Home Front conference
Title
Iron and Steel: maintaining resources in the face of conflict.
Summary
The maintenance of iron and steel production for armaments required a move to home ore resources with an increased demand on scarce labour, and an expansion in specialist sectors of the industry. This presentation examines the ways in which problems were overcome and how they changed the structure of the industry.
Abstract
At the outbreak of the First World War the United Kingdom produced the majority of its iron and steel from high grade low-phosphor hematite iron ores. Over the preceding three to four decades demand had outstripped home production of those ores and the associated steel alloy minerals, and the country was heavily reliant on imports. Those imports were increasingly vulnerable to enemy action at sea and, as the iron and steel industry responded to the demand for munitions, not just for the British forces but also for the French who had lost the majority of their steel industry to German advances, so significant changes were required.
Labour shortages were a problem for all aspects of the industry right from the beginning of the conflict. The move to increased use of home resources, particularly the low grade phosphoric ironstones of the English Midlands, required the erection of new, or recommissioning of old furnaces, with an increased demand for fluxes and refractory material. These were labour intensive processes requiring the redeployment of manpower, the limited use of female labour, and the employment of prisoners of war. In some areas of ironstone production significant gains were made through increased mechanisation, as was also the case in the handling of imported ores.
The demand for specialist steels for armaments resulted in rapid expansion in some sectors of the industry. For example, an extraordinary increase in the number of electric furnaces place a great strain on power generation. By the last years of the war the industry was moving towards amalgamation and the development of new integrated plant. The latter was delayed as a result of shortages in skilled labour and many of these developments, along with increased use of home ironstone resources, were not fully effective until well after the conflict ended.