To see the full structure of this catalogue, please click on the plus signs above in Catalogue Index. Cataloguing of this particular collection was possible thanks to a grant by the Business Archives Council to Durham County Record Office in 2012. The aim was to make these fascinating records available to the public by creating a detailed, searchable on-line catalogue of one particular group of Consett Iron Company archives Acc.: 3278(D), providing cross-references to other collections relating to Consett Iron and linking it with the British Steel Archive Project (a steel industry heritage focused project by Teesside University in partnership with Teesside Archives) More details can be found by following the link to the Project’s website below: http://www.britishsteelcollection.org.uk/ The Project developed an online searchable database on Teesside Archives website: http://www.middlesbrough.gov.uk/teessidearchives Consett Iron Company Limited was established in April 1864. It purchased the property of Derwent and Consett Iron Company Limited (formed by shareholders of the Northumberland and Durham District Bank), which had obtained the property of the Derwent Iron Company following its financial crisis in 1857. The Derwent Iron Company was formed in 1840. Consett Iron Company also took over other smaller iron works from the area, for example Shotley Bridge Iron Company Limited. The initial capital of the Company was £400,000 and the first directors were: Henry Fenwick, John Henderson, James Edward Coleman, Joseph Whitwell Pease, John Fogg Elliott, Thomas Spencer, John Norman Wilson, Jonathan Priestman and David Dale. Priestman was appointed the first Managing Director, but after his resignation in 1869 this post was taken by William Jenkins, who proved to be a talented manager in difficult years to come. In 1872 the Company joined in partnership with Orconera Iron Ore Company Limited, Bilbao, Spain to lower its production costs by having access to cheaper resources from abroad, as the local ironstone supply was already exhausted and the Company was dependant on iron mostly from Teesside. Some records of this venture are included in this collection. The Company also owned several collieries, limestone quarries, brick and coke works and railways in the area creating an industrial complex that became one of the biggest producers of steel in the UK. It needs to be highlighted here that colliery related records are the core of this accession. The maximum number of collieries that the Company owned was in the 1920s and 1930s (15-16); by the time of nationalisation in 1947 only 7 were left. The Company managed all of its collieries, and other associated works, centrally, which was very uncommon and makes the surviving records even more interesting as they allow the study of the Company’s decision making processes affecting collieries, especially around the time of the General Strike. Consett Iron Company was also one of the biggest employers in the area and invested in building houses and offices in Consett and neighbouring villages for its workforce: records, especially plans, are included in this and other collections, for example Lanchester Rural District Council RD/La In its history, the Company experienced several financial difficulties. The first crisis was noted in the early 1870s, as the growth of pig iron production was drastically curtailed by technological progress in the railway industry. Demand for low quality iron dropped and railways all over the world were replaced with steel that proved to be more durable and adequate for the ever increasing traffic and faster, heavier engines. William Jenkins was General Manager at the time and thanks to his decisions serious investments were made to modernise furnaces that would allow the Company to gradually extend its production with steel to supply railways and also the rapidly growing shipbuilding industry. Steel production required the recently developed technology of open hearth furnaces to be installed. For this purpose the Company had to raise sufficient capital. Registers of loans within this collection provide evidence that the Company was borrowing money not only from banks, but also from individuals, to keep up with the growing demands of a rapidly modernising world. They contain hundreds of names, some repeatedly lending money, like George Townsend Fox, also known as the builder of St Nicholas church in Durham and its vicar. However, it was really the First World War that caused the furnaces to work overtime to meet demand for home-produced plates, mostly for the Royal Navy. With the end of the war effort, production of steel dropped as the war fleet, the main customer of the Company had been reduced. Output of coal and other associated works were also affected. The situation became worse after the Dawes Plan was introduced in 1925, allowing Germany to join the European market to sell coal at very cheap rates as part of war reparations. This caused coal prices in the UK to drop even more, resulting in further unemployment and social unease, culminating in the General Strike in May 1926. Echoes of the events following the General Strike can be found in the Company’s correspondence, focusing mainly on Chopwell Colliery, providing invaluable evidence and understanding as to why the situation at Chopwell was so unusual compared to other collieries at the time. In the 1930s, the financial condition of the Company improved. Shipyards in the North East and the growing commercial fleet provided a steady income. The Company together with the British Government established the New Jarrow Steel Company in 1938, replacing Palmers Shipbuilding and Iron Company that had gone bankrupt a few years earlier. It was eventually incorporated by Consett Iron Company in 1947. The collection contains several records, for example articles of association, directors’ reports, comments on production strategy and photographs of the Jarrow Works, documenting crucial phases and typical problems that the above venture involved. The Company’s seven collieries were nationalised in 1947, becoming part of the National Coal Board. The Company itself saw a similar fate in 1951 when it was nationalised into