Story:Aishah Baroo
During his early childhood, Harry Brearley, discoverer of Stainless Steel, moved from Spital Street to Marcus Street, Pitsmoor (according to the 1891 Census) which was where he spent the first 20 years of his life along with his parents and eight siblings. Life in Burngreave meant that Brearley was exposed to industrial and manual trades from an early age.
Sheffield was one of the cities that became renowned for its Steelworks during the age of the industrial revolution and it was steel, coal and iron which were the core industries in what was once a thriving economy. The industrial revolution had certainly left its mark in Burngreave and this is evident by the immense number of factories that Brearley was surrounded by in his childhood. Some of these included Don Steel Works and Wicker Iron and Engineering works (See 1893 map above).
The historical records and trade directories show that Brearley's neighbours worked in a wide spectrum of professions from shopkeepers, railway guards and iron workers, to the more unusual job of a cow keeper. Other occupations that went unrecorded in the official census records, but which were still common, was causal work such washing people's clothes, which Brearley's mother did to help raise her large family or collecting and selling bundles of local firewood door-to-door, which was what Brearley recalls doing as a child.
In his autobiography, Stainless Pioneer, Brearley remembers one specific incident as a child when he was fascinated by the carved and dipped shape of sandstone that was used as water bowls for a neighbour's hens. He tried to create a similar shape by chipping away using a hammer and a long nail as a chisel but quickly realised that the nail easily became blunt. After sitting on a wall outside his home watching workmen building the wall around the MSL Railway (Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire), he was able to use their chisels after he helped them to make tea. He then made some amendments to his own tools by using heat and water, and by experimenting realised what process made the hardest nail.
Influenced by his surroundings in Burngreave, his sparks of genius as a child and inquisitive nature would lead him on to do great things. He went on to discover stainless steel, that can not only be found in homes in Burngreave but also homes across the globe.