Corby Steelworks

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.

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 1860, Andrew set up business as a maker of butt-welded and lap-welded tubes, establishing a small works at St. Enochs, Glasgow, taking his brother James into partnership in 1862. 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.

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. It was founded in 1859 by Samuel Lloyd and his cousin William Rigge Lloyd and their premises were at Nile Street, Birmingham. Over the next 40 years, they became the premier manufacturer of tubes in England. The Clydeside Tube Co. Ltd., makers of weldless tubes was acquired by Lloyd & Lloyd in 1900 and was also brought into the 1903 merger. Samuel's son Albert William was a director of Lloyd & Lloyd when the merger with Stewarts & Menzies came about in 1903 and then became a director of the newly formed company of Stewarts & Lloyds. From the date of the merger, Samuel Lloyd had nothing to do Stewarts & Lloyds and concentrated on Lloyds Ironstone Company, with his son Samuel Janson Lloyd.

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 Manchester Ship Canal, was brought to Corby. Its bucket could hold nearly three times the amount of its earlier, smaller brother. In 1918, Samuel Lloyd died and control passed to Samuel Janson Lloyd, who brokered a merger with Alfred Hickman & Sons, of Bilston in 1919 who, in turn, were absorbed into the Stewarts & Lloyds group of companies in 1920, thus bringing the Corby site under Stewarts & Lloyds control.

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