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1860-1914: Making the Armaments Centre of the World with Chris Corker - Ep 37
655 Plays3 years ago
Archaeology and Ale is a monthly series of talks presented by Archaeology in the City, part of the University of Sheffield Archaeology Department’s outreach programme. This month we are proud to host Chris Corker speaking on "Making the Armaments Centre of the World (1860-1914)". This talk took place on Thursday, March 25th, 2021, online via Google Meets.
Chris is a business historian and lecturer in Management at the York Management School. He has researched the steel and armaments industry in Sheffield for over a decade and is now branching into research on the metalworking industries in the Hallamshire area from the late 13th Century to the present. He completed his PhD in business history at Sheffield Hallam University in December 2016, titled ‘The Business and Technology of the Sheffield Armaments Industry 1900-1930’. The following year he was awarded the annual Coleman Prize for excellence in new business history research by the Association of Business Historians for his doctoral work. In 2019 he was awarded an Emerald Literati award for his work in the Journal of Management History, and in 2020 was awarded a Vice Chancellors Teaching Award from the University of York for an outstanding contribution to teaching and learning. On Remembrance Sunday in 2018 Chris curated the ‘Sheffield’s Great War’ event at the Sheffield City Hall Memorial Hall in aid of the Royal British Legion, and also worked as an advisor to the ‘Made in Great Britain’ series which aired the same year on BBC2. In the last two years Chris has presented research on Sheffield steel and armaments companies at international business and economic history conferences in Montreal, Canada; Oklahoma City, USA; Detroit, USA; Jyvaskyla, Finland; and across the UK.
For more information about Archaeology in the City’s events and opportunities to get involved, please email [email protected] or visit our website at archinthecity.wordpress.com. You can also find us on Twitter (@archinthecity), Instagram (@archaeointhecity), or Facebook (@archinthecity)
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network.
00:00:28
Speaker
Hello
Sheffield's Armament History and Importance
00:00:29
Speaker
everyone, and welcome to Episode 37 of Archaeology Nail, a free monthly public archaeology talk brought to you by Archaeology in the City, the community outreach program from the University of Sheffield's Department of Archaeology. This month, our guest speaker is Chris Corker, speaking about making the Armament Centre of the World, 1860 to 1914. Due to current COVID-19 restrictions, this talk is taking place online via Google Meets, so there may be some background noise or audio feedback in our recording. We hope you enjoy!
00:01:10
Speaker
We are talking today about Sheffield of course, and by 1914 Sheffield was very much the armament center of the entire world. This small town emerging into a city from 1897 had five of the world's six largest armaments companies in a space roughly five miles long by three mile wide. And what I want to go through today is how Sheffield became this armament center, how the technology evolved and the personalities involved, the customers involved as well.
00:01:34
Speaker
I'm sorry.
00:01:37
Speaker
all the way through to those final days before the First World War broke out. And we are predominantly dealing with naval armaments right now. Of course, Sheffield is propping up the Royal Navy as the Paramount Navy in the entire world at this time. The armory does feature a little bit, but predominantly Sheffield is making towards the Navy and also overseas navies as well, which I'll come on to shortly.
00:01:57
Speaker
So let me give you a sense of what we're talking about here. And you can see on our screen a little map.
Prominent Companies and Industrial Expansion
00:02:02
Speaker
The furthest right on the little map you can see, and you'll see it just says there shoe. That is modern day Meadow Hall shopping center. And as we move further left, we're getting closer towards the center of Sheffield.
00:02:13
Speaker
And this is roughly about three miles long. I know I said five miles a second ago, roughly three miles long by about half a mile wide. And within this, we had five major steel companies which made armaments. So to start with, we will begin with the biggest name that many of us have probably heard of, Vikas at the River Don works.
00:02:30
Speaker
Now, Vickers, I'll talk about a little bit later, developed into one of the largest companies in Britain, if not the world, by 1914. And at the Riverdong Works, which is the modern-day Sheffield Forge Master's site, it's still in production, they made armour plates, they made finished naval guns, and they made projectiles as well. I'll come on to all these technologies as we go through the talk as well.
00:02:50
Speaker
In addition to Vickers, we also had Camel Lead, which from 1860 was Charles Camels. In 1903, they merged with the Lead Brothers shipyard in Birkenhead to become Camel Lead. And at these two works, the Cyclops works closer to town, which is now a Tesco site. At least the Tesco is very nearby. And the Grimes Fort works further down the valley. They're making armor plates, projectiles, and gun forgings. These are the unfinished gun tubes that become machined into your sort of large naval guns.
00:03:18
Speaker
We also have John Browns, became more famous as a Clyde Bank ship builder, but John Browns was started right here in Sheffield, producing armour plates and again, those gun forgings. Their next door neighbours were Thomas Firths, the Norfolk and the Tinsley works. The Norfolk works, the three purple squares you see close to the other companies here are the Norfolk works and the East and West Gunworks. And it is the West Gunworks, which is now the contemporary Grippel company.
00:03:45
Speaker
and they are making projectiles and gun forgings as well. The tinsley works further down the valley is on Weeden Street. It initially made steel and projectiles, later became first vickers making stainless steel. Opposites that now across Sheffield Road is the IKEA, to give you a sense of where that is as well.
00:04:02
Speaker
And our final company is Hadfield. So Hadfield's had two sites. They start out at the Hecklerworks on Newhall Road, and they develop the East Hecklerworks, what is the contemporary Meadowhall site. And that opens in 1897. And Hadfield's are making projectiles and light armor. And I'll talk through these things later as well.
00:04:20
Speaker
So as you can see, five of the biggest companies in Sheffield are in this small part of Sheffield, all making all of these things towards the Royal Navy. Now, of course, if you're thinking about where you position a group of companies that are making things for the Navy, Sheffield is probably not your first choice. We're not that close to the coast in many cases. And these companies are connected to shipyards in Glasgow, in Birkenhead and in Barrow. Not the easiest of connection, at least in these early days as well from the 1860s, is that transport network is slowly starting to develop as well.
00:04:50
Speaker
The other company, the sixth company that I should talk about as well, is Armstrong Whitworth of Newcastle fame. Armstrong Whitworth are making some armor plates and projectiles as well. Basically, three out of the four companies in Britain making armor plates are right here in this small district.
