English Steel Corporation Ltd., Foreman's Club

[Ponytail]

English Steel Corporation Ltd., Foreman's Club. 

Note the Club:  "Shall be limited to male employees of the firm." 

I don't suppose there was any women "foremen" at that time, but would be interested to know who the first woman was and did they admit her to the Club?

On the badge what did "R.D.A.W." stand for? The logo I thought was for British Steel but the badge may have been from a later date. 

While dad was a member they went on at least 2 trips to Germany visiting the Steelworks at Bochum. One trip, all of the men were presented with either a "Gentleman's" or a "Ladies" Knife which dad thought a penknife was rather an odd gift to be presented with when Sheffield was renowned for making them. 

May 1963; as well as visiting the Steelworks, on the way home they must have stopped at Zevenaar, Holland as dad brought back an ornament of a pair of wooden clogs (mum wrote the date on the bottom). Not sure if it was the same trip but they also visited Delft Pottery and  Keukenoff Gardens. 

Wives accompanied them on a trip to London, where they attended a recording of TV programme Opportunity Knocks presented by Hughie Green and also witnessed the rehearsal of Trooping the Colour. 

It seems they also had Foreman's Club Dinners as this photograph from Picture Sheffield shows. 

t09170

English Steel Corporation Foreman's Club Dinner, November 1959

Back row (l to r.) A. Marples, F. Habershon, D. Fieldsend ?, J. Fallon, G. Hoyland, W. Barlow and G. Wood.

Front row (l to r.) W. Dimberline, A. Littlewood and A. Bilson

Photographer David R. Marshall. 

 

Thought it would be interesting to show a works Identity Card from this period. 

 

[Lysanderix]

My Dad was a member as well!! Seem to remember him visiting the Vickers aircraft factory at Weybridge…where they were shown around the prototype Vickers Vanguatd airliner….. Cammel  Lairds shipyard at. Birkenhead as well as attending a weekend somewhere in Derbyshire on some sort of management course.

I have no idea what the initials stand for but the emblem is for the nationalised British Steel Corporation…of which ESC was a member…..By this time Dad had lost his grey foreman’s smock and was by then firmly desk bound at the new Tinsley Park (Ponderosa) works…….where he was a member of a team designing the then revolutionary single leaf taper spring….which was used on the Ford Transit van.

[Ponytail]

Thanks for the prompt about the Derbyshire course. I have a strong feeling it was Hope. Dad had his false teeth damaged while playing hockey for ESC and mum took me on the bus to Hope along with his replacement teeth as dad was away for a few days something to do with work.

Just remember thinking what a lovely name for a place and mum handing over the teeth in a handkerchief to a toothless smiling dad, who promptly put them in and waved us off. 

Strange what memories from childhood stay with you. 

[Lysanderix]

That’s right….I think the course was held in a house called “Birchover.” 

I recall when Dad became a foreman ,his Union ( AEU) made him resign and  he joined the ESC Foreman’s Mutual Benefit Society. When BSC was instituted  staff were encouraged to become unionised. Dad joined the ASTMS and told the AEU where to go  when they came recruiting!

On reflection, I think the initials stand for…River Don and Associated Works!

[Ponytail]

River Don and Associated Works makes sense.

Birchover? not sure where the house was but remember walking down a long (it seemed at the time) country lane to a big house. 

Dad was a member of the AEU and I think used to pay subs at the Wharncliffe Hotel on Bevercotes Road. This is the only reason I can think he called in there, Dad not being a beer drinker or frequenter of pubs (except ESC Sports Club) 

If I recall correctly there was strike action and as a Foreman would have been an embarrassment if he'd gone on strike. He also joined a "Foreman's Union."

He was eventually South Machine Shops Union Rep, attending meetings at the Mount. He represented the Foreman's Union for River Don Works in discussions with Lord Melchett ("Julian" as dad jokingly referred to him), chairman of BSC. 

The meetings caused dad much distress, he knew many redundancies were coming and he'd signed some months earlier mortgage letters for men saying there was plenty of work. 

Both dad and Lord Melchett had a heart attack. Dad in April 1973 and while still in hospital (another heart attack in hospital, taking 8 weeks before discharge) heard "Julian" had died of one in June. To which he quipped with a smile, "Aye, he had a heart attack and died, I had one and survived." 

Dad wasn't able to continue in the South Machine Shop and a lighter job was found for him in the Estimating Office until taking early retirement when the breakup of BSC and redundancies under MacGregor came about. 

 

[Lysanderix]

 I visited Birchover some years ago when my son was on a post graduate course…and it was down a long country Lane

Mc Gregor and Melchett were two opposites….to say the least! My Dad also took early retirement ,but refused to be on strike on his last few weeks at ESC/BSC and therefore broke the picket line by finding a hole in the fence at Tinsley Park. 
  
The Mount was the HQ for one of BSCs many product divisions and the foreman’s union was the Mutual Benefit Society I mentioned.

[Ponytail]

Thanks Lysanderix, as a child you pick up bits of conversation adults think you haven't heard and have memories you think aren't related, then as you get older start to piece things together, but there are always holes in the story, it is good there is someone able to help link things together. 

It's only as I got older I knew where The Mount was, but I didn't know what the Foreman's Union was called.

Of course like many others Lord Melchett and Ian MacGregor affected my adult life directly while they were Chairmen of BSC. 

