelling. ...
and the
Pensnett Railway, a mineral line owned by the Dudley Estate itself. Also nearby were the Level New Furnaces (also known as the New Level Furnaces) where blast furnaces, owned by the Dudley Estate could supply
pig iron for the new iron works at Round Oak. The iron works commenced production in 1857. It was a large-scale operation: on its opening it employed 600 men, and the equipment included 28
puddling furnace
Puddling is the process of converting pig iron to bar (wrought) iron in a coal fired reverberatory furnace. It was developed in England during the 1780s. The molten pig iron was stirred in a reverberatory furnace, in an oxidizing environment, ...
s and five mills. In 1862, the works won a Prize Medal at the
International Exhibition
A world's fair, also known as a universal exhibition or an expo, is a large international exhibition designed to showcase the achievements of nations. These exhibitions vary in character and are held in different parts of the world at a specif ...
.
The works were extended between 1865 and 1868, and were then capable of producing 550 tons of finished iron per week.
In 1889, the company started producing chains and ships' cables.
Steel Production
Demand for iron began to fall from the 1870s as steel production began to compete with traditional iron products, and it was decided to convert the plant to steel production. In 1890, the Dudley Estate sold the iron works to a new public company, which would aim to convert to steel production. The price of the works was set at £110,000 pounds of which £10,000 was paid in cash and the remainder by a mortgage provided by the Dudley estate itself.
The company passed to the Lancashire Trust and Mortgage Insurance Corporation Limited, which floated the shares in the firm to the public, receiving £135,000. The new company was called the Earl of Dudley's Round Oak Iron and Steel Works and was incorporated on 16 April 1891.
The chairman of the new company was Mr Richard Dalgleish and the managing director was Mr R. Smith Casson. Steel was first produced in August 1894. However, the company had run into financial difficulty and on 26 November 1894, the company went into liquidation, resulting in repossession by the Dudley Estate.
A new company, The Earl of Dudley's Round Oak Works Ltd, was established on 15 July 1897 under the ownership of the Dudley family. The chairman of the new company was
The 2nd Earl of Dudley, and the managing director was George Hatton.
The steel plant, built next to the ironworks, included three 17-ton furnaces of the
open-hearth type, a 30-inch cogging mill and a 28-inch finishing mill.
In 1904, the works were described as consisting of: "iron works for the manufacture of high-class bar iron ; chain works for the manufacture of chain ; and steel works for the manufacture of Siemens-Martin steel in bars of every variety of section".
It was also stated that the steelworks "comprise five large open-hearth-steel melting furnaces, standing in a shop 350 ft. long by 90 ft. wide." The Bertrand-Thiel process of making steel was being used at the works.
![William Humble Eric Ward, 3rd Earl of Dudley (1894-1969)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f7/William_Humble_Eric_Ward%2C_3rd_Earl_of_Dudley_%281894-1969%29.jpg)
The works prospered until just after the
First World War
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 ...
when the firm faced a financial crisis due to a national depression combined with weaknesses at the plant itself
It was the Earl's son, the then
Viscount Ednam, who tackled the problems by taking specialist financial advice. In 1923, a new board of directors was constituted.
In 1927, it was reported that the equipment at the plant included a 90-ton tilting furnace, two 50-ton and three 40-ton fixed open-hearth furnaces, in addition to a 30-inch cogging mill and a 28-inch finishing mill.
The company's name was changed to Round Oak Steel Works Limited on 14 December 1936.
At the end of the
Second World War
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 opposi ...
, it was found necessary to carry out a modernisation of the plant, which cost over £4,000,000, the financing coming from the Finance Corporation for Industry Limited.
The works were nationalised by the British Government in 1951, but were sold to
Tube Investments
TI Group plc (formerly "Tube Investments") was a holding company for specialised engineering companies. It was based in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. It was registered as ''Tube Investments'' in 1919, combining the seamless steel tube businesses of Tu ...
in 1953. Tube Investments paid £1.4 million and took responsibility for the repayment of loans totaling £4.2million.
