Dorman Long & Co was a UK steel producer, later diversifying into

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

building. It was once listed on the

London Stock Exchange London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange in the City of London, England, United Kingdom. , the total market value of all companies trading on LSE was £3.9 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Pa ...

History

The company was founded by Arthur Dorman and Albert de Lande Long when they acquired ''West Marsh Iron Works'' in 1875. In the 1920s Dorman Long took over the concerns of

Bell Brothers Losh, Wilson and Bell, later Bells, Goodman, then Bells, Lightfoot and finally Bell Brothers, was a leading Northeast England manufacturing company, founded in 1809 by the partners William Losh, Thomas Wilson, and Thomas Bell. The firm was fo ...

and

Bolckow and Vaughan Bolckow, Vaughan & Co., Ltd was an English ironmaking and mining company founded in 1864, based on the partnership since 1840 of its two founders, Henry Bolckow and John Vaughan. The firm drove the dramatic growth of Middlesbrough and the prod ...

and diversified into the construction of bridges. In 1938 Ellis Hunter took over as Managing Director and he continued to lead the business until 1961. Tyne Bridges 01

In 1967 Dorman Long was

nationalised Nationalization (nationalisation in British English) is the process of transforming privately-owned assets into public assets by bringing them under the public ownership of a national government or state. Nationalization usually refers to pri ...

, along with 13 other British steel-making firms, becoming subsumed into the government-owned

British Steel Corporation British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

. In 1982 Redpath Dorman Long, the engineering part of the business, was acquired by Trafalgar House who in 1990 merged it into Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company in

Darlington Darlington is a market town in the Borough of Darlington, County Durham, England. The River Skerne flows through the town; it is a tributary of the River Tees. The Tees itself flows south of the town. In the 19th century, Darlington under ...

Iron and steel

Iron-making has been known in Cleveland since the Romans found iron slags in

North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is the largest ceremonial county (lieutenancy area) in England, covering an area of . Around 40% of the county is covered by national parks, including most of the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors. It is one of four cou ...

, with small-scale iron-making known to have taken place at

Rievaulx Rievaulx ( ) is a small village and civil parish in Rye Dale within the North York Moors National Park near Helmsley in North Yorkshire, England and is located in what was the inner court of Rievaulx Abbey, close to the River Rye. The populat ...

and Whitby Abbeys and at Gisborough Priory in the 17th century. Some of the key events connected with iron-making in Cleveland: 1837: The first

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U ...

ironstone mine opens, at Grosmont, for the Losh, Wilson and Bell ironworks. 1841:

open the first ironworks in

Middlesbrough Middlesbrough ( ) is a town on the southern bank of the River Tees in North Yorkshire, England. It is near the North York Moors national park. It is the namesake and main town of its local borough council area. Until the early 1800s, the a ...

. 1850: 8 June – The Discovery of the Cleveland Main Seam of Ironstone at Eston by Ironmaster John Vaughan and mining engineer John Marley both of Bolckow & Vaughan. The Cleveland iron rush begins. 1865: 30 blast furnaces operate within six miles (10 km) of

and one million tonnes per annum (TPA) of iron are produced to make the area one of the world's major centres of iron production. 1879:

Sidney Gilchrist Thomas Sidney Gilchrist Thomas (16 April 1850 – 1 February 1885) was an English inventor, best known for his role in the iron and steel industry. Life Thomas was born at Canonbury, London, and was educated at Dulwich College. His father, a Welshman, w ...

arrives in

and introduces the first commercial steel. 1903: Partial amalgamation of Bell companies with Dorman Long. SydneyHarbourBridgeandOperaHouse IB

1917: The

Redcar Redcar is a seaside town on the Yorkshire Coast in the Redcar and Cleveland unitary authority in the county of North Yorkshire, England. It is located east of Middlesbrough. The Teesside built-up area's Redcar subdivision had a population of ...

steel plant is opened, making steel in the

open hearth process An open-hearth furnace or open hearth furnace is any of several kinds of industrial furnace in which excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of pig iron to produce steel. Because steel is difficult to manufacture owing to its high melt ...

