It was largely elemental work -with fire, water and earth and [this author’s perception is that] it tended to shape the characters of those who undertook it -and lots of blast furnace workers were more than a little alarming to encounter at first meeting, but few were anything but totally transparent, moral, straightforward and, above-all, kind, caring and sociable individuals.
Quoted from Norman Nicholson:A Literary Life, by David Boyd.

The Ironworks at Millom in Cumbria was much more than the economic furnace of the town, it was the heart and soul of the community. And when the fire of the last blast furnace was extinguished in 1969…… the community died too!

My grandparents migrated to Haverigg towards the end of the 19th Century from Cornwall, a tin mining family who sought work, a new life, survival, as the tin mining industry declined and died. They brought their mining skills, their work ethic, their Methodism, and their moral values to Hodbarrow Iron Ore Mine and lived at 10 Concrete Square where I was born. After WWII when my father was demobbed from the Coldstream Guards, he started work at The Ironworks, firstly on the blast furnaces, then in the foundry. After leaving school at 16 I began working there too in the laboratories performing chemical analysis on everything associated with iron making: the iron ore, coke, limestone, water, gases, then the pig iron itself. Three generations bound together by an industry that in those days could look like the fires of hell had been let loose.

At night time the whole sky for miles around would glow an orange-red as the slag was tipped along the new sea wall. If you actually worked at the Ironworks the sight of a blast furnace being tapped or of a tropenas converter removing unwanted carbon, phosphorus, manganese and silicon either scared you rigid or excited the socks off you! The bubbling molten iron or metres long tongues of flame never scared me, I was utterly fascinated by what was happening chemically as well as the physical display and wanted to know and understand more.
Despite leaving school at 16 with only 3 O Levels or GCSEs, thankfully one of them was Chemistry in which I scored a Grade 1, probably getting 90%+ in the exam. All I ever wanted was to work in a laboratory, to learn more, to become a scientist! I had grown out of wanting to be a train driver or a fireman years ago and 10 years later would grow out of wanting to be a scientist, but working at Millom Ironworks, going to Whitehaven college for one day plus two evenings per week set me on the path to a PhD some 10 years hence. It also propelled me into being the analytical chemist assisting the scientist/manager of the research project into Spray Steelmaking that should have saved the Ironworks from total closure in 1968/69.

“This process had been conceived and experimentally proven by the British Iron and Steel Research Association, and a pilot plant had subsequently been installed alongside the Millom blast furnaces. Longer term plans even included a revolutionary continuous casting machine, to which the molten steel, instead of being cast into ingots, could be directly transferred for immediate and continuous further processing into semi-finished solidified sections. Far ahead of its time, this concept was much later to be successfully deployed in niche-market ‘mini-mills’ involving electric-arc steelmaking furnaces feeding directly adjacent continuous casting machines.” (Quoted from Norman Nicholson: A Literary Life, by David Boyd)

Sadly our success with this scheme had no effect on the government of the day and the Ironworks was closed down, but not without some stinging words from Lord Royle in the House of Lords:

A works, a town can be saved; and at the same time a revolutionary process can be expanded for the wellbeing of the industry and the nation as a whole. It is important to notice in our arguments for nationalisation that this has happened under the old regime. It is a strange commentary that the new regime, nationalisation, could save Millom and others like it from the old so-called independent regime. Ye Gods! They talk about competition! It looks as if they are terrified of it.

Remember, this was a Labour Government under Harold Wilson, the champion of the working man!

And now, 50 years later, there is nothing left above ground of the Ironworks or of Hodbarrow Mine, and nothing left of the old community. Wellington Street is like a windswept street in an old western movie, Concrete Square was bulldozed away and is now a barren area of grass. At least the Millom Discovery Centre tells the whole story in a sympathetic way, but the opportunity for some marvellous tourist attractions of industrial archaeology have long gone. The short sightedness of government, both national and local, was a disgrace as the people and whole area were discarded. Norman Nicholson had a great social awareness and was a champion of the working class especially in his home town, though the local council and “officianados” of the town seemed to have little care for him when he was amongst them or for the importance of his old house to this day. He wrote mostly about industry, the mines, the Ironworks, Windscale, and the tough life of the people who lived and worked in this area. If he were alive today and living in Millom he would sadly have very little to write about at all!

Categories: England, Industrial Rides

Tags: Cumbria, Haverigg, industrial archaeology, industry, iron, Ironworks, Millom, Nationalisation, Norman Nicholson, Steel, steel making