Technological Innovations in Steel Production
00:05:06
Speaker
Two out of five companies making projectiles are here, at least the major projectile manufacturers in Firths and Hadfields.
00:05:12
Speaker
So as I said, these are some of the largest employers in Sheffield. And just to give you a little sense of that on this slide here, our largest companies, Vickers, Hadfield, Camelare, John Browns, all employing several thousand people. All the names that you've heard of, Jessups, which we'll know of from Jessups Hospital.
00:05:28
Speaker
Jonathan Culver, Samuel Osborne, other companies. Brown Bailies is the more, well, was the Don Valley Stadium sites is now part of the Olympic legacy park, much smaller numbers. So these companies are connected to the Royal Navy. They're making armaments. They're the biggest in all of Sheffield. Your largest cookery companies of Sheffield at the same time are in playing around about a thousand people. So let's go back to the beginning when Sheffield starts to make these armaments.
00:05:54
Speaker
And this connection to the Navy really develops off the back of this gentleman, Sir John Brown. And in 1860, John Brown is one of the first people in Sheffield to pioneer using the Bessemer converter for steel purposes. And the Bessemer converter is important because this is converting Sheffield from being able to make steel by the pound in the crucible furnace to by the ton.
00:06:16
Speaker
You can see the last working Bessemer Converter in all of Britain outside Kellam Island. Despite it being a technology of the 1860s, that Bessemer Converter outside Kellam Island remained in production until the 1970s at Workington. This move towards making steel by the ton meant that you could use it for much larger things in terms of armaments. Now Sheffield, of course, as a cutlery based center has lots of connections in terms of making things like knives, bayonets, arrowheads as well. These are smaller things that we can make from steel.
00:06:44
Speaker
And it's the Bessemer Converter, which I can show you in this image here, is really where we can start to make the first armor plate, at least large armor plates. HMS Warrior is our first battleship that is faced with iron armor. And what using the Bessemer Converter can do is you can produce iron armor with a steel face, a steel beam much stronger. And over time, we evolved from being iron faced with steel, towards being all steel, towards being treated steel.
00:07:09
Speaker
And the way a Bessemer converter works, you can see it demonstrated here in our image. You put all of your material into this large converter. These are making three or four tons at this time and you essentially blow air through it. And in that process of blowing air through the Bessemer converter burns off all the impurities and you get this fantastic flame at the top that you can see here as well.
00:07:26
Speaker
And I have a few more images of John Brown's making armour as well. And these are pictures from the 1860s and 1870s. John Brown and next door, Charles Camels, essentially have a manatee over this production of iron armour with a steel face in the 1860s, 70s, into the early 1880s as well.
00:07:44
Speaker
But you can see the manpower involved from these images. You can see the heat of these furnaces and just how much work it is taking. They're pulling these large slabs out of the furnaces that are hardened to resist projectiles. And what I really like about these images is the complete lack of any health and safety equipment.
00:08:01
Speaker
We are dealing with another age when it comes to industrial safety in many ways. I have another image as well from the 1870s on my next slide here, which is from Charles Camel's, this is at the Cyclops Works, a very similar image. You've got these gangs of workers pulling out this very hot iron piece of armour with steel on its face. This is at least the first step towards developing Sheffield as that centre of world armaments, that connection initially to the Royal Navy.
Key Innovations and Industrial Achievements
00:08:28
Speaker
We need to also think about production of guns and the company of Thomas Firths, founded by the gentleman on the right, Mark Firth, very beloved Sheffield, there was Master Cutler for four years, was Lord Mayor as well. When he passed away in 1880, the local newspapers were printed with a black edge and there was a very long two mile funeral procession. He's buried at the General Cemetery.
00:08:51
Speaker
He goes into work with his brother and later his father Thomas Firth, the gentleman you see on the left, comes into the business as well, creating the name Thomas Firth and Sums. And Thomas Firth specializes in making steel by the crucible method. So making highly specialized steel in those 60 to 70 pound crucibles.
00:09:08
Speaker
The best in the common virtue is not known for making the best quality steals. It is the crucible, which is making your finest deals of the time. And they realize that you can use this very fine steel to make guns predominantly for army purposes. And I can show you on my next slide, an example of some of the guns made by Thomas.
00:09:28
Speaker
first and this image here I believe is from 1851 and it depicts what was known as the Woolwich infant's gun, the largest gun ever made from crucible steel and this gun involved the pouring of 70 different crucibles so you have 70 crucibles in massive furnaces all being made at the same time, gangs and men removing the crucibles from the furnace and pouring them in exactly the right time.
00:09:51
Speaker
if they leave it to cool too long the guns going to crack and break so it takes a heck of a lot of skill to get this right at this time so we're now moving into the 1860s 1870s some of these guns are still being made by Thomas Firth all the way into the 1880s this is really where
00:10:06
Speaker
was starting to develop these things. Some of these guns are starting to go onto naval battleships, but predominantly for the army at this time. As we move forward into the 1870s, we have this gentleman. So I talked about Hadfield's a moment ago. Hadfield's the company set up by this gentleman, Robert Hadfield Senior, and his son Robert Abbot Hadfield takes over in 1888.
00:10:27
Speaker
And Robert Hadfield is one of the first people in Sheffield to decide to use Sheffield steel to make projectiles. These are your sort of large naval projectiles that you use into fire to get through armour plates. And this gentleman starts producing these in the mid-1870s. And 1878 is their first successful production of projectiles at the Heckler Works on Newwall Road.
00:10:49
Speaker
And the reason he did this is he wanted to counter what was seen then as French predominance in the production of projectiles. There was a French company called Le Crusoe, which had dominated production of projectiles and was also selling them to the Royal Navy. Hadfield was very keen on switching supply for the Royal Navy to British manufacturers.
00:11:08
Speaker
So that's the sort of three pillars of how we develop armaments in Sheffield. We have armour plates, we have gun manufacture, which evolves into naval gun manufacture, and we have projectiles as well. I have a few more pictures of these coming up. Obviously the older we talk about, the less likely we have actual photographs. So let's move forward now into the 1880s and these two gentlemen into the scene. This is Thomas Vickers on the left and Albert Vickers on the right.
