Consett Iron Company
 |
|
| Industry | Ironmaking |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1864 |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Headquarters | Consett, County Durham |
| Products | Iron and steel |
| £673 million (1900) | |
| Owner | British Steel Corporation (1967) |
|
Number of employees
|
6000 (1892) |
| Website | http://www.dmm.org.uk/company/c002.htm |
The Consett Iron Company Ltd was an industrial business based in the Consett area of County Durham in the United Kingdom. The company owned coal mines and limestone quarries, and manufactured iron and steel. It was registered on 4 April 1864 as successor to the Derwent & Consett Iron Company Ltd. This in turn was the successor to the Derwent Iron Company, founded in 1840.
The company's seven collieries and various coke ovens came into the ownership of the National Coal Board, when British coal companies were nationalised in 1947. The Consett Iron Company itself was nationalised in 1951, becoming part of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. It was denationalised shortly afterwards, then renationalised in 1967. British Steel Consett Works was closed in 1980. The Consett Iron Company was absorbed into British Steel Corporation in 1967, and the location became known as the Consett Steel Works.
In 1840 a group of local businessmen led by Jonathan Richardson set up the first of several iron companies in Consett (County Durham), the Derwent Iron Company, to quarry and smelt ironstone around the town. The best local ironstone (with the highest iron content) was exhausted soon after, so the company arranged for extensions to the local railways, such as the . These allowed it to access new sources of ironstone, including, from 1851 onwards, ore from the Cleveland Ironstone Formation near Eston, Cleveland.
By 1857, Consett Iron Company owed the failed Northumberland and Durham District Bank almost a million pounds. It was put up for sale, but an attempted sale to the newly formed Derwent and Consett Iron Company fell through. On 4 April 1864, after operating for several years under the threat of bankruptcy, a new Consett Iron Company Ltd was formed with capital of £400,000. This was divided into 40,000 shares priced initially at £10 each, with J. Priestman as managing director. Two local Members of Parliament, Henry Fenwick and John Henderson, were among the directors. It became the owner of 18 blast furnaces. The company had the capacity to produce 80,000 tons of pig iron and 50,000 tons of finished iron per year. It also owned a thousand workers' cottages and 500 acres of land.
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