It is astonishing how such a physically solid and robust institution as an iron foundry could disappear so completely, leaving barely a trace 50 years later.
I worked at an iron foundry in Oldbury in the West Midlands’ Black Country in the late 1960s. It operated there for 64 years, helping hundreds of working families to put a roof over their heads, food on the table and clothes on their kids’ backs. It ceased operations in 1974.
Fast forward 50 years, where today I am corresponding with Professor Mark Duffield of Bristol University, an expert in industrial history and the changing workforce in the second half of the 20th century. He is interested in my eye-witness accounts, photos and recollections.
But there is a problem. We can’t find any trace of the old foundry. We can identify the site it used to occupy, but of the former physical structure there is no trace. Fifty years after it closed, a newish housing estate now occupies the southern half of the old site while several small warehouses, garages and workshops occupy the northern half. The massive sheds, furnaces, cranes and big machines that I remember are all gone. There is no visible evidence that this was once a thriving business in a significant local industry, a focus for the local community and an important factor in their lives.
I guess it’s very much a symptom of how history gets written and preserved – the deeds of ‘important’ people are recorded and remembered; the deeds and achievements of working class people are overlooked and forgotten.
As I write, Prof Duffield and an industrial archaeologist colleague are conducting a field trip to explore the site to see if they can find any physical evidence of the foundry that stood on it for over 60 years.
Archaeology? This is in my living memory!
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Photos from 1967-69: 1. The business end of the two cupolas (iron melting furnaces); 2. Big Joe tapping out the molten iron; 3. tapping out the slag; 4. casting with a two-handed shank; 5. bench moulder Sam at his workbench; 6. Sam casting his moulds with a pot ladle; 7. Munsih Ram casting his moulds; 8. high angle view of the floor moulding area, overhead ladle crane in the foreground; 9. casting a floor mould from a three and a half ton crane ladle.