00:11:31
Speaker
And these two are the chairman and managing director of what is initially Vickers, becomes Vickers limited in 1867. By the 1880s, the Royal Navy decides that they want to expand production for naval purposes in Britain. And they launched what's known as the Naval Defense Act of 1888. And this calls for the production of a huge amount of new capital ships.
00:11:54
Speaker
And what these two brothers decide to do at what is now Sheffield Forge Master's site, the River Donworks, is start producing armour plates and gun finished naval guns on that site as well. And they submit test pieces in the 1880s and they are approved as a supplier to the Royal Navy in 1888.
00:12:13
Speaker
It is by the 1880s that we are starting to see all steel armour produced. So using the Bessemer Converter earlier, we're using iron armour with a steel face. We are moving forward now. Production developments at John Brown's and at Charles Camel are resulting in all steel armour for the first time. And these two are also producing all steel armour from 1888 and those finished gun barrels.
00:12:35
Speaker
They start to develop their empire going forwards, and by 1897, they realized that they can actually develop connections to other companies and start to develop their empire to produce what became known as one of the world's first arsenals, one of the world's first companies in which you could produce an entire battleship.
00:12:51
Speaker
So let me just go through a few points from building a Vickers Empire. So in 1897, their armor businesses developed, their naval gun businesses developed, and they decided to acquire the Maxim Nordfeld Company, which was famous for producing Maxim machine guns, which ultimately became known as Vickers machine guns, very famous machine gun of the First World War.
00:13:11
Speaker
They entirely buy this company. It becomes part of the Vickers Empire. In 1897 as well, they buy the Electric and Ordnance Accessories Company, which is a company specializing in the production of torpedoes and some of the very, very early submarines. And they also purchased the Naval Construction Company at Barrow. Now, the Naval Construction Company at Barrow's shipyard is still in use. It has recently finished building the Queen Elizabeth II aircraft carrier.
00:13:38
Speaker
By buying all of these companies together, they changed the name of the company. It is no longer Vickers and Sons. It is Vickers, Sons, and Maxim to recognize that this company is now starting to expand towards armaments much more. By 1902, Vickers becomes the first company in world history to produce an all-steel battleship, fit its armor plates, its engines, its guns, and supply it with projectiles from within just one company. And they achieved that in 1902.
00:14:05
Speaker
Compare that to the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier just produced at the same shipyard in the past four or five years. That has involved the coordination of a thousand companies to supply and develop it. Now, of course, the technology has moved on. We are looking at more electronics and so forth in terms of how warfare is developed. When we're going back to these castles of steel, these large naval battleships and dreadnoughts, we can produce them all from within one steel company.
00:14:30
Speaker
Vickers continues to expand their empire after 1897. They gain a 40% holding in a gunpowder company called the Chillworth Gunpowder Company so they can start to fill their projectiles and shells once they've been produced. They took over the
Global Influence and Strategic Collaborations
00:14:46
Speaker
Walsley-Tulin Motorcar Company in 1901, predominantly to produce armored cars and armored vehicles for land battles. They take over a 50% holding in William
00:14:57
Speaker
Beardmore and Co. of Glasgow. Now Beardmore is starting to emerge as a competitor to Vickers and the other armour plate producers of the time, but I wanted to produce armour plate themselves. And this small group of companies, this small ring of companies as it becomes known, is very keen to make sure that no one else can make armors because they can make lots of profit off of this.
00:15:19
Speaker
A normal basic ton of steel will make you about 10% profit. A ton of something made in armaments will make you 40% to 50% profit. These companies are using their specialty in producing steel to make a lot of profit by producing for the Royal Navy. Beardmore as a competitor might actually mean that they're starting to lose that profitability. So rather than allow a competitor to come onto the scene, Vickers buys a 50% holding in the Beardmore company and gives Lord Beardmore a seat at their board of directors as well.
00:15:49
Speaker
You start to see these crossovers develop more. I've got a few more to talk through as well. Vickers also buys a torpedo company at Weymouth, 25% holding of that in 1906. And they also develop overseas holdings in America, Italy, Japan, Spain, Canada, Russia, and Turkey before 1914. Vickers was very much one of the first multinational companies, what we would now recognize as a multinational company.
00:16:12
Speaker
and becomes the fifth largest company in all of the UK by 1914 as well. Relatively few companies are bigger than them in terms of capitalization. They were also the first company in Sheffield history to make a million pound profit in one year. What?
00:16:27
Speaker
what buying the Naval Construction Company did was it is allowed because to have an outlet for their armor. They could now sell the armor and the battleship as an entire product. It meant that they could actually make more profit. And our two other Sheffield armor manufacturers decided to respond to this. John Browns and Kamal Laird decided to buy shipyards of their own. And I'll come on to that later. I didn't realize, I forgot I put these slides in here.
00:16:51
Speaker
So these are a few slides of naval guns that have been produced by Vickers of the time. This is in the gun shop at the River Doneworks, which is still known as the gun shop. And these battleship guns are made from multiple pieces of steel. You generally have three tubes known as the A-tube, the B-tube, and the C-tube or outer tube. The A-tube is your longest tube, which includes your rifling, and then your smaller tube, the B-tube is put over that, and then your final tube as well.
00:17:20
Speaker
Now initially these are all made of steel and they're fitted together and they are using nickel and chromium in their steels as well. The rifling of the gun barrels is done to a tolerance of one tenth thousandth of an inch. Now this is the early 1900s, this is the Edwardian period and they're having to work to such very, very, very small tolerances and the cutting of the rifling
00:17:43
Speaker
be a very very slow process that took up to a year. If there was a mistake made you had to scrap the gun melt it down and start again. Generally the production time of one of these large naval guns was around two years. One of the ways that these develop later on is by wrapping them in wire to absorb the recoil when they're fired. I'll talk a little bit about that as we move on. These are some of the smaller naval guns made of the time. We also have some pictures
00:18:10
Speaker
of making gun turrets for battleships here at the river Donwerks and as you can see these are made of very large pieces of steel often very difficult to assemble even harder to transport to the coast because of their size and often especially with armor plate you don't really know if the armor plate fits together until you've got it to a shipyard and you haven't to weld it all together.
