Robert Abbott Hadfield

English metallurgist

• Born: November 28, 1858
• Birthplace: Attercliffe, near Sheffield, England
• Died: September 30, 1940
• Place of death: Kingston Hill, Surrey, England

Hadfield’s discovery of manganese steel ushered in the age of alloy steels, which have proven to be essential to the development of modern industrial technology and weapons.

Early Life

Robert Abbott Hadfield was the only son of Robert Hadfield and Marianne Abbott. His father was the owner of Hadfield’s Steel Foundry and one of England’s pioneers in the manufacture of steel castings, an important step in the development of the English arms industry.

After studying at the Collegiate School in Sheffield, Hadfield chose to forgo further formal education at either Oxford or Cambridge, probably an early indication of his belief that learning by doing was superior to acquiring knowledge solely from books. Instead, in 1875 he briefly apprenticed with the local steel firm of Jonas and Colver. He also received private tuition in chemistry and established a personal laboratory in the basement of the family home. After only a few months at Jonas and Colver, Hadfield entered the family business, while at the same time initiating his systematic research into alloys. Combining a tremendous capacity for work with a practical interest in the efficient organization of labor, Hadfield managed to be highly productive both as a businessperson and as an experimental metallurgist.

Life’s Work

It was during a visit to the Paris Exhibition in 1878 that Hadfield learned of the researches of the Terre Noire Company regarding the introduction of manganese into steel. They had discovered that adding up to 3 percent manganese hardened steel, but increasing the amount beyond that level left the steel extremely brittle. Hadfield decided to expand upon the French experiments by combining both manganese and silicon with steel in varying amounts.

Except for a break in the summer of 1882 to visit American steel-making facilities, especially those in Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Philadelphia, Hadfield worked on the first phase of his experiments on steel alloys for approximately four years. He increased the percentage of manganese considerably, ultimately discovering in late 1882 that 12 to 14 manganese produced a steel alloy of novel properties, relatively soft, yet resistant to crushing and abrasion. He patented his discoveries in 1883-1884, while spending five additional years confirming his results. Not until 1887 did he publicly display his new product.

At the age of twenty-four, Hadfield had taken responsibility for the family firm because of his father’s failing health. Upon the death of his father in 1888, he became chairman and managing director of Hadfield’s Steel Foundry. Having discovered manganese steel was only the first step for a practical businessperson. Hadfield still had to find commercial uses for it. He turned to the United States, which had impressed him greatly during his visit, as a potential market. (He would later turn to the United States for his bride, marrying Frances Belt Wickersham of Philadelphia in 1894.)

The first attempted commercial application of manganese steel was railway car wheels, but the alloy proved unsatisfactory. Hadfield quickly learned, however, that it was superior to other metals for railway rails and switches. Other uses for the alloy were in ore-crushing machinery, paper-pulp beaters, and burglar-proof safes. The mining industry was revolutionized: Manganese steel dredge buckets could be twice as large and operate at much greater depths than their predecessors. The alloy also proved to be ideal for tank treads, steel helmets for soldiers, and other forms of modern military technology.

Another Hadfield discovery during the 1880’s was a low-carbon silicon steel alloy. Although patented in 1883, silicon steel attracted little interest until the first decade of the twentieth century. Again, the United States provided the market. Silicon steel proved to be the solution to energy losses in alternating-current transformers, increasing the efficiency of the transformers from 68 to 99 percent.

Hadfield’s metallurgical research generally followed a standard pattern. Having decided to investigate the influence of a given element on steel, he would create a large number of alloys, steadily increasing the proportion of the added element. Each alloy would be tested for its mechanical, electrical, and magnetic properties, with an eye for possible industrial applications. Later in his career, Hadfield would collaborate with physicists in his investigations, providing them with alloys for experiments, for example, on the effect of very low temperatures on metals. He also became extremely interested in the history of metals and encouraged archaeological research into the antiquity of iron.

