Stewarts & Lloyds
Encyclopedia
Stewarts & Lloyds was a steel tube manufacturer with its headquarters based at Corby
, Northamptonshire
, England. The company was created in 1903 by the amalgamation of two of the largest iron and steel makers in Britain, A. & J. Stewart & Menzies Ltd, Coatbridge
, North Lanarkshire
, Scotland and Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd, Birmingham
, England.
In 1889 Andrew saw his sons set up their own business in Glasgow as tube manufacturers under the name of Stewart Brothers.
In a rationalisation of the tube making industry in Scotland, A. & J. Stewart Ltd merged with Stewart Brothers and the Clydesdale Iron & Steel Company becoming A. & J. Stewart & Clydesdale Ltd. but in 1898, the company took on another new name when it acquired the business of James Menzies & Company becoming A. & J. Stewart & Menzies Ltd. From 1 January 1903 the company merged with English counterparts Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd.
Iron ore had been mined in the Corby
, Northamptonshire
area for some time, when Samuel Lloyd came to the village in 1880 and negotiated the purchase of the mineral rights for the Manor of Corby. Extraction commenced in the following year and the ore was then transported by rail to the Albion Works in the West Midlands. Lloyds Ironstone Company, who erected two blast furnaces on the edge of the village in 1910, started iron production but the main problems was the extraction of the ore itself, the physical act of getting the ore from the ground was in need of mechanization and before the end of the 19th century a mechanical digger, with a bucket capable of holding 11 cubic yards arrived in the mines. To increase production further a steam shovel, after finishing work on the construction of the Panama Canal
, was brought to Corby. Its bucket could hold nearly three times the amount of its earlier, smaller brother.
The Clydeside Tube Co. Ltd., makers of weldless tubes was acquired by Lloyd & Lloyd in 1900 and was also brought into the merger.
and their subsidiaries.
Increasing the sphere of the company continued in the latter 1920s, gaining control of the Victaulic
Co Ltd, producers of “Victaulic
” joints and Johnson couplings for pipelines, the Pothero Steel Tube Co Ltd and then the Birmingham steelworks of John Russell & Company.
Further colliery interests were acquired, when in 1923 the company gained control of Kilnhurst Colliery
in the South Yorkshire coalfield, although this was sub-leased to Sheffield steelmakers John Brown & Co.
This interest was sold, along with its adjoining brickworks, to the Tinsley Park Colliery Company
of Sheffield
in 1936.
In 1930, Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd entered into an agreement with Tube Investments Ltd
, of Abingdon, Oxon., which controlled a large number of tube making firms in the Midlands. Although this was to “facilitate exchange of information and technology” it resulted in S & L gaining a half interest in the Bromford Tube Co of Erdington, Birmingham, England, acquiring the other half in 1945; and in Howell & Co Ltd, Sheffield, this being given up in 1938.
The company decided to move to Corby, Northamptonshire in November 1932, enabling them to make use of the local iron ore to feed their blast furnaces and Bessemer steel converters. The new construction was carried out to a very tight timetable, from the clearing of the site in 1933 the first of the Corby blast furnaces was lit in May the following year. This was followed by coke from the new coke ovens the following month and the ore preparation and sinter plants in September. No.2 blast furnace was lit in November and the first steel came from the Bessemer converters on 27 December. The last of the originally planned blast furnaces (No.3) was lit in October 1935. Following a rebuild to increase capacity of No.2 furnace Corby works became the third cheapest pig iron
producing plant in the world.
From the late 1800s, both founding companies had been represented in Australia as distributors of tube. Growing demand in Australia eventually led to the formation of a jointly owned company with Broken Hill Proprietary Limited (BHP) to be known as Buttweld Pty Ltd, and the establishment of Australia's first tubemaking plant at Newcastle
in 1935. This company ultimately became Tubemakers of Australia.
Looking for greater capacity, in 1936, a fourth blast furnace, a second sinter plant, a new Bessemer plant and new coking capacity, six new ovens being added to the existing batteryand a new battery of 21 ovens were constructed and in operation by the end of 1937.
To add to steel production two electric arc furnaces were built in 1941. The ingots cast from the electric furnace were of a different shape and size to any others and were shipped to Bilston for further processing.
By 1953, the company, making use of its original 8 work sites, became the main producer of steel tubes in Scotland producing around 250,000 tons of tubing, the bulk of which were used at the Corby site.
