Maxmilian Mannaberg
Maxmilian Mannaberg (1857-1930)
1930 Obituary [1]
MAXIMILIAN MANNABERG died on December 18, 1929, at his London residence, after a long illness; he was seventy-two years of age.
Born at Leipnik, Moravia, in 1857, he was educated at Leoben and Vienna. At an early age he was invited by Percy Gilchrist, joint-inventor with Sidney Gilchrist Thomas of the basic process of steel manufacture, to build and operate the steelworks of the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company at Wishaw in 1884.
In 1887, at the request of the British Government, he visited India to report on the possibilities of establishing a steel-making industry in that country.
On the completion of that mission he was invited by Gilchrist to start at Frodingham the new works to operate the basic open-hearth process. At that time the Frodingham Works comprised only four blast-furnaces, with a total production of 900 to 1,000 tons of pig iron per week; only 350 men were employed, and when the steelworks were started a production of 400 tons a week was considered an ideal to be aimed at.
When Mr. Mannaberg retired from active control in 1920 the steelworks were producing over 3,000 tons per week, and normally 3,000 men were employed. The difficulties in developing the new material were not only technical but commercial, and Mr. Mannaberg personally played a most important part in finding markets.
In conjunction with the late B. H. Thwaite he was a pioneer in the development of gas-engine practice in iron and steel manufacture. The Lincolnshire iron and steel industry had been always faced with the difficulty that its ore supply required a high coke consumption, and the fuel had to be transported from afar, and it was for this reason that at an early date Mr. Mannaberg adopted the principle of utilising blast-furnace gas to produce power in the gas engine.
After a visit to the United States in 1905, Mr. Mannaberg introduced the Talbot continuous process at Frodingham, and during the war period (he had become naturalised long before) he was responsible for the construction of the Appleby Iron and Steel Works.
He was one of the founders of the British Engineering Standards Association; he played a big part in the organisation of the National Federation of Iron and Steel Manufacturers, and was personally responsible for the formation and development of the Fuel Economy Committee of the Federation. He was the first chairman of the Iron and Steel Industrial Research Council, which arose out of the activities of that Committee. He was also one of the founders of the Institute of Fuel, of which body he was elected a vice-president in 1928; he was also a member of the National Fuel and Power Committee, and of the Area Gas Supply Committee.
For many years Mr. Mannaberg had been a prominent member of the Iron and Steel Institute; he took up membership in 1888, was elected a Member of Council in May 1912, and became a Vice-President in March 1920. Owing to his activities in these organisations he took the national point of view; his aim was always to develop the utmost technical and commercial efficiency of the industry, and to make the greatest possible use of all the resumes available. His death is a serious loss to the British iron and steel industry, but he leaves behind him an influence which will be of lasting benefit to it.