Dorman Long

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Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into bridge building. The company was once listed on the London Stock Exchange.

History

The company was founded by Arthur Dorman and Albert de Lande Long when they acquired West Marsh Iron Works in 1875.[1] In the 1920s Dorman Long took over the concerns of Bell Brothers and Bolckow and Vaughan and diversified into the construction of bridges.[2] In 1938 Ellis Hunter took over as Managing Director and he continued to lead the business until 1961.[3]

File:Tyne Bridges 01.jpg
Tyne Bridge

In 1967 Dorman Long was nationalised, along with 13 other British steel-making firms, becoming subsumed into the government-owned British Steel Corporation. In 1982 Redpath Dorman Long, the engineering part of the business, was acquired by Trafalgar House who in 1990 merged it into Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company in Darlington.[4]

Iron and steel

Iron-making has been known in Cleveland since the Romans found iron slags in North Yorkshire, with small-scale iron-making known to have taken place at Rievaulx and Whitby Abbeys and at Gisborough Priory in the 17th century.[5]

Some of the key events connected with iron-making in Cleveland:

1837: The first Cleveland ironstone mine opens, at Grosmont, for the Losh, Wilson and Bell ironworks.[6]

1841: Bolckow and Vaughan open the first ironworks in Middlesbrough.[7]

1850: 8 June – The Discovery of the Cleveland Main Seam of Ironstone at Eston by Ironmaster John Vaughan and mining engineer John Marley both of Bolckow & Vaughan. The Cleveland iron rush begins.[8]

1865: 30 blast furnaces operate within six miles (10 km) of Middlesbrough and one million tonnes per annum (TPA) of iron are produced to make the area one of the world's major centres of iron production.[9]

1879: Sidney Gilchrist Thomas arrives in Cleveland and introduces the first commercial steel.[10]

1903: Partial amalgamation of Bell companies with Dorman Long.[11]

File:SydneyHarbourBridgeandOperaHouse IB.jpg
Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

1917: The Redcar steel plant is opened, making steel in the open hearth process.[9]

1928-9: Dorman Long takes over residues of Bell and Bolckow Vaughan.[12][13]

1946: Dorman Long purchases Script error: No such module "convert". of land between the Redcar and Cleveland Works to build the Lackenby development.[14]

1955: The Dorman Long tower, a combined coal silo, firefighting water tower, and control room, was built on the Teesside steelworks site.[15]

1967: Dorman Long, South Durham Steel Iron Co, and Stewarts and Lloyds come together to create British Steel and Tube Ltd.[16]

1967: The steel industry is nationalised and the British Steel Corporation is born.[17]

1989: Company is privatised becoming British Steel plc.[18]

1990: Merged with The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company, Darlington.[9]

1999: British Steel plc merges with the Dutch steel and aluminium company Koninklijke Hoogovens to become Corus Group.[19]

2015: Former Dorman Long Steel plant on Teesside ceased production after SSI mothballed the Redcar works following a global downturn in the price of steel and later announced its UK arm had gone into liquidation.[20]

2021: Cleveland Bridge goes into administration.[21]

2021: The Dorman Long tower is demolished,[22] despite its Grade II listed status.[15][23]

Bridge building

The most famous bridge ever constructed by a Teesside company was Dorman Long's Sydney Harbour Bridge of 1932,[24] of similar construction to but, contrary to popular belief, not modelled on the 1928 Tyne Bridge, a construction regarded as the symbol of Tyneside's Geordie pride, but also a product of Dorman Long's Teesside workmanship. The greatest example of Dorman Long's work in Teesside itself is the single-span Newport Lifting Bridge (a Grade II Listed Building). Opened by the Duke of York in February 1934 it was England's first vertical lift bridge.[25]

List of bridges constructed

The following is a list of some of the bridges built by the Dorman Long: it is not fully comprehensive.

