FIFTY years ago Millom Ironworks thought it was on the brink of a technological breakthrough which would secure its financial future for years to come.

It was developing spray steel which could be produced at relatively small, traditional ironworks sites rather than at giant steel complexes.

Getting development cash was to prove a big problem as the century-old Millom Ironworks was a privately-owned plant with a technique which could prove to be a rival to the nationally-owned steel industry.

Spray steel proved to be a false dawn and Millom Ironworks closed in September 1968 but in October 1966 there was only hope of future prosperity.

The Evening Mail on October 12 in 1966 noted: “A revolutionary steel making process shown to the press today at Millom, is based on the principle of a scent spray.

“The new process, at the Millom Hematite Ore and Iron Company’s works, produces steel direct from the iron already produced at the works – without the addition of a steelworks.

“The process, known as spray steel making, has been developed by the British Iron and Steel Research Association, first experimentally away from Millom, and recently in the ironworks.

“Mr D. R. G. Davies, managing director of the Millom works, said that this was a revolutionary steel making method and the implications for the Millom works were far reaching.”

Mr Davies told the Evening Mail: “Pig iron alone is not a basis on which we are to start our second 100 years.

“There was only one answer and that was to make steel.”

The article noted: “The process is almost certain to have far reaching effects on the steel industry though Millom’s plant is the only one in operation in the world.

“Other firms are definitely interested and preliminary negotiations are sure to begin with the hope of selling the process abroad.

“Millom’s scent-spray plant uses jets of oxygen to break up white hot iron into tiny balls like a woman’s scent spray.

“Chemicals as fluxes are fed into the plant and as a result of chemical reactions, steel is produced.

“It can be seen that this is more than the basis of the steel maker’s dream – a continuous process to make steel from iron ore instead of the two-phase process in use at the moment.”

Refined steel from the Millom plant was cast into ingots.

Millom could produce 24 tons of steel per hour and by 1968 it was hoped the output could reach between 6,000 and 9,000 tons per week.