View source for Robert Hadfield

{{Short description|British metallurgist (1858–1940)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2018}}
{{Use British English|date=April 2018}}
{{Infobox engineer
|image                = Robert Hadfield bust.jpg
|caption = Bust in the Sir Robert Hadfield Building, [[University of Sheffield]]
|name = Sir Robert Hadfield, Bt
|nationality = British
|birth_name = Robert Abbott Hadfield
|birth_date = {{birth date|1858|11|28|df=y}}
|birth_place = [[Sheffield]]
|death_date = {{death date and age|1940|9|30|1858|11|28|df=y}}
|death_place = [[Surrey]]
|education            =
|spouse               =
|parents              =
|children             =
|discipline           =
|institutions         =
|practice_name = 
|significant_projects = {{ubl|[[Manganese steel]]|[[Silicon steel]]}}
|significant_design = 
|significant_advance  =
|significant_awards = {{plainlist|class=nowrap|
* [[Bessemer Gold Medal]] {{small|(1904)}}
* [[Elliott Cresson Medal]] {{small|(1910)}}
* [[John Fritz Medal]] {{small|(1921)}}
* [[Albert Medal (Royal Society of Arts)|Albert Medal]] {{small|(1935)}}
* [[Fellow of the Royal Society]]<ref name="frs" />
}}
}}'''Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield, 1st Baronet''' [[Fellow of the Royal Society|FRS]]<ref name="frs" /> (28 November 1858 in [[Sheffield]] – 30 September 1940 in [[Surrey]]) was an [[English people|English]] [[metallurgy|metallurgist]], noted for his 1882 discovery of [[manganese steel]], one of the first steel [[alloy]]s.  He also invented [[Electrical steel|silicon steel]], initially for mechanical properties (patents in 1886) which have made the alloy a material of choice for [[Spring steel|springs]] and some fine blades, though it has also become important in electrical applications for its magnetic behaviour.<ref name="tweedale" />

==Life==
[[File:M1917helmet.jpg|thumb|World War I [[Brodie helmet]], made from Hadfield steel]]
Hadfield was born 28 November 1858 in [[Attercliffe]], then still a village near Sheffield.<ref name=frs/> Hadfield's father, also named Robert Hadfield, owned Hadfield's Steel Foundry in [[Sheffield]] and in 1872 was the first manufacturer of steel [[casting]]s in Britain. He declined to use patented technology from France and developed his own, thus laying the foundations for what was to become one of Britain's leading armament firms.<ref name=frs/>

Robert the younger decided against Oxford and Cambridge, and entered work as an apprentice in 1875.<ref name=frs/> He was successful and by the age of 24 had taken over the management due to his father's ill health.<ref name=frs/>

Hadfield took out two patents on manganese steel in 1883--the British precursors to {{US patent|303150}} and {{US patent|303151}}--and exhibited the material before the [[Institution of Mechanical Engineers]] the next year.<ref name=frs/> In February 1888 he presented a paper to the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]] about his further research on manganese in steel, which included the discovery that an alloy containing between 12 and 14 per cent manganese had special utility. Amongst other properties: in a [[tensile test]] it drew out uniformly whilst in most metals local elongation or ‘[[Necking (engineering)|necking]]’ occurs, and [[magnetism]] is absent in it.<ref name=frs/> In [[Brinell]] units the surface hardness increased on deformation from 200 to 550 or 580 (approaching that which will scratch glass) according to measurements by [[Floris Osmond]].<ref name=frs/> Its hardness and non-magnetic properties gave advantage in the arms industry, especially for British helmets.<ref name=frs/>

The younger Hadfield took over the business in 1888 on his father's death. The firm was then made into a limited company, and he became chairman and managing director. The younger man was then 30 years of age.<ref name=frs/>

In 1889 Hadfield published with the [[Iron and Steel Institute]] the results of his investigations into [[iron]] alloyed with [[silicon]]. Studies of iron with [[aluminium]], [[chromium]], [[nickel]] and [[tungsten]] followed in  1890, 1892, 1899, and 1903, respectively.<ref name=frs/>

In 1891 he adopted both the eight-hour workday at his company, and the [[thermoelectric]] [[pyrometer]], which had been developed by the Frenchman [[Henry Louis Le Chatelier]].<ref name=frs/>

In 1899 a paper in the [[Royal Dublin Society]] was published by Barrett, Brown and Hadfield of seminal importance to magnetism, in a hundred alloys of iron.<ref name=frs/>

Hadfield collaborated with [[James Dewar]] in the study of very low temperatures on the properties of metals, and with [[Heike Kamerlingh Onnes]] at the [[University of Leyden]] Cryogenic Laboratory after his appointment there in 1905.<ref name=frs/> They discovered that a characteristic of [[face-centred cubic]] [[lattice structure]] metals would actually become more ductile at extremely low temperatures, whilst those with a [[body-centred cubic]] lattice became brittle.<ref name=frs/>

From 1913 until 1920 Hadfield was president of the [[Faraday Society]], and as a farewell he organized there a seminar on [[microscopy]] and the [[photo-micrograph]].<ref name=frs/>

In 1925 under his name appeared the book ''Metallurgy and its Influence on Modern Progress''; ''Faraday and his metallurgical researches'' appeared in 1931; 1935 saw ''Empire development and proposals for the establishment of an Empire Development Board''.
 
