A Family History of the Illustrious, Notorious and Eccentric Lloyds of Birmingham, Brigstock and Pipewell Hall - Flipbook - Page 21
Wednesbury firm, the Patent Shaft and Axletree Co. Limited.
Samuel Lloyd left one iron business, only to establish others, in which, in their turns his sons became
occupied. So that Lloyds remained true to iron and were likely to continue to do so, as his sons took
kindly to different branches of the business. Ironmasters had always been among his heroes and friends
from George Stephenson whom he heard lecture in 1848, on "The Fallacies of the Rotary Engine" to
Sir William Bessemer and Mr Andrew Carnegie. He was most interested to hear that George
Washington's father and Abraham Lincoln's great grandfather were both ironmasters.
Chapter 4
THE HISTORY OF CORBY IRON & STEELWORKS
Samuel Lloyd II born at the Lloyd family home in Wednesbury, Birmingham in 1827 was the man
responsible for starting it all. The Lloyd family were at the forefront in both banking and the iron
industry, and it was the metal side into which Samuel Lloyd II was born. His father, Samuel Lloyd I, had
formed Lloyd Fosters with his brother-in-law in 1819, and in 1824 they began producing pig iron at their
plant at Wednesbury. It was the drawing office at this company that Samuel II joined in 1850 after
completing his formal education. Within ten years he had begun the firm Lloyd & Lloyd, the tube
makers with his cousin Edward Rigge Lloyd. Lloyd Fosters were very successful being among the first
steel makers licensed to make Bessemer steel in 1859. When his father Samuel I died in1862, Samuel II
was one of eight directors of that company.
After the losses on the Blackfriars Bridge project and the forced sale of Lloyd Fosters, Samuel Lloyd II
(the only director in favour of pulling out of the contract) had to look for other ventures. Through his
Lloyd Fosters years, he had been introduced to Dr W. C. Siemens, who invented the Open Hearth steel
making method and they set up a partnership to develop a direct iron reduction plant at Towcester, his
first connection with Northamptonshire.
Before the coming of the steel plant and all its accompanying houses, Corby was a quiet semi-rural
village, which achieved its living from farming and a small iron works. The first half of the 19th century
had seen the collapse of Hand Loom Weaving as the staple trade of the village.
At the great exhibition in 1851 Samuel Lloyd was listening to a lecture given by a very famous geologist
by the name of Blackwell, and in his lecture Mr Blackwell said that there was ironstone to be found in
Northamptonshire, in the Corby and Rockingham area containing over 32% of iron ore.