I never knew whether this was true or the figment of someone's imagination to make light of a serious situation:

There was a mass demonstration on Brightside Lane filling the road at the time of redundancies and one individual had made a placard which read:

"White man takes our Buffalo"

In worrying times when the tale was recounted to me it was just the sort of ridiculous thing that makes you laugh instead of crying. 

 

Obituary of Julian Mond, Lord Melchett, Chairman of British Steel Corporation. Including an insight of his time as Chairman from an American perspective. 

https://www.nytimes.com/1973/06/16/archives/lord-melchettsteel-leader-48-conservative-named-head-of-industry-by.html

 

[Lysanderix]

Mc Gregor was a Canadian and brought in by Mrs Thatcher to make BSC profitable. As some wit commented …”he could close it all down, open a sandwich shop in Stocksbridge….which made a profit of 50 p a week …..and he would have succeeded.”
 

He claimed his door was always open to his customers. At the time, I was a small customer but, nonetheless, a customer. I tried phoning him….but never got past the threshold!

”White man takes our Buffalo “shows  a strong sense of our colonial history and its affect on the First Nations!

[Ponytail]

Visit by Lord Melchett to River Don Works, this may or may not have been the occasion I mentioned. 

https://www.picturesheffield.com/frontend.php?keywords=Ref_No_increment;EQUALS;s40808&pos=25&action=zoom&id=79886

 

[Lysanderix]

The strike was called by the Unions for BSC workers but it inevitably was spread by pickets demonstrating outside Sheffields substantial numbers of privately owned steel companies…notably, Dunford Hadfields, Johnson Firth Brown

[Richard Vessey]

Could it have been Brookfield Manor in Hathersage (not far from hope) which apparently has a one mile drive? Bought by Charles Cammell in 1868 and sold to British Steel Corporation in 1948 and used as a training base. In 1980s sold to Corus and later bought by Sir Hugh Sykes as a private home......

[Lysanderix]

Thanks, Richard, indeed it was Brookfield!

[SteveHB]

12 hours ago, Richard Vessey said:

Could it have been Brookfield Manor in Hathersage (not far from hope) which apparently has a one mile drive? Bought by Charles Cammell in 1868 and sold to British Steel Corporation in 1948 and used as a training base. In 1980s sold to Corus and later bought by Sir Hugh Sykes as a private home......

0.9375 miles.

https://www.mappedometer.com/#

[SteveHB]

Gate House in Hathersage

https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@53.3299957,-1.6573356,3a,66.9y,339.1h,87.35t/data

[SteveHB]

15 hours ago, Richard Vessey said:

Could it have been Brookfield Manor in Hathersage (not far from hope) which apparently has a one mile drive? Bought by Charles Cammell in 1868 and sold to British Steel Corporation in 1948 and used as a training base. In 1980s sold to Corus and later bought by Sir Hugh Sykes as a private home......

"Brookfield Manor, Hathersage:
Statement of Significance and Design and Access Statement
Originally a modest farm held under the lords of the manor of Hathersage by the Brookfields, altered by Edmund, next youngest son of Sir Robert Eyre of Padley."

Pdf file, download: https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/16654090

[Lysanderix]

English Steel Corporation was formed following a merger of the steel making and ancillary interests ,in Sheffield and Openshaw, of Charles Cammell Ltd and Vickers Ltd . It was nationalised under a Labour government in 1951 by the Iron and Steel Act of 1949 ….becoming a part of the National( British) Iron and Steel Corporation.
Following the election of a Conservative Government ,ESC was in 1953 denationalised and traded as such until 1967  ,by which time it was employing some 14,000 people……..when it was again nationalised ….becoming a part of the British Steel Corporation…British Steel Corporation itself was denationalised during the 1980s

Parts of ESC still exist ,trading under names such as…Forgemasters ,*but much has gone….including several ,such as River Don Stampings ,who have gone into liquidation.

When  Ponytail’s Dad and mine visited Birchfield I suspect both were foremen at ESC.

* a company of such national importance that it is now 100% owned by the Ministry of Defence.

 

[Ponytail]

On 09/10/2023 at 09:44, SteveHB said:

"Brookfield Manor, Hathersage:
Statement of Significance and Design and Access Statement
Originally a modest farm held under the lords of the manor of Hathersage by the Brookfields, altered by Edmund, next youngest son of Sir Robert Eyre of Padley."

Pdf file, download: https://portal.peakdistrict.gov.uk/system/download/f/16654090

 

Thank you, the description of the mile long private drive certainly sounds like  the one walked down in the late 1950's early 1960's. 

I just remember a long leafy Lane but don't remember how we got there from the bus or if there was a gatehouse but it certainly wasn't a road because we walked down the middle of the Lane. 

Yes Lysanderix, my dad was a Foreman at the time, he may have been newly promoted to the job as the membership card starts at 1959.

[Ponytail]

English Steel Corporation Foreman's Club trip to Bochum. 

"It's guten tag for these members of the foreman's club at English Steel Corporation, Sheffield. They are mixing business with pleasure on a weekend visit to a steelworks at Bochum. Sheffield "twin town" in Germany."

Newspaper Cutting from The Star 22nd May 1965. 

No idea of any names, my dad was eager to get going and must have had his foot on the bottom step of the coach making him look as though he was towering over the others. 

[Lysanderix]

I don’t recognise any of them. By 1965 my Dad was no longer a Foreman ,being desk bound as a buyer based at the new Tinsley Park plant.