Reports

JOHN LAWSON “The Local Steel Industry” 14th May

John Lawson came to U3A this week to give us a potted history of steel making in Cumbria and we were all surprised at how long iron and steel has been important to our county. Iron had been smelted by the Romans with the earliest iron ore mining taking place at Cleator, Harrington and Distington.

The change from iron to steel happened at Moss Bay in 1877 after Henry Bessemer had developed the technique of turning liquid iron into steel at Workington in 1872, using lots of local coal (from Harrington, Solway and Moresby) and lots and lots of local water.

This area became vital to the country’s economy with our local steel works specialising in railway tracks.
John described our royal visits with the Prince of Wales visiting Workington docks and Queen Elisabeth visiting Calder Hall and he brought the industrial story of the area up to date by describing how Workington became the first town to be completely powered by Nuclear power.

He finished by describing the end of steel making in Workington because they weren’t able to make long enough railway lines.
A very interesting talk, thoroughly enjoyed by our members