Further developments took place after World War II, an open-hearth steel making facility being commissioned in 1949. The Glebe coke ovens were extended to their maximum number of 141 in 1953 and plans for No. 6 coke oven battery were formulated shortly after. These were to be built on old quarry workings to the north of the Open-Hearth building and enough land was levelled to accommodate a complete blast furnace plant as well as for the coke ovens by-products plant and gasholder. No. 6 battery of 51 ovens was commissioned in 1961; however, after the footings were installed for the blast furnace, the rest of the construction was put "temporarily on hold", and work was never continued.
In an attempt to make the Bessemer plant more efficient it was trialled with a blast enriched with oxygen, but when a Basic oxygen steelmaking
test plant was built in 1960, a major change in steel production at the works was signalled. Trials were conducted using the LD process and in 1965, with a three vessel plant coming on stream the Bessemer plant closed, having produced almost 18 million tons of steel since 1934.
The end of Stewarts & Lloyds ownership ceased in 1967 when the steel industry was nationalised for the second time, and they became part of the British Steel
Corporation. Due to the high cost and low quality of local iron ore, steel production at Corby was set to close in November 1979. This was delayed until 21 May 1980, due to a national steel strike, when the last coil came off the mill. In nearly 40 year of steel production they had produced almost 2.5 million tons of steel. Tubemaking continues to this day, initially based on steel supplied from Teesside
, and today Corus Tubes is the largest customer of steel from South Wales.
Stewarts & Lloyds was formally dissolved in 1997.
, much of the output went to war-related usage. Possibly the biggest, and certainly the best-known, contribution of the works to the war effort was PLUTO, the Pipe Line Under The Ocean, a pipeline built, following the D-Day
landings to supply fuel for the invading forces. Almost 1,000 miles of steel tubes went into the project.
Another large contribution was the 15,000 miles of tube, used for the construction of beach defences, and which was covered with barbed wire, and other, more dangerous obstructions, known as "Wallace Swords". A total of over 275,000 miles (about 2,5 million tons) of tube were produced for war-related work during the 1939-45 period. Other works in the S & L group provided steel for shell forgings, finished shells and shot.
In acknowledgement of the Stewarts & Lloyds steel works in Corby's contribution to the Pipe Line Under The Ocean construction a public house in Corby was named "The Pluto" but this pub has since closed and the site has been re-developed.
Corby
Corby Town is a town and borough located in the county of Northamptonshire. Corby Town is 23 miles north-east of the county town, Northampton. The borough had a population of 53,174 at the 2001 Census; the town on its own accounted for 49,222 of this figure...
, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
, England. The company was created in 1903 by the amalgamation of two of the largest iron and steel makers in Britain, A. & J. Stewart & Menzies Ltd, Coatbridge
Coatbridge
Coatbridge is a town in North Lanarkshire, Scotland, about east of Glasgow city centre, set in the central Lowlands. The town, with neighbouring Airdrie, is part of the Greater Glasgow urban area. The first settlement of the area stretches back to the Stone Age era...
, North Lanarkshire
North Lanarkshire
North Lanarkshire is one of 32 council areas in Scotland. It borders onto the northeast of the City of Glasgow and contains much of Glasgow's suburbs and commuter towns and villages. It also borders Stirling, Falkirk, East Dunbartonshire, West Lothian and South Lanarkshire...
, Scotland and Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd, Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, England.
History: Stewart & Menzies Ltd
A. & J. Stewart & Menzies Ltd. was founded as A. & J. Stewart. Andrew Stewart was originally employed as a salesman by Eadies of Dalmarnock, South Lanarkshire, specialists in the manufacture of lap-welded and loose flange tubes. Stewart saw a market for gas pipe but the company would not acknowledge his proposals. In 1862, along with his brother James, Andrew set up business as a maker of butt-welded and lap-welded tubes establishing a small works at St. Enochs, Glasgow. The company met with rapid success and in 1867 moved to a large site at Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire, where they built the Clyde Tube Works. In 1882 the company was incorporated with limited liability as A. & J. Stewart Ltd.In 1889 Andrew saw his sons set up their own business in Glasgow as tube manufacturers under the name of Stewart Brothers.
In a rationalisation of the tube making industry in Scotland, A. & J. Stewart Ltd merged with Stewart Brothers and the Clydesdale Iron & Steel Company becoming A. & J. Stewart & Clydesdale Ltd. but in 1898, the company took on another new name when it acquired the business of James Menzies & Company becoming A. & J. Stewart & Menzies Ltd. From 1 January 1903 the company merged with English counterparts Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd.
History: Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd
The history of Lloyd & Lloyd Ltd closely paralleled that of A. & J. Stewart, establishing itself as one of the largest iron and steel tube manufacturers in England.Iron ore had been mined in the Corby
Corby
Corby Town is a town and borough located in the county of Northamptonshire. Corby Town is 23 miles north-east of the county town, Northampton. The borough had a population of 53,174 at the 2001 Census; the town on its own accounted for 49,222 of this figure...
, Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire is a landlocked county in the English East Midlands, with a population of 629,676 as at the 2001 census. It has boundaries with the ceremonial counties of Warwickshire to the west, Leicestershire and Rutland to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshire to the south-east,...
area for some time, when Samuel Lloyd came to the village in 1880 and negotiated the purchase of the mineral rights for the Manor of Corby. Extraction commenced in the following year and the ore was then transported by rail to the Albion Works in the West Midlands. Lloyds Ironstone Company, who erected two blast furnaces on the edge of the village in 1910, started iron production but the main problems was the extraction of the ore itself, the physical act of getting the ore from the ground was in need of mechanization and before the end of the 19th century a mechanical digger, with a bucket capable of holding 11 cubic yards arrived in the mines. To increase production further a steam shovel, after finishing work on the construction of the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
, was brought to Corby. Its bucket could hold nearly three times the amount of its earlier, smaller brother.
The Clydeside Tube Co. Ltd., makers of weldless tubes was acquired by Lloyd & Lloyd in 1900 and was also brought into the merger.
History: Stewarts & Lloyds
The newly merged company, now named Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd set about to establish its position and extending its interests. In 1908 the company became colliery owners when they acquired the control of Robert Addie & Sons (Collieries) Ltd., although this interest was sold in 1924. Before the outbreak of World War I the company bought the British Welding Co of Motherwell, manufacturers of hydraulic welded tubes and established a new works at Tollcross, Glasgow. Following the end of the war the company gained control of the North Lincolnshire Iron Co Ltd, followed shortly afterwards by Alfred Hickman, steel makers, BilstonBilston
Bilston is a town in the English county of West Midlands, situated in the southeastern corner of the City of Wolverhampton. Three wards of Wolverhampton City Council cover the town: Bilston East and Bilston North, which almost entirely comprise parts of the historic Borough of Bilston, and...
and their subsidiaries.
Increasing the sphere of the company continued in the latter 1920s, gaining control of the Victaulic
Victaulic
Victaulic is a developer and producer of mechanical pipe joining systems. Victaulic provides products for Fire Protection, Data Centers, Shipbuilding, Commercial Buildings, Mining, BioFuels, and Industrial Manufacturing....
Co Ltd, producers of “Victaulic
Victaulic
Victaulic is a developer and producer of mechanical pipe joining systems. Victaulic provides products for Fire Protection, Data Centers, Shipbuilding, Commercial Buildings, Mining, BioFuels, and Industrial Manufacturing....
” joints and Johnson couplings for pipelines, the Pothero Steel Tube Co Ltd and then the Birmingham steelworks of John Russell & Company.
Further colliery interests were acquired, when in 1923 the company gained control of Kilnhurst Colliery
Kilnhurst Colliery
Kilnhurst Colliery, formerly known as either Thrybergh or Thrybergh Hall Colliery, was situated on the southern side of the village of Kilnhurst, near Rotherham, South Yorkshire, England....
in the South Yorkshire coalfield, although this was sub-leased to Sheffield steelmakers John Brown & Co.
John Brown (industrialist)
Sir John Brown , British industrialist, was born in Sheffield. He was known as the Father of the South Yorkshire Iron Trade....
This interest was sold, along with its adjoining brickworks, to the Tinsley Park Colliery Company
Tinsley Park Collieries
Tinsley Park Collieries were a group of coal mines situated in the Tinsley / Darnall area to the east of the City of Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England.- History :...
of Sheffield
Sheffield
Sheffield is a city and metropolitan borough of South Yorkshire, England. Its name derives from the River Sheaf, which runs through the city. Historically a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire, and with some of its southern suburbs annexed from Derbyshire, the city has grown from its largely...
in 1936.
In 1930, Stewarts & Lloyds Ltd entered into an agreement with Tube Investments Ltd
TI Group
TI Group plc 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 Tubes Ltd, New Credenda Tube , Simplex and Accles & Pollock. In 1928 Reynolds Tube joined...
, of Abingdon, Oxon., which controlled a large number of tube making firms in the Midlands. Although this was to “facilitate exchange of information and technology” it resulted in S & L gaining a half interest in the Bromford Tube Co of Erdington, Birmingham, England, acquiring the other half in 1945; and in Howell & Co Ltd, Sheffield, this being given up in 1938.
