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- Title
The Professor as Industrial Consultant: Oliver Arnold and the British Steel Industry, 1900-14.
- Authors
Sanderson, Michael
- Abstract
This article explores the role of Oliver Arnold, a leading industrial consultant to a steel industry of Great Britain in the years before 1914. The Sheffield steel industry, which provided the immediate context for Arnold's work, produced 12 percent of British steel in 1900 and 11-4 percent in 1913. From the 1880's there was a transition from Bessemer convertor to Siemens open hearth, or the adoption of the latter by the crucible steelmakers who often ran both crucible and Siemens processes together. One problem of the British steel industry in these years of apparent relative decline was to offset her quantitative supersession in aggregate Bessemer and open hearth production by developing the forte of crucible steel production which for quality was inviolate from foreign competition. This it was able to do through the development of metallurgically-sophisticated alloy steels and especially those capable of resisting high speeds and heat. The exploration of chemical combination and diffusion of new physical techniques was the most important element keeping the heartland of the British quality steel industry free from the kind of German and American encroachment experienced by the mass-produced cheaper steels.
- Subjects
UNITED Kingdom; STEEL industry; ARNOLD, Oliver; BUSINESS consultants; STEEL minimills; HEARTHS
- Publication
Economic History Review, 1978, Vol 31, Issue 4, p585
- ISSN
0013-0117
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2595750