the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. Shortly after, in 1955, it was re-privatised and mainly supplied the shipbuilding industry. However, in 1967 it was re-nationalised and merged into the British Steel Corporation. Employee numbers were gradually falling and eventually all production stopped in 1980, leaving about 4,500 people unemployed. Records of the Consett Iron Company Limited were initially deposited with Durham County Record Office in 1965. After re-nationalisation, all of the Company’s assets changed ownership as mentioned above and British Steel Corporation removed them, in 1975, from the Record Office to their Northern Regional Record Centre in Middlesbrough. In 1994 some of the original collection was donated by British Steel to Derwentdale Local History Society in Consett, which gave most of them back to their original home (Durham County Record Office) in 2002 and 2003. Three years later, the rest of the collection that had remained with the British Steel Corporation (later Corus) was donated to Durham County Record Office. Moving the collection from one place to another so many times caused the loss of some records. Others were seriously damaged as they were not stored in proper conditions. One of the aims of the Business Archives Council funded project was to identify conservation needs. The registers of locomotive repairs especially need urgent attention as they are heavily damaged by mould and are too fragile to handle. Most of the collection requires cleaning, removing of dead insects and proper packaging. This catalogue comprises those records given to Durham County Record Office by Corus in 2006 3278(D) In due course it will be integrated with an earlier catalogue 2836(D) and another accession 2975(D) will be added once catalogued. The grant has facilitated a detailed catalogue reflecting the Company’s history and complex organisational structure. This accession includes detailed share records, financial records, and an excellent set of pension records. It also includes registers of locomotive repairs, recording the types of locomotives and cranes used by the Company, providing detailed descriptions of repair work done. What makes them unique is the fact that the Consett Iron Company, unlike other similar companies, had its own Locomotive Department with specialist workshops to repair its fleet of locomotives, crane locomotives and rail cranes. It is very unfortunate that these records are also the most damaged. A small, but very interesting part of the collection is correspondence, as it focuses on the situation after the 1926 General Strike, particularly the events around Chopwell Colliery and Communist influence there. These events were widely publicised in newspapers, making the problems known to other companies and collieries across the UK. Several other collections in the Record Office contain records relating to the Consett Iron Company. For example, plans of houses and offices built for the Company in the 1890s: Benfieldside Urban District Council records UD/Ben 22/57, 22/76, 22/168 etc. or Lanchester Rural District Council RD/La 143 Several plans of railway connections and extensions around and to Consett Works can be found in the British Rail collection D/Rail/P 13/2 construction of sidings for Consett Iron, 1890; D/Rail/P 13/1 North Eastern Railway Consett Station, 1909; D/Rail/P 13/5 layout of railways between Blackhill and Consett, 1950 Early railway agreements from 1860 and 1889 can be found within Quarter Session records e.g.: Q/D/P 254 and 392 Plans and a book of reference on the branch to join the Stockton & Darlington and Newcastle and Carlisle Union Railway at Consett Iron Works in 1855 can be found among Lanchester parish records EP/La 67-69 Records relating to the Company’s collieries devolved to the National Coal Board following nationalisation in 1947. These include subsidence compensations e.g.: NCB/19/2/3/43 from 1916; accident reports e.g.: NCB 15/264 and several surveys of the Company’s collieries. However some are not catalogued to ISAD(G) standard and their descriptions need extending. Church records contain leases of coal under glebe land and other agreements, for example: Brooms Our Lady Roman Catholic parish RC/Brm 3/7-9 from 1896; Medomsley parish EP/Me 62 or Wingate parish EP/Win 14/2-5 Some other collections indicate connections between the Company’s owners (some of whom were Quakers) and other well known Quakers, such as Pease and Backhouse D/X 972/10 and D/X 32/2/19 An original letter by William Jenkins, Company General Manager 1869-1894 can be found in one of the miscellaneous collections D/X 1422/5 There are also a few references in the Durham Light Infantry collection, with recommendations from the Minister of Labour to employ ex soldiers in Consett Works e.g.: D/DLI 7/835/9 As many of the records included in the collection refer to collieries, it might be useful to look into the Mining Durham’s Hidden Depths project, with its searchable database on our website: http://www.durhamrecordoffice.org.uk/Pages/AdvancedSearchHiddenDepths.aspx Also worth mentioning are several records documenting the campaign against the closure of the Steel Works in 1980 e.g.: D/X 1536/94-100, D/X 953/3/44 or NT/Ay 6/1/99 As it is impossible to list all of the references here, at least the main collections containing records relating to Consett Iron and associated works should be indicated: Consett No. 1 Branch of the British Iron Steel and Kindred Trades Association (BISAKTA) ref. D/X 1601 Durham Coal Owners’ Mutual Protection Association (ref. D/DCOMPA) Durham Miners’ Association (ref. D/DMA) National Coal Board (ref. NCB) Durham Coal Owners’ Association (ref. D/DCOA) Derwentside District Council (ref. ND/De) Clayton and Gibson (ref. D/CG) Durham Constabulary (ref. CCP 13/523/1-3) Durham County Council Planning Department (ref. CC/Planning) Hanby Holmes (ref. D/HH 2/1/921) Strathmore Estate papers (ref. D/St/B 1/3/182 and D/St/C 2/22/369) Sherburn Hospital (ref. D/Sh.H 377) Stanton Croft and Company (ref. D/SC) Whessoe Foundry Company (ref. D/Whes 16/33) Others will be identified by searching the catalogue database: http://www.durhamrecordoffice.org.uk/Pages/advancedsearch.aspx. For records in this catalogue check the section below.