John Edward Stead died at his residence at Redcar on October 31st, 1923, at the age of 72.
The son of a minister of the Free Church, and younger brother to W.T. Stead, the editor of the
Review of Review, he was born at Howden-on Tyne and was educated privately. After attending evening courses at Owens College, Manchester, he served his apprenticeship at an iron and steel works in the Middlesbrough district. On completion of his articles he was for a time in the service of Mr. John Pattinson, a consulting chemist and metallurgist at Newcastle-on-Tyne, and then accepted the position of analytical chemist at the Hebburn works of the Tharsis Sulphur & Copper Co. He left that company to take up a similar post with Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., first at Gorton, afterwards at Middlesbrough. In 1876 he entered into partnership with his first employer, establishing the well-known firm of Pattinson and Stead, analytical chemists, at Middlesbrough. On the retirement of the senior partner in 1905, Mr. Stead took Mr. H. Frankland, his chief assistant, into partnership, under the original style.
In the course of his long and distinguished career, he had many honours conferred upon him. The Bessemer Gold Medal was awarded to him by the Iron and Steel Institute in 1901. In 1903 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The Court of Leeds University conferred on him in 1912 the honorary degree of D.Sc.; in the following year he received the honorary degree of Doctor of Metallurgy of Sheffield University; and in 1914 the Victoria University, Manchester, conferred the honorary degree of D.Sc. He was President of the Iron and Steel Institute from 1920 to 1922. His achievements in metallurgical research gave him world-wide fame, notably his investigation into the phenomena of the after-blow in the basic-Bessemer process, and his contributions to the knowledge of crystallization effects in iron and steel, microscopic metallography, and the segregatory and migratory habits of solids in alloys.
In addition to collaborating with the late Mr. Osmond in the production of a book on the ‘Microscopic Analysis of Metals,’ Dr. Stead in the period of forty-six years published some eighty papers in the proceedings of various institutions, which covered a very wide range of subjects related to the metallurgy of iron and steel. He was in addition a man of wide culture, with recreations outside his professional work.
Dr. Stead was elected a Member of the Institution in 1900, and was transferred to Honorary Membership in 1922.
Vol. 33, Trans I.M.M., 1923-24, pp.538-9
