The United Steel Companies was a steelmaking, engineering, coal mining and coal by-product group based in
South Yorkshire
South Yorkshire is a ceremonial and metropolitan county in the Yorkshire and Humber Region of England. The county has four council areas which are the cities of Doncaster and Sheffield as well as the boroughs of Barnsley and Rotherham.
In N ...
and
Lincolnshire
Lincolnshire (abbreviated Lincs.) is a county in the East Midlands of England, with a long coastline on the North Sea to the east. It borders Norfolk to the south-east, Cambridgeshire to the south, Rutland to the south-west, Leicestershire ...
, England.
History
The company was registered in 1918 and the following year saw a joining together of steel makers
Samuel Fox and Company of Stocksbridge;
Steel, Peech and Tozer of Templeborough and Ickles in Rotherham; the
Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company of Scunthorpe; and the coal mining and by-products interests of
Rother Vale Collieries at
Orgreave,
Treeton
Treeton is a village and civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. It is located about south of the town of Rotherham and east of Sheffield City Centre.
History
There is evidence of Mesolithic and N ...
and
Thurcroft
Thurcroft is a village and civil parish situated south-east of Rotherham in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. From 1902 to 1991, it was a mining community. It has a population of 5,296, increasing to 6,900 at ...
.
Over the years other companies were added to the portfolio:
The
Sheffield Coal Company
The Sheffield Coal Company was a colliery owning and coal selling company with its head office situated in South Street, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.
Formation
The Sheffield Coal Company was one of the oldest colliery companies in Sh ...
, owners of
Birley Collieries
The Birley Collieries were a group of coal mines set in the Shire Brook Valley in south-east Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England. They were connected to the railway system by a branch line from the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway ...
,
Brookhouse and
North Staveley collieries, was bought by the United Steel Companies in 1937. This also included coal by-product operations at Orgreave and Brookhouse, suppliers of Metallurgical Coke for Blast Furnaces.
The
Kiveton Park Colliery Company was taken over in 1944 with reserves from, amongst others, the Barnsley seam being an attractive proposition. The facilities also included coke and coal by-products (including gas). The colliery interests became part of the
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...
at nationalisation. The coke ovens closed in 1956 and the colliery closed in 1984.
In 1945 the mining portfolio was increased with the purchase of the
Shireoaks Colliery Company, the colliery being just over the
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated Notts.) is a landlocked county in the East Midlands region of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. The traditi ...
border. As with all their collieries this became part of the National Coal Board in 1947.
The
Yorkshire Engine Company
The Yorkshire Engine Company (YEC) was a small independent locomotive manufacturer in Sheffield, England. The company was formed in 1865 and produced locomotives and carried out general engineering work until 1965. It mainly built shunting engi ...
was bought by the United Steel Companies Limited in 1948. It was said there were two reasons for the purchase. With United Steels wanting new locomotives following the end of
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 opportunity arose to purchase the company at a good price and also a suggestion to centralise the engineering workshops which would serve their steelworks at Templeborough (Rotherham) and Stocksbridge. The works, at Meadowhall, closed in 1967.
The iron and steel works on nationalisation became part of
British Steel Corporation
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
and the mining interests passed to the
National Coal Board
The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...
. The coal by-products plants came under the ownership of a subsidiary, The United Coke and Chemical Company.
Nowadays the steel interests at Rotherham and Stocksbridge are part of
Tata Steel
Tata Steel Limited is an Indian multinational steel-making company, based in Jamshedpur, Jharkhand and headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. It is a part of the Tata Group.
Formerly known as Tata Iron and Steel Company Limited (TISCO), Tata ...
, the steel plant in Scunthorpe part of the new
British Steel, and all the mining interests have been closed, the last, at
Treeton
Treeton is a village and civil parish of the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire, England. It is located about south of the town of Rotherham and east of Sheffield City Centre.
History
There is evidence of Mesolithic and N ...
, in the 1990s.
Cybor House
With the appointment of
Stafford Beer
Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.
...
in 1956, the United Steel Companies became one of the pioneers of management
cybernetics
Cybernetics is a wide-ranging field concerned with circular causality, such as feedback, in regulatory and purposive systems. Cybernetics is named after an example of circular causal feedback, that of steering a ship, where the helmsperson m ...
. They installed a
Ferranti Pegasus
Pegasus was an early British vacuum-tube (valve) computer built by Ferranti, Ltd that pioneered design features to make life easier for both engineers and programmers. Originally it was named the Ferranti Package Computer as its hardware design ...
computer in Cybor House, located in Tapton House Road,
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...
. This was the first computer specifically dedicated to management cybernetics.
References
* Official Company Handbook
* Various Issues of the internal works newspaper "Steel News"
{{Authority control
1918 establishments in England
1967 disestablishments in England
Coal companies of the United Kingdom
Companies based in Scunthorpe
Companies disestablished in 1967
Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange
Defunct companies based in Sheffield
Defunct companies based in Yorkshire
Rotherham
Steel companies of the United Kingdom
British companies established in 1918
Manufacturing companies established in 1918