Success as a metallurgist was complemented by success in business. During his lifetime, combining great energy, technical expertise, and enlightened labor policies, Hadfield turned the family firm into one of the world’s largest steel foundries. In 1891, he introduced the eight-hour day into his firm, one of the earliest examples of this reform. Not surprisingly, such policies were rewarded by a loyal workforce.

Photographs of the mature Hadfield show a high forehead, hooded eyes, and a full mustache. The impression is more of a scientist than a captain of industry. The elderly Hadfield looked much the same, except that the mustache had turned gray.

Hadfield won numerous honors. The Iron and Steel Institute awarded him its Bessemer Gold Medal in 1904. Knighted in 1908, he was made a baronet in 1917. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1909, in recognition of his contributions to the field of metallurgy, and served as president of the Faraday Society from 1913 through 1920. In 1939, he was awarded the freedom of the city of Sheffield. In 1940, Hadfield died at home, on September 30.

Significance

Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield was an important figure in the maturation of the British steel industry. When he entered the family firm, the Sheffield foundries were very traditional in their methods and their products. Trial and error was the system that governed the firms that had made Sheffield the world’s leading steel-making center during the first half of the nineteenth century. There had been little or no interaction with the scientific community. Hadfield helped change that. Combining a systematic experimental approach, seemingly boundless energy, and an eye for the ever-increasing American market, he initiated the age of alloy steels.

Hadfield’s genius did not lie in his methodology, which was essentially to interrogate nature slowly but surely, but in his rejection of his contemporaries’ tendency to accept unproven assumptions about steel alloys rather than conduct tests and in his enthusiastic recognition of the potential of his discovery when others were indifferent. He saw the revolutionary possibilities when most steel makers did not. Once he proved the economic value of his experiments, however, others followed his example. The most significant of the later breakthroughs was the discovery of stainless steel by a fellow resident of Sheffield, Harry Brearley, in 1912.

Alloy steels have proven vital to the development of modern technology. In the United States in particular, the expansion of the railway system during the late nineteenth century and the progress of electrification during the early twentieth century were both dependent on Hadfield’s discoveries. Indeed, so was the British military, which utilized the alloys for defensive purposes, such as steel helmets, and offensive purposes, such as armor-piercing shells. Hadfield’s work, of clear benefit in many ways, helpful in the scientist’s unraveling of the mysteries of metals, could also be applied in destructive ways. In that property it was not unique.

Bibliography

Carr, James C., and Walter Taplin. A History of the British Steel Industry. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1952. A standard history for the period after the mid-nineteenth century that puts Hadfield’s work in perspective.

Desch, C. H. “Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield.” Revised by Geoffrey Tweedale. In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. This brief biography summarizes Hadfield’s life and achievements.

“From Hammers to Gammas.” Professional Engineering 11, no. 15 (August 5, 1998): 15. Discusses the family-owned Hadfield East Hecla steel works at Tinsley, Sheffield, England, including information on the equipment, machinery, and technology used there. Includes background information on Hadfield’s career and management of his family’s company.

Hadfield, Robert A. Metallurgy and Its Influence on Modern Progress. London: Chapman and Hall, 1925. Presents Hadfield’s own views on his work and its impact.

Smith, Cyril S. A History of Metallography: The Development of Ideas on the Structure of Metals Before 1890. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960. Provides an extensive discussion of metallurgical theory and the state of knowledge prior to Hadfield’s experiments.

Tweedale, Geoffrey. “Metallurgy and Technological Change: A Case Study of Sheffield Specialty Steel and America, 1830-1930.” Technology and Culture 27 (April, 1986): 189-222. Tweedale looks at the changing state of the Sheffield steel industry and the importance of the American market for the firms.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. “Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield, F.R.S. (1858-1940), and the Discovery of Manganese Steel.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 40 (November, 1985): 63-73. An account of Hadfield’s early experimental work based on an analysis of his diaries, notebooks, and letters.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Steel City: Entrepreneurship, Strategy, and Technology in Sheffield, 1743-1993. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. Charts the rise and fall of Sheffield’s steel industry, including information on Hadfield and his family’s steel works.