| Administrative History | The Stanton Company completed a Blast Furnace Plant at Stanton in 1846. By the 1950s the firm had become the largest producer of Foundry Pig Iron in Great Britain. Stanton was also the largest cast iron pipe manufacturing business in Europe.
In 1918 the Stanton Ironworks Company acquired the whole of the share capital of the Holwell Iron Company Limited (near Melton Mowbray), following this in 1920 by the purchase from James Oakes & Company of their Riddings Foundry and Pipe Shops (Pye Bridge, near Alfreton). In 1932 it brought the Wellingboro' Iron Company Limited into the organisation and entered into an agreement with Cochranes (Middlesbro') Foundry Limited in 1933.
In 1939 the Ordinary Share Capital of the Stanton Ironworks Company Limited was acquired by Stewarts and Lloyds Limited, which became the largest manufacturers of Steel Tubes, Cast Iron Pipes and Concrete Pipes in the country.
The Stanton Ironworks Co Ltd in Stanton-by-Dale, Ilkeston (incorporated in 1855), and the Staveley Coal and Iron Company in Staveley, near Chesterfield (incorporated in 1863), were both nationalised under the Iron and Steel Act in 1951, and became part of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain.
Because iron and steel companies had wide ranging activities over and above iron and steel making, nationalisation did not follow the model used in, for example, the coal industry, and instead the legislation made the Iron and Steel Corporation the sole shareholder of the nationalised iron and steel companies. When the conservative government returned to power, the corporation was superseded by the Iron and Steel Holding and Realisation Agency, which sold the shares into private ownership again. In 1961, Stewarts and Lloyds purchased Stanton Ironworks and the Staveley Iron and Chemical Co from the Holding and Realisation Agency to form Stanton and Staveley.
In 1967 Stewarts and Lloyds and all its subsidiaries, including Stanton and Staveley Ltd, was nationalised and became part of the British Steel Corporation. The firm was passed back into the private sector in 1985 when it was acquired by Pont-á-Mousson SA. The new name became Stanton plc. In 2000 it became part of Saint-Gobain Pipelines plc. |
| Custodial History | These records were deposited in Derbyshire Record Office by Stanton Plc at various dates between August 1993 and January 1999. Further records were received from Chesterfield Museum and Art Gallery between September 2000 and January 2023; those received in November 2015, December 2022 and January 2023 can be found under the reference D3808/UL. Another two consigments were received from Stanton Bonna Concrete (successor company to Stanton Plc) and a member of the public, in November 2015 and May 2018 respectively. Further Stanton Ironworks records were donated by the company in Nov 2024. |