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Air pollution Sheffield-history


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I know this is one of Dunsby's favourites

Hi,

Just a couple of anecdotes:

When the main steelworks shut down on the Saturday morning for their annual summer holidays, it could be the following Thursday before the smoke and haze finally cleared and you could see across the valley: say Burngreave School to Parkhill. In the days when they only had one week's holiday, you might only get a hand full of clear days before everything was fired- back -up again.

We lived in the Wicker area until 1960 and like most other homes, we had lace curtains at the windows. These were (religously) washed every Monday but even then, they only had a life expectancy of 12-15 weeks. They would start to go a creamy colour after 6-8 weeks. They would be yellow at 10 weeks. You could expect total collapse of the fabric after 12 weeks. I'm told that if you lived lower down the Don Valley i.e. Brightside or Attercliffe, the same curtains might only last 6-8 weeks.

Regards

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I know this is one of Dunsby's favourites

Ah yes Steve when I were a lad in Brightside no lullabyes for me - we used to go to sleep with the rhythmic pounding of the hammers in the steel works. I live in the country now - it's too quiet - I can't get to sleep! lol

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I agree Shiregreen did suffer from smog into the early 1960s to my knowledge. I recall my husband walking me home when we were courting and going past the allotments on Windmill Lane c1962/3, we actually bumped into someone as the smog was so dense. You really could not see in front of you. It was awful, quite eerie as you could hear muffled sounds but couldn't see things. Excuse me telling you this but it is true - If you blew your nose it came out sooty so it was obvious what must have settled on our lungs. My husband comes from Grimesthorpe and they all said the only time they saw the sky was when the works closed down for the two weeks holidays, 'Wakes weeks'.

Lyn

Hi Lyn - just like this ! lol

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There are some interesting comments about pollution in the City on the other site, Sheffield Forum in a topic called

Can you remember how mucky Sheffield was before the clean air act?

The comments contain eyewitness anecdotes of the air pollution problems similar to the ones expressed here.

Air Pollution on Sheffield Forum

Hope this helps.

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One here on picturesheffield showing the

Yorkshire Electricity Promotional Bus, Smoke Abatement Exhibition. link

Notice that its a 1950's picture.

It was about this time that the problems associated with smoke and smog from burning coal, and in particular its affects on health, were becoming known and "The Clean Air Act" was passed, although it took another 10 to 15 years before it was fully implemented and we gained the benefits of clean healthy air and a clean City.

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New Towns For Old (Smoke Dale) 1942, Run time - 6 mins:

Commissioned by the Ministry of Information and scripted by Dylan Thomas,

this film addressed the need for town planning in Sheffield in the post-war world.

It features two men who discuss pre-war slum clearance and town planning.

Link to .. Yorkshire Film Archive

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New Towns For Old (Smoke Dale) 1942, Run time - 6 mins:

Commissioned by the Ministry of Information and scripted by Dylan Thomas,

this film addressed the need for town planning in Sheffield in the post-war world.

It features two men who discuss pre-war slum clearance and town planning.

Link to .. Yorkshire Film Archive

Great find, SteveHB. Perhaps a link should be put in the New Towns for Old thread as well.

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On 12/02/2010 at 17:40, Bayleaf said:

 

 

I suppose it would vary a lot with wind direction and strength. As vox said, the prevailing westerly winds meant the west side had better air quality hence its'posh' status. But the worst pollution was when low cloud was below the tops of the surrounding hills. All the smoke etc was trapped beneath the cloudbase, and I can remember a few times in the 1950's when it went dark as night in the middle of the afternoon. We also had our share of pea-souper fogs and smogs in the 50's and 60's.

 

Re your comment about Derwent Water, I assume you mean the Derwent Dams,rather than Cumbria, in which case you probably could see the pall over Sheffield .

If I may add a belated comment as one who experienced it. We lived in Hunter House Road on the top flat stretch.  From the bedroom windows  we looked clear across the valley to the Town Hall in it's  own ridge. In general that view was always there except for fog  rain or  snow. Behind it was a dark grey curtain which blocked everything out. Haze it was not. It extended to our left behind the Town Hall  till the ground rose in front of it .To our right it disappeared behind Sky Edge, now Parkhill Flats. It was always  fairly low level and it was always there except for two  occasions. We certainly had strong winds off the south west moors but they never actually cleared it away.  However during the general  summer shutdown for works holidays and Christmas, to the right of the Town Hall we could suddenly see  Steel Peach and Tozer's ( now Magna) row of thirteen open hearth furnace  chimneys which were end on but slightly turned to our right.  Actually with binoculars I could  see past them but my geography of Rotherham wasn't that good.    In terms of the south west wind clearing the air it certainly only took about a day to do it. After the holidays it didn't take much longer to come  back for another six months. Comments that the west end air was better because of the wind are right. Dunsbyowl's picture is close to the truth as well.

