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Wire mills in Sheffield during war


Hopskotch

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My great grandfather was recorded as working for a Sheffield wire mill in the 1939 census.

Despite research on Google I’m unable to find any information on  the names of any wire mills in Sheffield around that time.

Any information would be much appreciated.

 

NB My great grandfather lived in Owlerton at the time.

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8 hours ago, Hopskotch said:

My great grandfather was recorded as working for a Sheffield wire mill in the 1939 census.

Despite research on Google I’m unable to find any information on  the names of any wire mills in Sheffield around that time.

Any information would be much appreciated.

 

NB My great grandfather lived in Owlerton at the time.

https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Special:Search?search=Wire+mills+sheffield+&fulltext=
 

try this link.

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Hi Hopskotch. I’m afraid you might be looking for a (wire 😆) needle in a haystack here, as you probably have discovered by now that during this period, Sheffield and in particular the Don Valley had a huge number of steel works & steel mills. We weren’t known as Steel City for nothing!

Working on the premise that wire mills would generally process billets or bars, drawing them into wire rod or coil and maybe not actually producing the steel itself, that might narrow your search a little?

Also, it’s worth noting that in these times of full employment and limited mobility, workers didn’t need to travel far to their workplace and in many cases, the factory would be within a short walking distance. I’ve included a link below to a map of the area in 1935 and some images of sections of this map, showing some wire mills. Using the home address of your GGF from your census, maybe you can search around that immediate area and using the road names of where they are, use these to search for the company names?

https://www.old-maps.co.uk/index.html#/Map/433500/389500/12/100747

Good luck and hope you find this useful?

786C9487-462A-4D0E-8C91-C6EFD3DDB5A4.jpeg

E5FD8059-0AA9-48CA-8026-C92876999ECA.jpeg

5DC0A3F8-2500-4BDD-9B05-93FA04390488.jpeg

4EC4E22A-E9F0-4D78-8B1B-89CC175DC0F6.jpeg

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Steel rod ( around 5.5 mm dia) was the feedstock for most wire drawing. This involved pulling the rod through a series of dies ( latterly made of tungsten carbide)  which reduced the rods diameter . Sometimes an intermediate annealing process was involved to reduce the effects of work hardening This carried on until the required size was produced. Latterly, by far rhe biggest manufacturer of wire in the area ,was Tinsley Wire Industries...who may have been known by another name in 1939.

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