Robert Hadfield
| Sir Robert Hadfield, Bt | |
|---|---|
| Born | 28 November 1858 Sheffield |
| Died | 30 September 1940 Surrey |
| Nationality | United Kingdom |
| Engineering career | |
| Significant projects | manganese steel silicon steel |
| Significant awards | Bessemer Gold Medal (1904) Elliott Cresson Medal (1910) John Fritz Medal (1921) Albert Medal (1935) Fellow of the Royal Society[1] |
Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield, 1st Baronet FRS[1] (28 November 1858 in Sheffield – 30 September 1940 in Surrey) was an English metallurgist, noted for his 1882 discovery of manganese steel, one of the first steel alloys. He also invented silicon steel, initially for mechanical properties (patents in 1886) which have made the alloy a material of choice for springs and some fine blades, though it has also become important in electrical applications for its magnetic behaviour.[2]
Contents
Life
Hadfield was born 28 November 1858 in Sheffield. Hadfield's father, also named Robert Hadfield, owned Hadfield's Steel Foundry in Sheffield and was one of the first manufacturers of steel castings. The younger Hadfield took over the business in 1888 and built the firm into one of the largest foundries in the world. Between 1898 and 1939 he lived at Parkhead House in Whirlow, Sheffield. He published over 200 papers on his metallurgical research. He died 30 September 1940 in Surrey.[2]
Honours
Hadfield was knighted in 1908 and made a baronet, of Sheffield in the West Riding of the County of York, in 1917. He was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1909,[1] a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1912 and a Honorary member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR in 1933.[3] He was awarded the John Scott Medal of The Franklin Institute in 1891. He was awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal in 1904[4] John Fritz Medal in 1921 and the Albert Medal (RSA) in 1935, both for his contributions to metallurgy.
He is commemorated in the Sir Robert Hadfield Building at the University of Sheffield, which contains the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. There is also a wing at the Northern General Hospital named after him.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Geoffrey Tweedale Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London Vol. 40, No. 1 (Nov., 1985), pp. 63-74 "Sir Robert Abbott Hadfield F.R.S. (1858-1940), and the Discovery of Manganese Steel"
- ↑ The big encyclopaedic dictionary (in Russian)
- ↑ H. M. Cobb (2012) "Dictionary of Metals" (ASM International) p 308
External links
- Articles with hCards
- No local image but image on Wikidata
- 1858 births
- 1940 deaths
- English businesspeople
- British metallurgists
- Fellows of the Royal Society
- Baronets in the Baronetage of the United Kingdom
- Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
- Honorary Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences
- Bessemer Gold Medal