The company decided to move to Corby, Northamptonshire in November 1932, enabling them to make use of the local iron ore to feed their blast furnaces and Bessemer steel converters. The new construction was carried out to a very tight timetable, from the clearing of the site in 1933 the first of the Corby blast furnaces was lit in May the following year. This was followed by coke from the new coke ovens the following month and the ore preparation and sinter plants in September. No.2 blast furnace was lit in November and the first steel came from the Bessemer converters on 27 December. The last of the originally planned blast furnaces (No.3) was lit in October 1935. Following a rebuild to increase capacity of No.2 furnace Corby works became the third cheapest pig iron
Pig iron
Pig iron is the intermediate product of smelting iron ore with a high-carbon fuel such as coke, usually with limestone as a flux. Charcoal and anthracite have also been used as fuel...
producing plant in the world.
From the late 1800s, both founding companies had been represented in Australia as distributors of tube. Growing demand in Australia eventually led to the formation of a jointly owned company with Broken Hill Proprietary Limited (BHP) to be known as Buttweld Pty Ltd, and the establishment of Australia's first tubemaking plant at Newcastle
Newcastle, New South Wales
The Newcastle metropolitan area is the second most populated area in the Australian state of New South Wales and includes most of the Newcastle and Lake Macquarie Local Government Areas...
in 1935. This company ultimately became Tubemakers of Australia.
Looking for greater capacity, in 1936, a fourth blast furnace, a second sinter plant, a new Bessemer plant and new coking capacity, six new ovens being added to the existing batteryand a new battery of 21 ovens were constructed and in operation by the end of 1937.
To add to steel production two electric arc furnaces were built in 1941. The ingots cast from the electric furnace were of a different shape and size to any others and were shipped to Bilston for further processing.
By 1953, the company, making use of its original 8 work sites, became the main producer of steel tubes in Scotland producing around 250,000 tons of tubing, the bulk of which were used at the Corby site.
Further developments took place after World War II, an open-hearth steel making facility being commissioned in 1949. The Glebe coke ovens were extended to their maximum number of 141 in 1953 and plans for No. 6 coke oven battery were formulated shortly after. These were to be built on old quarry workings to the north of the Open-Hearth building and enough land was levelled to accommodate a complete blast furnace plant as well as for the coke ovens by-products plant and gasholder. No. 6 battery of 51 ovens was commissioned in 1961; however, after the footings were installed for the blast furnace, the rest of the construction was put "temporarily on hold", and work was never continued.
In an attempt to make the Bessemer plant more efficient it was trialled with a blast enriched with oxygen, but when a Basic oxygen steelmaking
Basic oxygen steelmaking
Basic oxygen steelmaking , also known as Linz-Donawitz-Verfahren steelmaking or the oxygen converter process is a method of primary steelmaking in which carbon-rich molten pig iron is made into steel. Blowing oxygen through molten pig iron lowers the carbon content of the alloy and changes it into...
test plant was built in 1960, a major change in steel production at the works was signalled. Trials were conducted using the LD process and in 1965, with a three vessel plant coming on stream the Bessemer plant closed, having produced almost 18 million tons of steel since 1934.
The end of Stewarts & Lloyds ownership ceased in 1967 when the steel industry was nationalised for the second time, and they became part of the British Steel
British Steel
British Steel was a major British steel producer. It originated as a nationalised industry, the British Steel Corporation , formed in 1967. This was converted to a public limited company, British Steel PLC, and privatised in 1988. It was once a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index...
Corporation. Due to the high cost and low quality of local iron ore, steel production at Corby was set to close in November 1979. This was delayed until 21 May 1980, due to a national steel strike, when the last coil came off the mill. In nearly 40 year of steel production they had produced almost 2.5 million tons of steel. Tubemaking continues to this day, initially based on steel supplied from Teesside
Teesside
Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of...
, and today Corus Tubes is the largest customer of steel from South Wales.
Stewarts & Lloyds was formally dissolved in 1997.
The "War Effort"
In common with other steel producers, from the outbreak of World War IIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, much of the output went to war-related usage. Possibly the biggest, and certainly the best-known, contribution of the works to the war effort was PLUTO, the Pipe Line Under The Ocean, a pipeline built, following the D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
landings to supply fuel for the invading forces. Almost 1,000 miles of steel tubes went into the project.
Another large contribution was the 15,000 miles of tube, used for the construction of beach defences, and which was covered with barbed wire, and other, more dangerous obstructions, known as "Wallace Swords". A total of over 275,000 miles (about 2,5 million tons) of tube were produced for war-related work during the 1939-45 period. Other works in the S & L group provided steel for shell forgings, finished shells and shot.
In acknowledgement of the Stewarts & Lloyds steel works in Corby's contribution to the Pipe Line Under The Ocean construction a public house in Corby was named "The Pluto" but this pub has since closed and the site has been re-developed.