Rotherham The Unofficial Website

Iron & Steel

Up until very recent times the iron and steel industry was one of the major employers in Rotherham. It was also one of the major makers of muck. Many's the time I've been on the Sheffield bus on my way to or from work when we've run into a choking cloud of red smoke all along Sheffield Road. My mother lives over the hill in the next valley and boy oh boy did the net curtains get black when the steel mills were roaring. Some of these actually still exist at Brinsworth and Aldwarke but for how long who can say?

This is quite a difficult subject to deal with as there were the firms that produced iron or steel, or both and those that used it for the production of finished goods. Sometimes they were one and the same and sometimes not. Associated with the Iron and Steel industry therefore were iron founders, iron manufacturers, steel converters, fork makers, nailmakers, blacksmiths, agricultural implement makers, boiler makers, stove grate makers, chain manufacturers, file and spring makers, hoop makers, spade and shovel makers, steel rollers and similar trades. In fact almost anything that could be fashioned from the raw material was made in Rotherham at some time, from massive iron bridge sections to humble kitchen implements.

Chainmaking

The chainmaking firm of G. L. Woodger, The Chain Works, Masbrough Street, Rotherham was a family business established in its craft for over two hundred years in 1970, so it must have been founded about 1750 to 1760.

In 1970 the chain works manufactured and repaired all types of lifting gear, including higher tensile steel and mild steel chains, chain blocks and Pul-lifts, case and barrel slings, load binders and shackles. The firm closed down in 1979.

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