00:18:28
Speaker
My next slide shows some of the smaller guns that Vickers used and produced, and some of the field guns they produced as well. Vickers was very much developing themselves as a naval and an army producer as well. And this was their gun shop laid out for a royal visit in 1905, Prince and Princess Arisugawa of Japan. Sheffield's by the early 1900s was starting to produce for many countries around the world, and I'll come on to this later as well.
00:18:57
Speaker
That reputation for producing for the Royal Navy is very important. It actually means that you have essentially a gold star for your quality and companies over time fell foul of the Royal Navy were taking off Royal Navy procurement lists.
00:19:12
Speaker
that overseas companies decided not to buy from them until they were put back on those naval lists. This was really a marketing tool for these companies to say that we are producing for the Royal Navy. This was incredibly important for them. So I did move on to this prematurely a second ago. So in response to Vickers developing their empire the way they did, John Browns and Camel Laird realized that they needed to connect to shipyards and gain those outlets as well.
00:19:37
Speaker
So in 1899, John Browns buys the Clyde Bank Engineering and Shipbuilding Works, so they also have that connection to a shipyard for their steel outputs and for their armor outputs as well. And they took over a seven-eighths control of their next-door neighbors Thomas Firth and Sons in 1903.
00:19:55
Speaker
This was a share exchange. So Thomas Firth's shares went to John Brown in return. John Brown gave Thomas Firth some shares as well. It creates this sort of loose amalgamation between the two companies. In 1930, the two companies ultimately merged and become another famous Sheffield name of Firth Brown.
00:20:11
Speaker
So with John Brown, they're connecting to Thomas Firth, which by this point was starting to develop more projectiles as well. And Charles Camels buys the Laird Brothers shipyard in 1903 to form Camel Laird. That shipyard is still in production and it's Birkenhead where all of the Charles Camels records are now kept as well.
00:20:30
Speaker
To develop their gun making capacity as well, these companies connected with another shipyard called Fairfields to develop what was known as the Coventry Ordnance Works from 1905. Coventry Ordnance Works later became part of English Electric and was converted to production of electrical motors after the First World War. What these companies together as a network of companies are doing is very much try to replicate what Vickers were doing within one company.
00:20:57
Speaker
But the development of this in a rather haphazard way meant that for any of these companies to produce a finished battleship, it meant a lot of moving stuff around. So I talked earlier about companies producing gun forges. Well, those unfinished gun forges would then be taken to commentary to be turned into naval guns.
00:21:15
Speaker
If you had any armor that you were making, it then had to go to either Birkenhead or Clydebank to be fitted to a ship. The guns would actually have to go to Glasgow because Comme d'Iron's works had a gun-fitting factory on the Clyde, so any ships made by camels had to then sail to Glasgow to be fitted with their guns. Very complicated supply chain, very much shows the complexity of this sort of haphazard development of these companies.
00:21:39
Speaker
which really starts, as I've shown earlier, from 1860 with that initial use of steel, at least in a large scale, for armaments. Let me show you a few images that I found in the camel-led records of the Cyclops works. These images are from around about 1900, and this shows the Cyclops steel and iron works where Charles Camels were making their armored plates.
00:22:00
Speaker
Now, by 1896, a new method of producing armour had been developed known as the Krupp cemented armour production made by Krupp's of German. And you might be asking, well, why is Britain using a German design of armour plates? Well, it's because it was the best in production at the time.
00:22:20
Speaker
And CRUPS very readily licensed their means of production to this small network of Sheffield companies. And the way that production of a CRUPS cemented piece of armour works is that you produce a slab of steel, which is roughly 2% nickel and 2% chromium. And once it is produced in a furnace and produced as a slab, you then put it into what is known as a CRUPS furnace. You lay your piece of armour down and you cover the surface with charcoal.
00:22:47
Speaker
and then you place another armour plate face down on top of the charcoal and then you heat it for around about two weeks and the heating of the armour plate and the charcoal means that the face of the armour starts to be impregnated with that carbon and it starts to make it much stronger and it starts to change the structure of the armour as well to a more crystalline format which actually resists armour piercing projectiles much more
00:23:13
Speaker
We have this sort of one-upmanship battle between companies in Sheffield. Somebody makes a piece of armour, another company makes an armour-piercing projectile to go through it, then someone else makes a better piece of armour that resists that projectile, then someone makes a better projectile. We're getting this back and forth, and the technology of armour starts to spread around the world, partly from crups of Germany, their invention of this crup-cemented armour.
00:23:33
Speaker
and also a gentleman called Augustus Heywood Harvey from the United States. Now I'll show you on my next slide. So once we've got our armor plate that's been impregnated with carbon, we've put it into what is known as a Harvey furnace, which is exactly like this.
00:23:49
Speaker
Now, what you do with your armour plate, once it comes out of your furnace very hot and full of carbon, you put it into one of these furnaces which sprays the face of it with water or oil to produce that final hardening on these armour plates. And this method produced by Harvey of the United States is invented almost exactly the same time as a researcher at John Brown's known as Tommy John Tressida.
00:24:12
Speaker
And they both invent this process of water hardening the face of the armour at the same time. So they are sharing those patented ideas. There's also a sharing of these ideas from Germany. And you get this sort of rough network of armour companies from across the world.
00:24:28
Speaker
that are sharing and using the CRUP methods of producing this cemented armor and the Harvey methods of hardening. And they have a loose connection in terms of royalties, and they're making very small royalties within that network, but it's really just maintaining the technology within those companies. Those licensing agreements also have what's known as a reciprocal arrangement, which meant that if Vickers or Camels or John Brown has made any improvements in this armor, they had to freely give that method back to CRUPs of Germany.
00:24:57
Speaker
Once your armour plate here is hardened, you then have to take it and bend it to the shape of your battleship. And to do that, you do it in one of these very large armour bending presses. Now, this again is an image from Carmel Led. This is from around about 1910, this image.
00:25:14
Speaker
And you'll see that you heat your piece of armor to a incredible heat that it is slightly malleable. And then you use this very large press, which is producing 12,000 tons of pressure to bend the armor plate to the shape of your battleship. Let's give you a contemporary comparison here. This is producing 12,000 tons of pressure. A fully loaded jumbo jet weighs 450 tons.
