Information Please About Dunford Hadfield's

[Rhea1 10]

Hey I'm a 2nd Yr student at Manchester Met Uni (but I'm from Sheffield) and I'm doing a creative assignment on Meadowhall and what was there before it, i.e. Dunford Hadfield's steel works. Im trying to gather some information on the topic, if anyone has any information about this topic, I would really like to hear from you!

[Rhea1 10]

Would love to hear from you!

[ABWEALTD 10]

Before the firm was called Dunford Hadfields it was just Hadfields Ltd., my late father was the Chief Chemist and he remembered the days when Sir Robert Hadfield used to arrive at the works by horse! (even before the electric trams!) When he retired he got a part time job helping out at a very small firm called Dunford and Elliott Ltd.He always used to joke about this, because when he left Hadfields the shares went down, and then Dunfords "took over" Hadfields!

Faraday produced potentially anti corrosion steels and kept the samples in a box in the Royal Institution in London. Sir Robert Hadfield had these sampled and my father analysed the samples for him, so he could write a scientific paper on it.

In the early days, church door hinges, were also analysed,-- with a view to helping to produce fatigue resistant alloys, ---and coffin nails for corrosion resistant alloys.

Hadfields was at the end of Vulcan Road, (which no longer exists) and for several years their radiography department which, due to the very thick walls, was difficult to demolish.-- so it survived for several more years as a steel castings repair shop cum radiography unit, run as a separate company. I know this because I regularly visited it as a visiting inspector. Hadfields was originally making Manganese steels for both mining equipment and railway crossings, and in earlier days they made steel plates for battle ships. Eventually they became proficient in plate for nuclear reactors etc. They also did a lot more products. I visited their Research Department when in my early teens and saw a jet engine turbine blade fractured using sound produced from an organ pipe, to test its' fatigue properties!

[begora 10]

Hi

My husband used to work at Dunford and Elliott (in the 1960s) - is anyone still in touch with any one who worked there during this period?

[TORONTONY 10]

Before the firm was called Dunford Hadfields it was just Hadfields Ltd., my late father was the Chief Chemist and he remembered the days when Sir Robert Hadfield used to arrive at the works by horse! (even before the electric trams!) When he retired he got a part time job helping out at a very small firm called Dunford and Elliott Ltd.He always used to joke about this, because when he left Hadfields the shares went down, and then Dunfords "took over" Hadfields!

Faraday produced potentially anti corrosion steels and kept the samples in a box in the Royal Institution in London. Sir Robert Hadfield had these sampled and my father analysed the samples for him, so he could write a scientific paper on it.

In the early days, church door hinges, were also analysed,-- with a view to helping to produce fatigue resistant alloys, ---and coffin nails for corrosion resistant alloys.

Hadfields was at the end of Vulcan Road, (which no longer exists) and for several years their radiography department which, due to the very thick walls, was difficult to demolish.-- so it survived for several more years as a steel castings repair shop cum radiography unit, run as a separate company. I know this because I regularly visited it as a visiting inspector. Hadfields was originally making Manganese steels for both mining equipment and railway crossings, and in earlier days they made steel plates for battle ships. Eventually they became proficient in plate for nuclear reactors etc. They also did a lot more products. I visited their Research Department when in my early teens and saw a jet engine turbine blade fractured using sound produced from an organ pipe, to test its' fatigue properties!

Hadfields was divided into two companies in the mid 60's Dunford /Hadfields and Osborn /Hadfields. I worked under all 3 company names between 1961 to 1969. I also worked in the Millspaugh buildings next door in the mid seventies. That land was also part of the Meadowhall development.

Edited January 14, 2017 by TORONTONY

[raymondo1952 11]

I remember Dunford Hatfield /Elliott's on Chippingham Street Attercliffe

Edited January 14, 2017 by raymondo1952

[Darjeeling 0]

I was a Secretary at Dunford Hadfields in the '70's and one of my memories was walking to the works area, getting a grain of steel dust in my eye and having to go to hospital  to have it removed by a magnet!!