Bilston, England: men making steel in the melting shop of the British Steel steelworks. Aquatint by H.N. Eccleston, 1979.

"The steelworks is that of British Steel, formerly Stewart and Lloyd's. The steelworks consists of three parts. The first one is the blast furnace, which makes iron: the Bilston steel works had a blast furnace called Elizabeth which made liquid iron from coke, iron ore and limestone. The iron contains 4% carbon which makes it too brittle for many industrial applications. The second one is the melting shop which turns the iron into steel of the strength required for different applications: this aquatint shows one part of the melting shop. Here the liquid iron is carried in large ladles on rail trucks and transferred from the blast furnace into an open hearth furnace with scrap; energy is applied to the furnace, the scrap mixes with the iron and produces a molten bath of metal at 1600̕C. In this process the carbon is reduced to typically 0.2% by weight, and alloys such as chromium, nickel, silicon and manganese are added to give the final required properties of the steel. Finally there is the rolling mill which turns the steel into the shapes and sizes required

"The present print is entitled "Teeming". Teeming is the technical term for pouring molten steel. On the left and centre is a huge bucket-like structure that is held by a crane (one hook of the crane is visible): this bucket or vat, called a ladle, contains 50 tons of liquid steel. It has a stopper in the bottom which can be lifted to allow egress of the steel. In the aquatint, one man is pressing down on the handle which operates the mechanism serving to lift the stopper. White-hot steel is seen emerging from the bottom of the ladle. It falls down a tube called the trumpet into a series of tunnels and rises up to fill groups of the hollow vertical moulds which are seen in the foreground. These rectangular moulds, made of cast iron, are called ingot moulds. Inside them, the steel forms 5-ton ingots of red-hot steel which then go to the rolling mill. The ingot moulds on the left from which flames are still emerging are full of steel. The crane moves the ladle along to allow filling up of the other moulds too. On the right, the man with the ledger-book is controlling quality by recording factors such as the times at which the moulds were filled

"Looking back from 2008, this print and the others in the set have historic status. Today, open hearth steelmaking is no longer used (Bilston closed in the late 1970s). Blast furnaces are still used but are much, much bigger and highly automated. Most steel is made today by electric arc furnace (EAF) or Basic Oxygen Furnace (BOF), the former mainly for speciality steel and the latter for bulk production. Automation is now the name of the game, but it still needs guys to get hot! Steel is still teemed into ingot moulds but using much better stopper systems (sliding gate). Ingots are still used for speciality steels but most is now continuously cast (CONCAST)"--W. Church, 2008

[Bilston], [1979]

1 print : aquatint ; platemark 25.4 x 35.2 cm

Teeming. HN Eccleston '79

Edition of 70.

This is one in a set of four aquatints commissioned by Mr William Church when working in his first works management post for British Steel at Bilston, Staffs. He had been aware of the need for good pictures that captured the atmosphere of the steelworks. As a collector of etchings he was in touch with people who suggested approaching Harry N Eccleston, an accomplished printmaker and a Bilston native who had studied at Bilston School of Art. Eccleston had relatives who worked in the steelworks and had produced pictures of cranes and locomotives seen from the outside, but had not been allowed inside the works. Eccleston was, at that time, head of design at the Bank of England Print Works and was responsible for the series of notes including the Waterloo five pound note

On receipt of the commission, Eccleston made preparatory studies for the aquatints in the form of photographs, watercolours and gouaches. The work on the four plates took place over some ten years. Editions of 70 were made; probably about half of the impressions were bought by members of the steelworks staff at cost

Wellcome Collection 664687i

The Wellcome Library has a licence from the copyright holder, to reproduce this work and to authorise others to reproduce it, for non-commercial purposes

Information kindly supplied by Mr William Church, 9 April 2008