00:25:35
Speaker
So you can see the massive machinery that has been produced at the turn of the century into the Edwardian period. Now one of the problems that these companies had was that this means of production, these very large pieces of equipment for producing armour this way, didn't really have any other use. It was either used for armour or it wasn't used at all. This became a bit of a problem for many of these companies in the 1920s once armour and battleships weren't being produced.
00:25:59
Speaker
So that is Krupp cemented armour, licensed from Krupp's of Germany. You've got that process there. You make the nickel chromium piece of armour, you harden it using charcoal, cool it and harden it using the water or oil drenching method and then you bend it to shape here. So this starts us to have the armour plate as sort of having the one upmanship over armour piercing projectiles. And this is where this gentleman comes in. So Robert Abbott Hadfield,
00:26:26
Speaker
Arguably, probably the biggest genius in Sheffield's metallurgical history. In 1882, he invents what's known as manganese steel, which is a very hard-wearing steel used for things like ore and rock crushing machinery, tramway wheels, tramway rails as well.
00:26:41
Speaker
very much the first alloy steel which goes into production and really starts Sheffield on that path towards alloys and specialist steels all the way through to the First World War and things like the invention of stainless steel as well. So he invents
Advancements in Alloy and Projectile Technology
00:26:52
Speaker
this in 1882. He takes over the family company after his father dies in 1888
00:26:57
Speaker
at the age of just 30, and remains chairman of the company for 52 years until his death in 1940. He's a bit of a genius, but he's a very complicated figure as well. And during most of the 1920s, he sees it as being completely fine to run the company via telegram from the south of France. He's kind of a complex character in many ways. I talked to another historian about him recently who said that he needed to employ a psychologist to help him understand Hadfield.
00:27:22
Speaker
But manganese steel as a very hard wearing steel meant that you could, because it's produced in a crucible, you can cast it in ways that you couldn't really do with other types of armor. So you recall those gun turrets from Vickers and those armor plates, they're very solid slabs. What Hadfield realizes is that you can use his manganese steel to cast pieces of armor in much more complicated shapes.
00:27:43
Speaker
And he brands his manganese steel as era steel and produces these covers for guns for battleships as well. And what I always like about the images from Hadfields is that they always have some random workman in a flat cap at the side, just to give you a sense of the scale of these things.
00:28:00
Speaker
So Hadfield is making these covers for guns, but Hadfield is also putting his metallurgical knowledge towards how you defeat crop cemented armor. And what Hadfield realizes is that you can use that nickel chromium steel, the same steel that you use for armor plating, 2% nickel, 2% chromium within your steel melt, because it means that you can harden that. But having a traditional pointed armor piercing projectile doesn't really work when it comes to crop cemented armor. It will just break up or ricochet off the face of that.
00:28:29
Speaker
Now, one of the things that Hadfield starts to realize is that to defeat crop cemented armor, you need to place what he describes as Hadfield's special cap for armor piercing shell. And you place this on the top of your armor piercing projectile. Now, in my far left hand image here, I don't know if you can see my cursor on your screen, there is a slight dotted line which shows where the point of the projectile would go to. And the way this works is that you put this much softer steel cap over the top of your point of your projectile.
00:28:59
Speaker
And what this did is it absorbed that initial impact against the armor plates and essentially fold away around the projectile to allow the point of the projectile to pass through the armor plates. You can see in the other two images, the same cap on our far left hand image, which has essentially had the rest of the armor piecing projectile pushed through it and it sort of softens and blends away out of the way of that projectile, allowing it to go through that armor plates.
00:29:27
Speaker
Now if I move on to my next slide I'll show you how these are tested. Now the way that projectiles will be tested is that one is picked at random out of a batch of a thousand which is supplied to the Royal Navy and they fire it without any explosive charge at a piece of armour which is equal in thickness to the calibre of this projectile.
00:29:47
Speaker
So this projectile is a 12-inch caliber, so a foot across the diameter of the projectile. It is fired against a 12-inch thick armor plate. Think about that. A piece of solid steel that is a foot deep. And it is fired against that. And here you can see in this image, you've got three sheets of oak. And the projectile has to be fired against it at a right angle.
00:30:08
Speaker
pass through plates and be able to be collected in order for it to have been burst if you had an explosive charge in there. So the image at the bottom on our far left is the shell before firing. You can see that cap on the top of there. The far right, you see it after firing. It's got all the scuff marks on it. The projectile cap has disappeared. And this is what they want from an arm piercing projectile for it to pass through this crop armor unheeded. Now you might notice a problem here.
00:30:34
Speaker
which is that this is tested at a right angle at 90 degrees to the armor plate. As we probably all know, battles and naval battles in particular do not proceed at right angles. These projectiles had big issues when it came to such as the Battle of Jutland in 1915. Now, these companies knew that the projectiles had issues when it came to what they describe as oblique attack at sort of 10 to 20 degrees off the normal and developed caps to do that before the First World War.
00:31:03
Speaker
and the Navy realised that it cost them money so they didn't want them. What I've had these projectiles described as before is dynamic cutlery. You're firing a piece of steel at a piece of steel in order to produce a hole in it. You'd expect that this production of these projectiles will give, at least the Royal Navy and at least our Sheffield companies, the upper hand against that crop cemented armour I described earlier.
00:31:27
Speaker
Now, this is where history gets very interesting. Hadfield's invents and patents this type of armor-piercing projectile in 1904, and one of their first licensees is Krupp's of Germany. This means of defeating Krupp armor is licensed back to the company that makes the armor plate. Now, we of course view this with historical hindsight. We can see that just 10 years later would be the First World War.
00:31:51
Speaker
the contemporaries at the time didn't know that and what they're really seeing here is an exchange of metallurgical ideas, not an exchange of armaments or a means of fighting wars. So Hadfield's invents this in 1904 and we can see here
00:32:06
Speaker
Huge amounts of these been produced at Hadfield's East Hecklerworks. This is 10 and 12 inch caliber projectiles lined up. For the Navy, they are painted green, for the American Navy, they're painted white. So we have some produced for the American Navy in this image here as well. This comes from a great book that's at Sheffield's local studies library called Hadfield's. The Hadfield system has applied to war materials, essentially a catalog for anybody who wants to buy some weapons from Hadfield's. It's essentially a brochure of projectiles they can produce for you. It's a wonderful little booklet.