The chairman of Tube Investments,
Ivan Stedeford
Sir Ivan Arthur Rice Stedeford GBE, (28 January 18979 February 1975) was a British industrialist and philanthropist.
Stedeford was chairman and managing director of Tube Investments (T.I.) and one of Britain's leading 20th-century industrial ...
, took over as chairman of Round Oak Steel Works.
Steel was produced at the works using basic electric arc and open hearth methods. Principal products included alloy and carbon steel bars (case hardening, bright drawing, free cutting, machining, hot and cold forging), special sections, railway bearing plates, rounds, squares, flats, angles, channels, joists, billets, blooms, slabs and large forging ingots. Round Oak manufactured a weldable extra high-strength steel under the brand name, 'Thirty-Oak'.
The 3½ mile-long railway between the steelworks and Baggeridge closed in September 1966.
The plant was re-nationalized in 1967, becoming part of
British Steel although the works continued to be part managed by Tube Investments.
By the 1970s, the plant's future was in doubt and the workforce was shrinking. The plant had employed around 3,000 workers at its peak, but by 1982 that figure had fallen to around 1,20
An image of the works was used for the
cover art for the
Depeche Mode album
Some Great Reward
''Some Great Reward'' is the fourth studio album by English electronic music band Depeche Mode, released on 24 September 1984 by Mute Records. The album peaked at number five in the United Kingdom and number 51 in the United States, and was su ...
released in 1984.
Closure
The plant finally closed on 23 December 1982,
after 125 years of steel production.
Brierley Hill had already been hit hard by the
recession of the early 1980s, but the closure of Round Oak saw unemployment in the town peak at around 25% — one of the highest rates of any town or city in Britain at this time. The closure came in spite of a fierce argument by
local
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Geography and transportation
* Local (train), a train serving local traffic demand
* Local, Missouri, a community in the United States
* Local government, a form of public administration, usually the lowest tier of administrat ...
Conservative
Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...
MP John Blackburn that the plant was still profitable and should be retained.
Demolition work took place during 1984, when it was purchased by
Don and Roy Richardson, who in October that year were given the go-ahead to build a shopping complex on nearby farmland.
Redevelopment of the site
![The Waterfront at Merry Hill - geograph](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/The_Waterfront_at_Merry_Hill_-_geograph.org.uk_-_862373.jpg)
The farmland which stood in the shadow of Round Oak Steelworks was designated by the Government as an
Enterprise Zone in 1980, being extended to include the site of the works in 1984 — the same year that the Round Oak buildings were demolished. In October 1984, Dudley Metropolitan Borough Council approved the plans of local twin brothers Don and Roy Richardson to build a retail park and shopping mall on the farmland. The first retail units were occupied in the autumn of 1985, and by April 1986 the first phase of the
Merry Hill Shopping Centre
Merry Hill (formerly Westfield Merry Hill and The Merry Hill Shopping Centre) is a large shopping complex in Brierley Hill near Dudley, England. It was developed between 1985 and 1990, with several subsequent expansion and renovation project ...
had been completed. The site was gradually expanded until the final phase opened in November 1989.
Merry Hill brought thousands of jobs to the local area and spearheaded a region-wide transition from manufacturing to services as the key employer of local workers, although many of the new shopping centre's jobs were occupied by people who had worked in other locations - mostly Dudley town centre = until the retailers decided to relocate to new units at Merry Hill.
The first businesses did not move onto the steelworks site until December 1990, when new offices were completed as part of the Waterfront development.
Despite the closure of the works in 1982, a
steel terminal was opened on the adjacent railway in August 1986 and is still in use.
References
*
External links
Archive imagesfrom the
Express & Star
The ''Express & Star'' is a regional evening newspaper in Britain. Founded in 1889, it is based in Wolverhampton, England, and covers the West Midlands county and Staffordshire.
Currently edited by Martin Wright, the ''Express & Star'' publish ...
{{coord, 52.486, -2.114, type:landmark_region:GB-DUD, display=title
Buildings and structures in the Metropolitan Borough of Dudley
Ironworks and steelworks in England
Brierley Hill
1857 establishments in England
1982 disestablishments in England