In 1936 Hadfield presented to the Institution of Civil Engineers a paper in which he detailed the [[corrosive]] effect of [[sea-water]] on 980 metals.<ref name=frs/>

Between 1898 and 1939 he lived at [[Parkhead Hall|Parkhead House]] in [[Whirlow]], Sheffield.

In the 1930s he employed record breaking motorcyclist [[Florence Blenkiron]] as a secretary<ref name="newspaper" /> and office manager.<ref name="wallach" />

He died 30 September 1940 in [[Surrey]] with over 200 papers to his name on metallurgical research.<ref name="tweedale" />

==Honours==
[[File:Hadfield Freedom of the City of Sheffield.jpg|thumb|Freedom of the City]]
In 1899, Hadfield was made [[Master Cutler]].<ref name="sheaf" />  He was [[Knight Bachelor|knighted]] on 21 July 1908<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=28162 |date=28 July 1908 |page=5530}}</ref> and created a [[baronet]], of [[Sheffield]] in the [[West Riding of Yorkshire|West Riding of the County of York]] on 26 June 1917.<ref>{{London Gazette |issue=30224 |date=10 August 1917 |page=8130}}</ref> In the same year he was made a freeman of the [[City of London]].<ref name=frs/>  He was elected as a [[Fellow of the Royal Society]] in 1909,<ref name="frs" /> a member of the [[Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]] in 1912 and an honorary member of the [[Academy of Sciences of the USSR]] in 1933.<ref name="vedu" /> He was also a corresponding member of the [[Académie Française]].<ref name=frs/>  In 1939 he was awarded the [[Freedom of the City]] of Sheffield.<ref name="sheaf" /> He was an active Freemason and a member of Ivanhoe Lodge meeting at [[Tapton Hall]] in Sheffield.<ref>Ivanhoe Lodge 1878-1948 (1948)</ref>

He was awarded a [[Telford Medal]] by the [[Institution of Civil Engineers]] in 1888, the [[The Franklin Institute Awards|John Scott Medal]] of [[The Franklin Institute]] in 1891 and the [[Bessemer Gold Medal]] in 1904.<ref name="cobb" /> He received the [[John Fritz Medal]] in 1921 and the [[Albert Medal (RSA)]] in 1935, both for his contributions to [[metallurgy]].

Hadfield was awarded honorary degrees from the [[University of Oxford]], the University of Sheffield and the [[University of Leeds]].<ref name=frs/>

He is commemorated in the Sir Robert Hadfield Building at the [[University of Sheffield]], which contains the Departments of Materials Science and Engineering and Chemical and Biological Engineering. There is also a wing at Sheffield's [[Northern General Hospital]] named after him.

He was [[List of nominees for the Nobel Prize in Physics|nominated for the Nobel Prize]] in [[physics]] in 1912.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Mehlin |first=Hans |date=2024-05-21 |title=Nomination%20Archive |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nomination/archive/show_people.php?id=3768 |access-date=2024-10-10 |website=NobelPrize.org |language=en-US}}</ref>

==Family==
Hadfield married in 1894 Miss Frances Belt Wickersham, of Philadelphia, who earned a [[CBE]] in 1918 for her services in [[World War I]] as the founder of a hospital at [[Wimereux]].<ref name=frs/> At the beginning of the [[Second World War]] she founded the [[Hadfield-Spears Ambulance Unit]], again in that country.<ref name=frs/>

==References==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name="cobb">H. M. Cobb (2012) "Dictionary of Metals" (ASM International) p 308</ref>
<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Desch | first1 = C. H. | title = Robert Abbott Hadfield. 1858–1940 | doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1941.0027 | journal = [[Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 3 | issue = 10 | pages = 647–664| year = 1941 | s2cid = 178057481 | doi-access = free }}</ref>
<ref name="newspaper">{{Cite web|url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0000748/19350627/020/0001|title=Leeds Mercury|date=27 June 1935}}</ref>
<ref name="sheaf">[http://www.riversheaf.org/sheafrwp/?page_id=3453 River Sheaf] Robert Hadfield 1858–1940</ref>
<ref name="tweedale">{{cite journal | first = Geoffrey | last =  Tweedale | journal = Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London | volume = 40 | issue = 1 | date = November 1985 | pages = 63–74 | title = Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield F.R.S. (1858–1940), and the Discovery of Manganese Steel | doi = 10.1098/rsnr.1985.0004 | doi-access =  }}</ref>
<ref name="vedu">[http://www.vedu.ru/bigencdic/12904/ The big encyclopaedic dictionary] (in Russian)</ref>
<ref name="wallach">{{Cite book|title=The Rugged Road|last=Wallach|first=Theresa|year=2011|publisher=Panther |isbn=978-0-9564975-2-9}}</ref>
}}

==Further reading==
* {{DSB
|first=Frank
|last=Greenaway
|title=Hadfield, Robert Abbott
|volume=6
|pages=5
}}

==External links==
*[http://www.keytometals.com/page.aspx?ID=CheckArticle&site=kts&NM=69 Austenitic manganese steels]

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{{John Fritz Medal|state=collapsed}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Hadfield, Robert}}
[[Category:1858 births]]
[[Category:1940 deaths]]
[[Category:Master Cutlers]]
[[Category:British metallurgists]]
[[Category:British inventors]]
[[Category:Fellows of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Knights Bachelor]]
[[Category:Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Bessemer Gold Medal]]
[[Category:John Fritz Medal recipients]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Honorary members of the USSR Academy of Sciences]]