. 1928-9: Dorman Long takes over residues of Bell and Bolckow Vaughan. 1946: Dorman Long purchases of land between the Redcar and Cleveland Works to build the Lackenby development. 1955: The Dorman Long tower, a combined coal silo, firefighting water tower, and control room, was built on the Teesside steelworks site. 1967: Dorman Long, South Durham Steel Iron Co, and Stewarts and Lloyds come together to create British Steel and Tube Ltd. 1967: The steel industry is nationalised and the

is born. 1989: Company is privatised becoming British Steel plc. 1990: Merged with The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company, Darlington. 1999: British Steel plc merges with the Dutch steel and aluminium company Koninklijke Hoogovens to become Corus Group. 2015: Former Dorman Long Steel plant on Teesside ceased production after SSI mothballed the Redcar works following a global downturn in the price of steel and later announced its UK arm had gone into liquidation. 2021: Cleveland Bridge goes into administration. 2021: The Dorman Long tower is demolished, despite its Grade II listed status.

Bridge building

The most famous bridge ever constructed by a Teesside company was Dorman Long's

Sydney Harbour Bridge The Sydney Harbour Bridge is a steel through arch bridge in Sydney, spanning Sydney Harbour from the central business district (CBD) to the North Shore. The view of the bridge, the harbour, and the nearby Sydney Opera House is widely regarded ...

of 1932, of similar construction to but, contrary to popular belief, not modelled on the 1928

Tyne Bridge The Tyne Bridge is a through arch bridge over the River Tyne in North East England, linking Newcastle upon Tyne and Gateshead. The bridge was designed by the engineering firm Mott, Hay and Anderson, who later designed the Forth Road Bridge, a ...

, a construction regarded as the symbol of Tyneside's Geordie pride, but also a product of Dorman Long's Teesside workmanship. The greatest example of Dorman Long's work in Teesside itself is the single-span Newport Lifting Bridge (a Grade II Listed Building). Opened by the Duke of York in February 1934 it was England's first

vertical lift bridge A vertical-lift bridge or just lift bridge is a type of movable bridge in which a span rises vertically while remaining parallel with the deck. The vertical lift offers several benefits over other movable bridges such as the bascule and swi ...

List of bridges constructed

''The following is a list of some of the bridges built by the Dorman Long: it is not fully comprehensive.''

Dorman Museum

In 1904 Sir Arthur Dorman of Dorman Long gave the Dorman Museum to

in honour of his youngest son, George Lockwood Dorman, an avid collector who died in the Boer War. Amongst the museum's exhibits is a collection of

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain, ...

from the local

Linthorpe Pottery Linthorpe Art Pottery was a British pottery that operated between 1878 and 1890 in Linthorpe, Middlesbrough. It produced art pottery, and is especially known for the early collaboration of the designer Christopher Dresser; many of the early w ...

, which was known for its iridescent glazes which, at the time, were not produced anywhere else in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located enti ...

Dorman Long Tower

The Dorman Long tower was built from 1955–56 as a coking plant for steel production. The tower was an early example of

brutalist architecture Brutalist architecture is an architectural style that emerged during the 1950s in the United Kingdom, among the reconstruction projects of the post-war era. Brutalist buildings are characterised by minimalist constructions that showcase the ...

. It was scheduled to be demolished in 2021 due its poor state of repair and granted Grade II listed status, in an emergency listing by

Historic England Historic England (officially the Historic Buildings and Monuments Commission for England) is an executive non-departmental public body of the British Government sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. It is tasked w ...

on 10 September 2021. The emergency listing cited its significance as a "recognised and celebrated example of early Brutalist architecture", a "nationally unique surviving structure from the twentieth-century coal, iron and steel industries" as well as "for its association with, and an advert for, Dorman Long which dominated the steel and heavy engineering industry of Teesside". In one of her first acts as Culture Secretary, Nadine Dorries revoked the listingamidst accusations of "cultural vandalism"enabling demolition of the building to be scheduled. The tower was demolished between 00:00 and 00:20 on 19 September 2021 in a series of controlled explosions.

References

External links

{{Authority control Companies based in County Durham Companies based in Middlesbrough British companies established in 1875 Companies formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange Construction and civil engineering companies of the United Kingdom Structural steel 1875 establishments in England Construction and civil engineering companies established in 1875 Engineering consulting firms