A STEEL MAGNATE

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 81, 2 October 1940, Page 11

A STEEL MAGNATE

SIR ROBERT HADFIELD

(Jiy Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright.)

(Received October 2, 2 p.m.)

LONDON. October 1. The death has occurred of Sir

i Robert Hadfield i

Sir Robert A. Hadfield, the inventor oi manganese steel, silicon steel, and many other special aUoy steels and metallurgical improvements, was one of the world's great figures in his special field, and has been the recipient of dozens of honours at the hands of nations and scientific bodies and institutions throughout the globe. Born in 1858 he married an American lady, daughter of Colonel S. M. Wickersham, of Alleghany, Pennsylvania. He was chairman and managing director of Hadfields, Ltd., Sheffield. He played an important role throughout the war years 1914-18 and was knighted in 1917. He established with Lady Hadfield and ran at his own expense the Hadfield Hospital, Wimereux. Besides the many British societies to which he gave service as president, vice-presi-dent, or other office he was an associate member of many foreign institutes, including Norway and Sweden, America, France. Belgium. Russia, and Japan. Besides several technical works he published thefe are some 222 papers he read before various scientific and technical societies.

Sir Robert Hadlield set out at an early age upon the road to fame, for he was only fifteen when he went into the laboratories of his father^ works at AtterclifFe. From this beginning his unremitting research and great inventive genius helped to bring Sheffield to a position of prior ascendancy in steel provision for the needs of the engineering world. There is practically no award of high honour in the metallurgical world which Sir Robert has not received, and among the most important of these is the Telford Gold Medal conferred upon him by the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1888 for the invention of manganese steel, also the George Stephenson Gold Medal presented to Sir Robert by the Civil Engineers in the following year, for research in nickel-iron alloys, and the Howard Quinquennial Prize, a further distinction bestowed by the Institution of Civil Engineers upon him for scientific work in connection with new alloys of steel, and awarded in 1902. Much was demanded of Sir Robert in his early manhood for the great industrial concern of which he was chairman was handed over to his administration when he was but twentyfour. It steadily expanded under his control, and its development proved the possession of a marked business capacity by its principal. In Sir Robert was found the combination of a brilliant scientific intellect, remarkable administrative powers, and shrewd business acumen.