Bridge Location Year Total length Notes Image Ref
ft m
Omdurman Bridge White Nile, Sudan 1926 Script error: No such module "convert". 7 fixed spans, one swing span, 3,700 tons
File:Omdurman,old-bridge.jpg
 [26]
Desouk Bridge Lower Nile, Egypt 1927 Script error: No such module "convert". 10 spans including Script error: No such module "convert". swing span, 3,800 tons
File:كوبري دسوق القديم-2.jpg
 [27]
Tyne Bridge Newcastle, England 1928 Script error: No such module "convert". Approximately 8,000 tons, (Road)
File:Tyne Bridge.jpg
 [28]
Alfred Beit Bridge South Africa 1929 Script error: No such module "convert". 1,876 tons
File:Beit bridge2.jpg
 [29]
Sydney Harbour Bridge Sydney, Australia 1932 Script error: No such module "convert". Total weight of fabricated steelwork 51,000, weight of steel in the arch 38,000 tons
File:Sydney harbour bridge new south wales.jpg
 [24]
Grafton Bridge Template:NSWcity, NSW, Australia 1932 Script error: No such module "convert". It is a dual level road and rail Bascule Bridge, the upper deck carrying a roadway and the lower level carrying the rail line and foot bridge.
File:GraftonBasculeBridgeSpanLiftingCirca1932.jpg
 [30]
Lambeth Bridge London, England 1932 Script error: No such module "convert". 5 spans, 4,620 tons, (Road)
File:Lambeth Bridge upstream side1.jpg
 [31]
Memorial Bridge, Bangkok Thailand 1932 Script error: No such module "convert". 1,100 tons, (Road)
File:สะพานพุทธ เปิดสะพาน 1954.jpg
 [32]
Khedive Ismail Bridge Cairo, Egypt 1933 Script error: No such module "convert". 3,000 tons
File:Kasr Al Nile Bridge.JPG
 [33]
Newport bridge Middlesbrough 1934 Script error: No such module "convert". The central lifting span Script error: No such module "convert". wide, weighing Script error: No such module "convert".; the towers are Script error: No such module "convert". high. The total weight is 8,000 tons.
File:Tees Newport Bridge-1200.jpg
 [34]
Birchenough Bridge Zimbabwe 1935 Script error: No such module "convert". 1,242 tons.
File:Birchenough Bridge 2020.jpg
 [35]
Storstrøm Bridge Denmark 1937 Script error: No such module "convert". 21,000 tons, (Railway and Road)
File:Storstrømsbroen (Denmark).jpg
 [36]
Chien Tang River Bridge China 1937 Script error: No such module "convert". 16 equal spans, 4,135 tons, (Railway and Road)
File:Puente Qiantang.jpg
 [37]
Adomi Bridge (originally Volta Bridge) Atimpoku, Ghana 1957 Script error: No such module "convert". arch bridge with roadway suspended from arch
File:Adomi Bridge at Atimpoku.JPG
 [38]
Silver Jubilee Bridge Runcorn and Widnes, England 1961 Script error: No such module "convert". Road
File:Silver Jubilee Bridge, Runcorn at night (geograph 4431283).jpg
 [39]

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Dorman Museum

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In 1904 Sir Arthur Dorman of Dorman Long gave the Dorman Museum to Middlesbrough in honour of his youngest son, George Lockwood Dorman, an avid collector who died in the Boer War. Amongst the museum's exhibits is a collection of ceramics from the local Linthorpe Pottery, which was known for its iridescent glazes which, at the time, were not produced anywhere else in Europe.[40]

Dorman Long Tower

The Dorman Long tower was built from 1955 to 1956 as a coking plant for steel production.[15] The tower was an early example of brutalist architecture.[41] It was scheduled to be demolished in 2021 due its poor state of repair[23] and granted Grade II listed status, in an emergency listing by Historic England on 10 September 2021.[15] The emergency listing cited its significance as a "recognised and celebrated example of early Brutalist architecture", a "nationally unique surviving structure from the twentieth-century coal, iron and steel industries" as well as "for its association with, and an advert for, Dorman Long which dominated the steel and heavy engineering industry of Teesside".[15]

In one of her first acts as Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries revoked the listingTemplate:Sndamidst accusations of "cultural vandalism"Template:Sndenabling demolition of the building to be scheduled.[42] The tower was demolished between 00:00 and 00:20 on 19 September 2021 in a series of controlled explosions.[43]

References

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  1. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  3. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  4. ↑ Cleveland Bridge history Template:Webarchive
  5. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  6. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  7. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  8. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  9. ↑ a b c Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  10. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  11. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  12. ↑ Script error: No such module "template wrapper". Template:Link note
  13. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  15. ↑ a b c d e Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  20. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  25. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ Structurae database
  27. ↑ The Dessouk Railway Bridge Over the Nile. A Description of the Bridge and of the Construction Methods Adopted. Published by Dorman Long & Company Ltd
  28. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ Bridging the Limpopo The Brisbane Courier, 18 June 1928
  30. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  31. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ Bridges: A few examples of the work of a pioneer firm, published by Dorman, Long, 1930
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  35. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  36. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  37. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  38. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  39. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  40. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  41. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  42. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  43. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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External links

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