British Acheson Claywheels Lane

[Wensley1 10]

My late dad worked there as well. He was a maintenance fitter Alf Gold.  He took me to an open day and I my only memory is of a revolutionary bread buttering machine located in the state of the art canteen!

[St Petre 85]

18 hours ago, Graham Chetwood said:

The Union Carbide business in the UK was much bigger in the 60's.  They had a head office in London and operated a chemical plant near the Fawley oil refinery in Hampshire. When they sold that business to BP they closed the London Head Office and moved to Sheffield - late 70's I would guess.  BP subsequently sold the chemicals part to Jim Ratcliffe and that was the start of him creating Ineos and  becoming the richest man in the UK.

The Union Carbide plants in the UK in 1984 were the  graphite plant in Sheffield, 2 coatings plants in Swindon and Southam, a metals factory in Glossop, offices for the chemicals division in Rickmansworth and I think Harrogate, and a plant producing crop spraying equipment in Horstine Farmery  near Hull.

Bhopal happened in 1984 and the company struggled for many years. Originally they had 4 divisions - chemicals, industrial gases, graphite products and consumer products (Eveready batteries in the US, Viskase, Simonitz etc). They sold all the consumer products businesses to fight off an aggressive takeover from GAFF. Then in 1989 they spilt the 3 remaining businesses into 3 new companies. The head office in Sheffield closed and I lost my job. They split so the chemicals division could take all the responsibility for Bhopal and the other 2 business could operate without hindrance.

In subsequent years Dow bought the Chemicals division, Mitsubishi bought graphite products and Praxair the industrial gasses.

The graphite plant closed in Sheffield because it lost the nuclear business as the UK stopped building AGR reactors, and due to the slump in the steel industry.  Carbide had other graphite plants in Pamplona, Spain, one in Italy and most importantly in Calais, France. They felt they could supply the UK market from Calais and so closed Sheffield. The French plant is right next to the refugee camp and is still operating.

The company has had a big influence on my career - my first job was for BSC Sheffield and my last position included buying all the graphite electrodes for all their arc furnaces, I then worked for Carbide in Sheffield for 7 years and a few years later worked for 9 years at Viskase - one of their old consumer products companies.

BAE used to have a plant in Grange Mill Lane, Wincobank/Blackburn.

[Jason210 10]

My dad worked there as an overhead crane driver in the mid to late 1950s.

[Jo ford 0]

My father worked in the lab at British Acheson in 50’s and 60’s...he was Polish..called Genek Hull, but most people called him Eddie for some reason. I wonder if anyone can remember him..

[BrianG 10]

Jo Ford:- I joined UCAR in 1965 in the research department and that is where I met your dad. If I mention chess and 'suicide chess' it should ring a bell. We worked together until research closed around 1972 and I continued with UCAR in other departments until they closed in 1993. Your dad was a real gent.

[Senwod 0]

Hi Nikita

I’m not sure if your Ernest is the Ernest I knew. Mine was a larger than life character who was very kind to me as a rather useless student worker in the early seventies. I know he was proud of his Jamaican origins and had broken his leg some time earlier. Is this the same man?