00:32:35
Speaker
So you can see huge amounts of these lined up here. And these are produced at this little factory in our top left here. This is the Heckler Works on Newhall Road. That is arguably making some of the most advanced methodological products in the entire world at the time.
00:32:51
Speaker
Armaments was really at the vanguard of metallurgical knowledge and production. It was great for these Sheffield companies because you're starting to see that scientifically of steel production. You're starting to see that use of things like I've said, nickel, chromium, manganese, more exotic metals as well. Things like tungsten and molybdenum are starting to be used as well. And the Royal Navy has given them an outlet for that. They are able to produce these very special steels towards that end product, either armor or projectiles.
00:33:16
Speaker
Now, those early calibers of armor-piercing projectiles, I've showed you that demonstration there of a 12-inch caliber projectile. And Hadfield's also produced 6-inch caliber projectiles at the time. They go all the way up to 18-inch caliber projectiles, which you'll see in this bottom image here. This is the Hadfield's directors and the range of armor-piercing projectiles that they were producing by 1919. The projectile here, labeled B, is an 18-inch armor-piercing projectile, which I believe is the one that is currently in Callum Island, right around the corner from the River Don engine.
00:33:46
Speaker
And if you take a look at it, it is about two tons of solid steel. The explosive cavity inside them is only about 4% of the weight for that explosive charge. It is a fantastically interesting and advanced piece of metallurgy of the time. I mentioned Thomas Firth's earlier and Firth's also gets into projectile manufacture.
00:34:05
Speaker
from the 1890s into the early 1900s as well. Under the guidance of this man, Bernard Firth, he was the third son of Thomas Firth and becomes the third generation of the Firth family to be chairman of that company. And what Bernard Firth really did was move Firth away from those steel guns that I showed you earlier, things like the Woolwich infant, towards making a broader range of armaments. And Firth has a much longer history when it comes to armaments, and they were quite pleased to show it all off as well.
00:34:32
Speaker
They had an office at their Norfolk Works, and this image from around about 19... I can't see what it says on my slide because there's something covering it. There we go, 1908. It shows you all of the things that they're producing from steel. Down in the bottom left-hand corner, you'll see it says Crimean War had... Sorry, Firth were producing these cannonballs, and it slowly over time has emerged into these pointed projectiles as well.
00:34:54
Speaker
You can see a torpedo air vessel at the top there, that very large tube. That is the tube through which a torpedo would be fired from a ship or a submarine. And you also have an example of a gun right in the middle there as well. And what Firths invent roughly at the same time as Hadfield's producing their armor-piercing projectiles? Hadfield's armor-piercing projectiles are known as Heclon armor-piercing projectiles. And Firths produce what I have in this image here, the rendable armor-piercing projectile.
00:35:23
Speaker
The top image you see here is very similar design to the Hadfields one I've showed you a moment ago, but you see that they have a much flatter cap than the Hadfields version.
Economic Impact and International Relations
00:35:32
Speaker
Very much does the same job and the image that you see in the bottom right is a huge amount of shells waiting to be heat treated in the yard at Thomas Firth's West Gunworks. That is now the car park
00:35:45
Speaker
of gripple if you've ever been to that area of Sheffield. And I can show you inside what is now gripple. This is Firth's shell machining shop from around about 1906. And once you've cast your projectile, you need to machine it to the right dimensions. And that's what we're seeing here. A huge room full of lathes with all of these cables running.
00:36:03
Speaker
And again, a wonderful image without any help and safe. All of these men who are highly skilled, the sort of highest skilled workers in the entire steelworks would be the metallurgists and the steelworkers making these very specialist steels and all of the engineers producing the shells to the finished dimensions as well.
00:36:20
Speaker
And we can see the relative value of these workers in terms of the wage bill. And at Thomas Firth's, it was their gun department. And this, what I have here is from Thomas Firth archive. There's currently a Sheffield archives, very wonderful set of records, runs to about 300 boxes from 1881 all the way to the 1980s as well.
00:36:39
Speaker
What we see here is the wage bill for Thomas 1st, for 1908 and 1909. Just going to highlight right in the middle there, the gun department's wage bill. So that one department absorbed 25% of the wages for the entire company. The one department knows the gun department, the gun works, but that gun works produce 40% of the total output for the company and was very much the root of the company's profits.
00:37:04
Speaker
You look into the accounting records and the profitability records of all of these companies. John Brown, Camels, Vickers, Hadfield, Firths. And you can see when they have a good year for armaments, they're making big profits. When they have a bad year for armaments, they're making lower profits. In the 1920s, when they're not making any armaments, they all start making losses.
00:37:25
Speaker
These companies, which are steel and armaments companies, are very much geared towards that one product has been the key to their prosperity. Because I would more commonly describe as an armaments company with an interest in steel, the other four companies are more steel companies with that interest in armaments. But they are very much relying on these highly specialized pieces of equipment.
00:37:46
Speaker
You start to get exclusive arrangements between companies like Hadfields at least and the Royal Navy for shell production from 1905 through to the First World War, where the Navy is guaranteeing Hadfields 50% of all orders. But in a slack year, 50% of no orders is still no orders. So these companies start to have these exclusive arrangements with the supply ministries like the Admiralty and the Royal Navy, but it doesn't always mean that they guaranteed those orders.
00:38:13
Speaker
And let me show you a couple more images of gun forgings. I'm going to do it for time actually. Okay. Show you a couple of images of gun forging, then we'll move towards wrapping things up. So I talked about gun forgings. That's what's in our top left hand image here. These are unfinished naval guns and these will be sent from camels to the Comtree Ordnance Works for that machining.
00:38:32
Speaker
And what you want is the what we have in the bottom right hand image here, the finished naval gun and Vickers works from 1912. You'll notice these guns are slightly larger, slightly more complex than the ones that I showed you earlier from 1905. Now the gun technology moved on.
