Having whet our whistle for the history of steelmaking, we thought it was time to get into the history of Corby. One of the project partners for Steel Town Tales, is the North Northamptonshire Council funded Corby Heritage Centre run by Billy Dalziel. Housed in the oldest residential building in Corby, the Heritage Centre has a number of exhibits telling the history of the town, including a large section on the steelworks and the people who came to work there, but what we are really after is the archive!
Boxes of photographs, documents and artefacts line the shelves of the archive. We’ve spent a good number of days looking through, talking to Billy and learning the stories behind the items in the archive. One of the outputs of this project, on the very website you are reading this blog, is to house an archive of pictures, interviews and other artefacts that contributed to the creation of the VR Experience. We will be updating this archive throughout the life of the project so, depending when you are reading this, have a look here and see what’s already made it into the archive.
To take you through everything we’ve seen in the archive would take an age (and spoil some of the wonder you can have by discovering them in the archive yourself), but we wanted to share a couple of the pieces that particularly resonated with us.
Certificate of Long Service
Amongst the various files and pictures lies a stained oak frame. Inside is a highly ornate, Colourful certificate of long service
Stewarts and Lloyds Limited - Colourful certificate of long service.
The level of detail absolutely astounds us. We never would have thought this would be the equivalent of a “sorry you’re leaving” card and a bunch of flowers. It would look more at home along the walls of a banqueting hall in a medieval castle. You’ll notice the five coat of arms dotted around the border. These are (clockwise from top) Glasgow, the City of London, Australia, South Africa and Birmingham. This reflects the history of Stewarts & Lloyds, being founded originally in South Africa, but the Glasgow coat of arms (featured prominently at the top) really speaks to Corbys reputation of “Little Scotland” - coming from the influx of Scottish workers in the 1930s to work the steel works. The thing that strikes us the most is the clear level of respect the firm had for the workers. Many people we have spoken to have talked about the steel works being a core part of who they are, and the steel works clearly knew how much the people meant to it.
Steelworkers Protective Gear
On a shelf in the archive sits, what looks like, a large rolled up ball of tin foil. As its unfurled it reveals a jacket and pair of trousers, all made of the same, shiny silver material.
Steelworkers Protective Gear - Shiny silver jacket and pair of trousers
These are the protective outfits brought in to help shield workers from the extreme heat emanating from the blast furnaces and molten steel. What really strikes us is that these only came into service in the late 1960s, nearly 50 years since the works first opened. We’ve seen archive pictures and footage before these were brought in, and the workers are walking around in waistcoats and flat caps, puffing on their pipes and staring at gleaming hot molten metal through a credit card sized piece of glass. Modern day health and safety this is not!
Having delved into the depths of Corby’s heritage there’s only one thing left on our list to set us up to tell this story - the people who live and work there. We’ve read and seen a lot of things, but the next step is to talk to the people who lived and worked here. The fire is heating up and it's time to start gathering the stories to stoke the forge.