Robert Abbott Hadfield died at his Surrey residence, Kenry House, Kingston Hill, on September 30th, 1940, at the age of 81.
He sprang from an old Derbyshire family, which for many years was particularly associated with the City of Sheffield in various public capacities. His father, Robert Hadfield, was the actual founder of the firm of Hadfields, Ltd., which started in a comparatively small way as the ‘Attercliffe Wire Mills’ and subsequently became world-famous under the guidance and control of his more distinguished son, who succeeded his father as chairman and managing director in 1888, at the age of 30. Robert the younger was educated at the Collegiate School, Sheffield, and at a very early age gave indications of his later bent, so much so that when his father gave him the opportunity to prepare for entry at either Oxford or Cambridge he chose instead to go straight into the steel-making business which his father had meanwhile established from the modest beginning already referred to.
After a brief period of preliminary training with another firm, he entered the works in Newhall Road, Attercliffe, which were on the site new occupied by the Hecla Works of Hadfields, Ltd., and immediately interested himself in experiments directed towards the improvement of steel, which culminated in the discovery of manganese steel. The first patent in that connexion was taken out in January, 1883, and in 1888 he read a paper on the subject before the Institution of Civil Engineers. For this paper he was awarded the Telford Gold Medal of the Institution and the Railway Engineering Gold Medal of the Institute, of Transport. Coincidently with these experiments, he was also investigating the effect upon iron of the addition of silicon, which resulted in the production of silicon steel, and later he conducted researches into the conduct of alloys of steel with aluminium, chromium, nickel, tungsten, cobalt, molybdenum, copper and titanium.
He was always ready to impart his knowledge to the metallurgical world. In addition to the early paper on manganese steel already referred to, two of outstanding importance were presented to the Iron and Steel Institute, ‘Low Hysteresis Steel’ in 1889, and ‘Alloys of Iron and Chromium’ in 1892. In all he read about two hundred papers on metallurgical subjects before scientific and technical societies, and published also works on ‘Metallurgy and its Influence on Modern Progress’, ‘Faraday and his Metallurgical Researches’, and ‘Empire Development and Proposals for the Establishment of an Empire Development Board’. He was a ‘member of many learned and technical societies, including the Iron and Steel Institute, from which he received the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1904; the Institution of Civil Engineers, which awarded him the George Stephenson Gold Medal in 1899, and the Telford Gold Medal already referred to; an Honorary Member of the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the American Iron and Steel Institute, the American National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Swedish Academy, and the Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R.
He was President of the Iron and Steel Institute (in 1905 and 1906), the Society of British Gas Industries, the Faraday Society (from 1914 to 1920), and the Sheffield Metallurgical Society. He was Master Cutler of Sheffield in 1899 and was elected a Freeman of the City of London and of his native city, Sheffield, in 1939.
He was a director and chairman of the Sheffield and District Gas Co., and Vice-President of the Federation of British Industries and the British Electrical and Allied Manufacturers Association. He received a Knighthood in 1908, and was created a Baronet in 1917 in recognition particularly of his services during the Great War. His scientific distinctions included the D.Sc. of Oxford and Leeds Universities, the D.Met. of Sheffield, F.R.S., F.I.C., F.C.S., F.Inst.P., and Honorary Membership of the Institutions of Civil, Mechanical and Electrical Engineers, the Iron and Steel Institute, the Academy of Science, Leningrad, and the Norwegian Academy of Science. In 1921 he received the John Fritz Medal, the highest honour which American engineers can confer, previously awarded to only two Englishmen, Lord Kelvin and Sir William White, and in 1935 he received at the hands of H.R.H. The Duke of Connaught, the Albert Gold Medal of the Royal Society of Arts ‘for his researches in metallurgy and his services to the steel industry’. One of the most recent honours conferred upon him was the award by the Association des Ingénieurs de Liege of the Trasenster Medal and Diploma for 1938.
Sir Robert’s activities during the Great War are well known. The whole resources of Hadfields, Ltd., were concentrated on the production of war material, to a total value of about £36,000,000. He and Lady Hadfield founded a hospital at Wimereux, near Boulogne, and maintained it at their own expense, and his personal contributions to the prosecution of the war were immense. The University of Sheffield was another object of his generous benefactions to the extent of many thousands of pounds, expended chiefly in the building and equipment of metallurgical research laboratories and the promotion of additional educational, scientific and technical facilities. During the later years of his life, his activities were somewhat restricted owing; to ill-health, but he still bore his part in prosecuting the present war by contributions in service and money. Sir Robert Hadfield was elected a Member of the Institution in 1897.
Vol. 50, Trans IMM 1940-41, pp.545-7