00:38:49
Speaker
And during the sort of 19, oh wait, 1910 period, we developed what was known as the wire gun. So you still have the tubes that have been machined and had the rifling fitted and all of that that takes around about a year. But then these guns would slowly be wrapped in quarter inch thick steel wire, up to 100 miles of it, to build up this sort of recoil.
00:39:10
Speaker
ability in those guns so that when they're fired they're not cracking all of that is dispersing into that wire and then you fit the finished sheath around it so once the gun is finished you don't actually see that wire yeah as you can see in this image you've seen the different layers of that gun been producing you can see the rifling down the middle as well
00:39:28
Speaker
I've talked a lot here about how these companies were producing for the Royal Navy. And what it didn't always mean was that they were guaranteed orders. So what these companies did, especially from 1900, was develop an international consumer base for what they produced. And let me just show you this. These are all nations and armed forces that bought weapons or armors from Sheffield between 1900 and 1914. The Japanese Navy,
00:39:55
Speaker
the American Army and Navy, the Brazilian, Argentine, Italian, Turkish, French navies, Dutch governments, the Greek Navy, the Spanish Navy, the Danish, Russian, and Canadian governments, the Chilean Navy, the Peruvian Navy, and the Portuguese Navy. Basically, most of the world's foremost navies of the period. And these, which I will highlight in bold, the Japanese Navy, the American Navy, Italian and Turkish navies, Greek Navy, Spanish Navy, and Portuguese Navy, all ordered armaments from Sheffield in 1914.
00:40:25
Speaker
Hadfield was a major producer of Japanese armor-piercing projectiles and before the First World War had a class of Japanese naval engineers in Sheffield teaching them how to make those projectiles. First similarly had a connection with the Italian Navy for producing projectiles as well.
00:40:41
Speaker
I can dig into this a little bit more on my next slide, looking at Hadfields as well, a little bit more detailed. The bottom image here is from Hadfield's projectile order books. We have the order books available from 1900 to 1945 complete. It's a very fantastic record. Runs to several thousand pages across several volumes. Foreign orders were important. As I said, if naval orders started to decline, you could use foreign orders to keep your works in production.
00:41:06
Speaker
And these foreign orders would often be more lucrative than British army orders. But this time we had a very small professional army and the Royal arsenal at Woolwich was very likely to produce everything that the army required. As I've already mentioned here, first extensively produced for the Italian government and Hadfield's had orders for the Imperial Japanese Navy for 450,000 pounds of the projectiles between 1909 and 1914. Contemporary figures that would be around about 45 million pounds worth of orders.
00:41:34
Speaker
In the same period, Hadfields only produced about £100,000 worth of projectiles for the British army. And right at the bottom here, I can just highlight here the Ottoman government. This is an order from the 2nd of April, 1914. And this was an order to Hadfields and the Ottoman government was very likely to be a new customer of Hadrails before the First World War broke out. These projectiles were ordered ultimately directed to the Royal Navy instead.
00:42:01
Speaker
And these were going to go on to a ship known as the Red Shard there, which was produced at Vickers Works at Barrow. And a figure lost to history known as Winston Churchill, riders the First World War was breaking out, decided that they couldn't let this battleship go to the Turkish government in case it was used against the British
00:42:22
Speaker
Navy, the Royal Navy during the First World War, so seized that ship and seized another ship known as the Sultan Osman, which was being produced at Newcastle, at Armstrong Whitworth's works. So these two battleships that were produced for the Turkish Navy, the Ottoman government, were seized and very much promoted the Ottoman entry into the Great War on the same side as the Germans and Austrians.
00:42:44
Speaker
So you might say, well, where does the official secrets fit into all of this? Where does using this technology outside of the government, actually outside of the Britain, should I say, actually start to matter? And for this, I look to this gentleman, Thomas McNamara, who was parliamentary and financial secretary of the Admiralty. And he said in 1914, this was in the House of Commons.
00:43:05
Speaker
He said, the government does not interfere with the construction of armaments of contractors designed for foreign powers and cannot any more than any other government necessarily monopolize all inventions and improvements, many of which from their nature could either not be kept confidential at all or only for a very limited period. What is McNamara saying here? Well, he's very much saying, we're keeping our hands off. We don't have to give these companies orders.
00:43:29
Speaker
if foreign governments are giving them orders to keep those skilled staff in production, keep those skilled staff employed. In other words, we're letting them get on with it. This is a very unique point in history where private industry is driving forward the technology of the Royal Navy rather than it being derived from government facilities or government-sponsored facilities.
00:43:48
Speaker
And of course we've already seen that crossover with Krupps of Germany. We have the armour play from Krupps, we've licensed those projectiles back to Krupps. And I want to finish with just one short story all about Krupps and this gentleman in the top right here, Gustav Krupp.
00:44:03
Speaker
Gustav was not a member of the Krupp family. Bertha Krupp, in our image here, Bertha Krupp, whose name was given to the German gun, the Big Bertha in the First World War. In the early 1900s, in 1902, Bertha, as a teenager, inherited the Krupp Empire from her father, Friedrich Krupp, who had committed suicide after a scandal in the German newspapers about his sexuality based on the testimony of a single male hairdresser.
00:44:32
Speaker
So Bertha inherited the Krupp Empire and it was seen undesirable that not only a teenager but a female teenager was in control of what was at the time the largest German armaments manufacturer. This was seen as being very undesirable. So because of the Krupp network's close links to the Kaiser,
00:44:51
Speaker
they decided to find somebody in a sort of arranged marriage to marry Bertha and they found Gustav von Bohenund Halbach, a foreign secretary of the German government, this gentleman in the top right hand picture. At their marriage, the German Kaiser was present and the German Kaiser said that Gustav would thereafter be known as Gustav Krupp von Bohenund Halbach
00:45:12
Speaker
rather than having somebody not named Krupp at the head of the government. Gustav here survived into the Second World War and after the bombing of the Krupp factory at Essen in the Second World War, he had a stroke from which he didn't recover. He was due to be tried at the Nuremberg trials but didn't because of ill health. So we have
00:45:31
Speaker
Krupp here, Gustav, heading up the Krupp Empire in Essen. Very much the same size as all of our Sheffield companies combined, but within one company and one factory network. And because we've had this exchange of technology between Sheffield and Germany, many of our Sheffield companies had visited Essen. They'd taken a look around the Krupp's works.