As to what came down in the area I regret to say I have forgotten which technical journal stated that in the Tinsley/Templeborogh  area the deposition rate was 500 tons of muck per acre per annum, which  " makes it the muckiest square mile in the world" There were also some fearful figures given as to the  comparative rates of atmospheric corrosion of a carbon steel bar in Sheffield and a desert somewhere or other. As for  seeing it at the Derwent Dams I have my doubts at least at dam level. They are all in a valley  for the obvious reason, high hills all round and the wind is blowing it away towards Rotherham anyway.

. My experience covers 1939 to about the mid 1960s when the family moved south. There was concern as to the effects of the pollution and the advent of the Clean Air Act probably helped. I note the comments re smoke emission in Victorian days. All I can say is that the black blanket over Tinsley seemed to be just one of those things and somebody ought to do something about it. During WW2  nobody would have dared.  I recall seeing black and yellow smoke from  S.P.T.s chimneys (acid or basic furnaces, two colours of smoke) and wondered.  Standing on the melting shop floor with a typical  First Hand melter, cap, apron, blue glasses on his nose end, white sweat towel,  I saw he was watching his furnace but paying no attention to a MASSIVE display of gauges on a huge board behind him, showing everything that was happening; airflow, temperatures here there and everywhere including the melt, every single part of the process. In the distance quietly baking at the side of an open furnace door was a little figure with a long pole in the doorway.                   " Laboratory. Tekin't temperature. Wastin his time  It's  not hot enough"  From the distace a faint voice "It's not hot enough"    "Silly b*******" said the melter and dropped the door. I was fascinated. I had assumed fine technical control;  the only apparent one was the analysis, another man with a cup on the end of a long pole dabbling through the open door. I enquired about the temperature. " Look here. Tha can see as its not hot" and up went  the door. I looked as this bubbling redhot mass and said nowt. He could see what  I couldn't

On my last visit  some years later the conversion to electric melting  was in hand, with two arc furnaces  up and running. Much tidier not to say cleaner if not quieter. Now the melters are still obviously senior men, tidied up and sitting in a glass cubicle but obviouslly paying more attention to a collection of  gauges on a console. I commented on the difference between this and the Sheffield end where the open hearths were being taken out. The Melting Shop manager said that it was now necessarily much more tightly controlled. To that end they had insisted that only the melters who had attended college and gained a City and Guilds qualification would be allowed to operate the  arc furnaces. The unions had doubts about their older members ability to qualify. The melters didn't, they went, all qualified and came back proud of it. A point strongly made by the manager was S.P.T.s recognition of their need to do something  about atmospheric pollution  and electric melting was an obvious way to go. 

 And so it came to pass that our view past the  Town  Hall gradually improved as other works took action Unfortunately later came the collapse so what caused what gets muddled. However various bodies in the city decided to take action. For years we had got used to a black Town Hall and many others round about. Pressure washing the filth off was greeted with some reservation regarding possibly actually blasting away the masonry. It didnt happen, things looked better coloured and doubts disappeared. Suddenly it was a good thing.

Odd thought about the atmospheric deposition. Later,  making some assumptions regarding it's density it l worked out at a carpet at least knee deep. Good job it rained and the wind blew.

 

 

 

 

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If you had to live in that muck breathing it in, your escape was to get a new council house on the Manor. As this aerial photo shows on the Picture Sheffield Website, you can see the smog over the city centre, but it clears further up City Road.

Manor from the Air about 1929

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I was an apprentice at Sanderson Bros & Newbould 1960 to 1965. Early in the 1960's when there was a bus strike there was a terrific smog. The company had laid on coaches to get us to and from work. On the way home you could not see anything out of the coach windows until suddenly at the bottom of Brocco Bank it cleared and the Hunters Bar Roundabout was clear. However as I walked home up Ecclesall Road it was starting to get foggy again. Soon after that our forge furnaces and boiler house were converted to oil burning.

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