The small village of Glengarnock in North Ayrshire was the site of iron and steel works for 145 years from 1840 until March 1985 and was a major employer in the local area.
In the early 1800’s, railway construction opened up a new market for pig iron. The area around Glengarnock was rich with extensive seams of black, mussel, and clay band ironstone, which combined with the local coal pits, limestone quarries and water from Kilbirnie Loch, made Glengarnock a suitable site for establishing an Ironworks.
In 1840 the Glasgow, Paisley, Kilmarnock and Ayr Railway opened running alongside Kilbirnie Loch. That same year Andrew Craig and his partners began building three ironwork furnaces at Glengarnock. Before they could be put into blast, the company was sold in 1842 to Alison, Merry and Cunninghame who had already established a successful ironworks at Coatbridge, North Lanarkshire. Sometime after October 1844, Alexander Alison left the partnership. Merry & Cunninghame would grow into one of the largest mining companies in Scotland.
By April 1844, the existing stockpiles of iron had been almost exhausted. By December 1846, Merry & Cunninghame had five iron furnaces in blast at Glengarnock, with another two furnaces nearing completion, on land previously occupied by Lochend Farm, on the southern shore of Kilbirnie Loch. By 1848, 2,000 people were employed at the Glengarnock Ironworks.
Concerned about the welfare of their employees, Merry & Cunninghame erected housing for their workers, and regularly inspected them to ensure they were kept clean. Any families who failed to do so were dismissed. In 1847 they built a wooden schoolhouse to educate their employees’ children, along with a separate wooden hut for the Schoolmaster to live in. As well as teaching the children, the Schoolmaster held evening classes for the men and boys working in the ironworks. A reading room was established in one of the school rooms, complete with newspapers, magazines, and books for which the patrons paid 6d per quarter. In 1877, Glengarnock Primary School replaced the old wooden schoolhouse. Its first Headmaster was Robert Grey.
The Glengarnock Ironworks survived several difficult years. In 1848/49, Glengarnock had the only furnaces which were not temporarily extinguished due to miners’ striking and working to restricted hours. During the 1870’s Merry & Cunninghame had to compete for business against foreign companies who produced iron at lower costs, and in August 1880, the company had to give notice to their employees that the Glengarnock Ironworks furnaces would be damped for two weeks due to the scarcity of coal caused by a ten-week long miners’ strike.
In the early 1880s Merry & Cunninghame had the foresight to convert the Glengarnock Ironworks to steel. Between 1870 and 1890 there was an explosive growth in the steel industry. In 1873 Scotland had produced 1,999 tons of steel, but by 1890, this figure had almost tripled to 58,500 tons of steel per year, and by 1912 it had doubled again to nearly 1,000,000 tons of finished steel.
Merry & Cunninghame made a site visit to a steel works in the winter of 1882, after which they drew up designs and made plans. Work began on building the steelworks at Glengarnock in 1884, with four 8-ton Bessemer convectors and a 10-ton steam hammer being erected to the west and north of the ironworks. The first steel was cast in June 1885, and the Glengarnock
Steel Works were officially opened on Friday 7th August 1885 followed by a luncheon served by Messrs Ferugson & Forrester of Glasgow in an onsite marquee. In 1887, following a ban on the use of Bessemer steel in shipbuilding, open hearth furnaces were installed at Glengarnock.
In 1892 three Siemen-Martin open hearth furnaces were installed at the Glengarnock Ironworks, which was renamed the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Company. Sadly, not all was well. For the remainder of the 1890s and early 1900’s the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Company struggled to get by. In November 1894 continued stoppages meant that many families working for Merry & Cunninghame faced near destitution.
The outbreak of World War One brought about a change in the fortunes of the British steel companies. There was a sudden demand for steel to build ships and manufacture explosive shells. In June 1916 David Colville & Sons bought the Glengarnock Iron and Steel Company and modernised it.
In the post-war period, the steel industry went into a slump, due in part to a reduction of foreign trade. At Glengarnock the Bessemer process was closed down. Other economic factors which adversely affected the steel industry during this period included the three-month long 1921 miners’ strike; the General Strike in May 1926; and the Great Depression in the early 1930s, which caused Britain to experience its worst period of economic downturn.
In 1930 Colville’s merged with James Dunlop and Co., and became known as Colvilles Ltd. The blast furnaces and old rolling mill at Glengarnock steel works were closed down, and the pig iron manufacture was transferred to the Clyde Iron Works, owned by Dunlop. Colvilles then modernised the steel works at Glengarnock, including two venturi type 90-ton furnaces. By 1937 Glengarnock was producing 6,000 tons of finished steel weekly. A third furnace was added during World War Two. The Glengarnock Steel Works now pumped 30,000 gallons of water per hour from Kilbirnie Loch to operate the condensers and cooling systems. Glengarnock began specialising in producing steel for railway lines for both the home market and abroad.
In 1949 the Labour Government nationalised the steel industry, taking over all of Colvilles steel works in 1951. In 1955 the steel works were returned to private ownership, but in 1967 the steel works were once again nationalised becoming known as the British Steel Corporation.
At its height, the Glengarnock Steelworks employed 1,800 people. In 1978 the British Steel Corporation closed the melting shop with the loss of 1,100 jobs, and the workforce at Glengarnock was reduced to 200. The Glengarnock Steelworks finally closed its doors in March 1985.