00:45:50
Speaker
Hadfield went to Germany in 1912 and described himself in the Times as a Germanophile. He said that the technological links between the two countries were extremely important.
Pre-WWI Industrial Ties and Optimism
00:46:01
Speaker
Now in 1914, Gustav is looking to tour Britain. And this letter dated the 1st of May, 1914 starts to arrive at the head offices of many of our Sheffield companies. In fact, all of our Sheffield companies. I found this letter in the Camel Laird records.
00:46:18
Speaker
And this is Krupp's first overseas visitors, head of Krupp's. And all of our Sheffield companies said, yes, do come along. I think if I move along, yes. The letter says here that the head of our firm intends to stay in England during the week. The dates later changed. And it says, on this occasion, he wishes to pay his respects to leading gentlemen of the firms that are our friends. Very interesting phrase. Now,
00:46:41
Speaker
This letter was received on the 1st of May, 1914. The Admiralty gets wind of this and this letter is, as I said, in the Camel Laird records. They sent a letter to William Lionel Hitchens, who was the chairman of camels on the 29th of May. And I'm going to show you a couple of extracts from this.
00:46:57
Speaker
The Navy are very scared of the Germans actually seeing anything that they don't want them to see. And it says here, they trust that every precaution will be taken to ensure that the visitors see nothing of a confidential character. They appears to be a reason that to believe that the features which would interest them most will be the construction of wire guns. Those I showed you earlier in the Vickers works. Now, a couple of things to note here. This is a standard letter.
00:47:22
Speaker
And up near the top, the 1, 2, 3, 4th line down, you'll see it says, Mr's Camel Laird & Co. in a different font to the rest of this letter. Camels did not make wire guns. This was a standard letter sent to all of these companies in a bit of a panic, really. It says, the Amortiche would be obliged therefore if special steps were taken to prevent the visitors seeing anything but finished wire guns, et cetera.
00:47:43
Speaker
The last paragraph at the same time is hope that the directors will take advantage of this visit to obtain from Mr. Scrupp an invitation to visit their works and the Admiralty will be glad to report of any such visits could be communicated to them confidentially. In other words, don't show them anything.
00:47:59
Speaker
But if you go to Germany and you see something confidential, don't forget to let us know as well. So Krupp eventually visits Britain and he arrives on the 16th of June. He hosts a party at the Ritz in London. He then travels to Birkenhead to view the shipyards up to Barrow.
00:48:16
Speaker
up to Glasgow, then to Newcastle, and then ultimately to Sheffield. They arrive on the evening of the 18th of June and they stay with Robert Hadfield at his house here on the bottom left-hand side, Parkhead House, also known as Parkhead Hall. Over the years, after Hadfield passed away, was converted into a nursing home, was later converted back into a house and is now up for sale. I believe the asking price, although not public, is around about the £5-6 million mark.
00:48:43
Speaker
On that first night that Hadfield hosted Krupp, the 18th of June, 1914, they also have in their company, William Lionel Hitchings, the chairman of Camel Laird. They have the vice chancellor and chancellor of the University of Sheffield. They have the master cutler, the great and the good of Sheffield industry, all visiting to see Krupp. On the 19th, on the next day, Krupp goes on a tour of the Sheffield Steelworks. I have a little extract here from the times from the next day, which I'll talk through in a second.
00:49:11
Speaker
Trump visits Hatfields and Vickers and Camel Laird. He has luncheon at John Brown's. He visits Thomas Firth's. He goes to see all of these. And of course, these companies have been to Germany themselves. So this isn't really anything unusual. Let me highlight a couple of points in our little extracts here.
00:49:28
Speaker
Robert Hadfield, who is very much an aggrandiser, Hadfield is the kind of guy who loves his own voice. He makes these very long speeches at the annual and general meetings. He likes a public occasion. And he says in his speech once Crop arrives at the East Hecla Works modern day Meadow Hall, Hadfield says to the press, he had never seen why the two great nations of England and Germany need to be enemies. They were not merely destined to be acquaintances, but surely to be friends in the best sense of the term. Later on.
00:49:53
Speaker
Gustave replies, he says, for a number of years, friend relations had existed between the German firms and the British firms. If it were possible for the two countries to have friendly commercial relations, he did not see why the political relations found so largely on commercial interests should not also be friendly. Hadfield in 1918, Hadfield, of course, very much an aggrandiser, as I've already said, recounted this visit in the local press. And Hadfield claims that these technical words could come up to him and said this.
00:50:22
Speaker
I hope you do not think I have come here to spy. Now, we know that spying wasn't necessary, of course. These companies have been sharing technology for years and this was essentially a friendly connection between these companies. The next day, the 20th of June, when this little report appears in the Times, Gustav leaves Sheffield via what's now Sheffield station, Midland station.
00:50:44
Speaker
Eight days later, Arshu Franz Ferdinand is shot, leading to his death and the ultimate unraveling of Europe towards the Great War. And Krupp was in Sheffield just nine days before that assassination. I'm going to
Conclusion and Future Episodes
00:50:58
Speaker
bring our story to a conclusion there in June 1914. And let me bring all of this together as Sheffield as the arsenal of the world. You can see this little image on the right here.
00:51:07
Speaker
This was a booklet produced by the council during the First World War to emphasize Sheffield as the arsenal of the world. To me, Sheffield is the most important centre for armaments technology and productively in 1914. You can see that from the emphasis the Royal Navy is placing on this place and also from that range of customers they have across the world. But in many ways, these companies were completely unprepared for the demands of war once that broke out in August 1914. Thank you everybody for listening.
00:51:41
Speaker
Thank you for listening to Archeology Now. For more information about our podcast, guest speaker, please visit our page on the Archeology Podcast Network. You can get in touch with us at Archeology in the City on Facebook, WordPress, Instagram, or Twitter. If you have any questions or comments, we'd love to hear from you. Next month, our talk will be Maureen Carrol from the University of York, speaking on making wine for the emperor on the Roman imperial state of Agnari, Italy. See you next time!
00:52:14
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his RV Traveling America, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, in the Archaeology Podcast Network. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chrisatarchaeologypodcastnetwork.com.