Jessop-Saville
Special steels and titanium manufacturer, of Brightside Works, Brightside Lane, Sheffield, with research laboratories at Whiston Grange, Rotherham. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Birmingham Small Arms Company (BSA).
1959 the three companies making up BSA’s steel group, namely William Jessop and Sons Ltd., J. J. Saville and Co Ltd., and Bromley, Fisher and Turton Ltd., all of Sheffield, were consolidated into two new companies, Jessop-Saville Limited and Jessop-Saville (Small Tools) Limited. [1]
1961 - Jessop-Saville Ltd brought into service a consumable arc vacuum melting furnace for steel and titanium (the largest outside the USA), and a high frequency induction melting furnace. Their Vacumelt G64 allow was being used for turbine blades in the proteus engine and a vacuum melted stainless stell for the casings of AGR fuel elements.[2]
1963 On 12 Apr an explosion of a titanium furnace occured at the works. An investigation was carried out and reported on by the Royal Aeronautical Establishment. Injuries were relatively minor despite nearly 30 people working in the area.[3]
1967 Edgar Allen and Co purchased Jessop's foundry interests[4], relocating Jessop's special alloy (medium frequency) melting plant to Edgar's Sheffield Road site and the 3-ton electric furnace was moved to one end of the Tropenas Melting Shop.
1967 Thomas Firth and John Brown Limited acquire Jessop-Saville Limited from BSA for £3,328,000. At about the same time, Imperial Metal Industries acquired the titanium business. [5] The steels business continued to trade as Jessop-Saville Ltd. after this change of ownership.
1992 Brightside Works demolished.[6]
Background
BSA had bought William Jessop and Sons in 1919; Jessops already owned a controlling interest (about 50%) in J. J. Saville and Co at that time. In 1926 BSA bought the remaining J J Saville shares. Thereafter, the two companies maintained their separate identities and boards of directors, but the same people acted on both boards. In 1933 Saville's works was relocated to Brightside Lane. With common management, over time, the companies drew closer together and the terms Jessop and Saville, Jessop/Saville or Jessop-Saville were sometimes used as a shorthand for BSA's steel interests. In about 1940 BSA bought Bromley, Fisher and Turton Ltd. A small firm manufacturing files, it is rarely mentioned in reports. The three companies remained separate subsidiaries of BSA, together making up the steels department or group. In 1951 steps were initiated to nationalise the three companies, but, following a general election, this was suspended later in the year and abandoned in 1953, making BSA steels one of the larger steel makers not subject to nationalisation[7]. In WWII the BSA steels group was an important supplier of austenitic steel for the manufacture of aero engine valves. The company also produced vast numbers of ball bearing housing rings and other forgings for the war effort. For more information on these constituent companies, and information sources, please refer to the Graces Guide page for each individual company.