The Darlaston based Bills & Mills steelworks at The Green were purchased by the Lloyd family  for a quarter of a million pounds when its owner Samuel Mills retired.

Charging a blast furnace.

The name was changed to the Darlaston Iron & Steel Company and rapidly expanded.

The number of puddling furnaces grew to 43 with 17 reheating furnaces, 8 rolling mills, a drawing-out forge, 63 steam engines, including three 70hp. blast engines for the blast furnaces. Rails were laid to all parts of the works.

Soon after its opening in 1879, the factory consisted of a steel foundry, three forges and a fitting shop. Steel was melted and refined in a small gas-fired open hearth furnace. A tilting machine was added for drawing out steel and for making steel forgings. By 1900 the forges had been replaced by a machine shop and an improved fitting shop.
      

Read an illustrated article about F. H. Lloyd & Co. Ltd. from the "South Staffordshire Institutions and Trades Illustrated" of about 1900.

The business was extremely successful and a foundry for producing small castings was added in 1909. By 1912 the factory produced 2,000 tons of steel castings each year, and during the 1914-18 war, production concentrated on cast steel shells.

Some of the staff during World War One: back row left to right: number 3- Billy Fisher, number 4- M. H. Dale, number 6- Joe Davies, number 8- Jack Chorley. Middle row left to right: number 1- Arthur Crawford,  number 2- ? Blakesly,  number 3- Billy Dudley, number 6- Teddy Walker, number 7- Harry Sanders, number 10-Walter Clifford. Front row left to right: number 1- ? Griffith, number 4- Mr. Clifford senior, number 5- Lizzie Long (Horace Morgan's wife). Courtesy of Wendy Marston.

Another group of staff from around World War One. Front row left to right: number 2- Jack Davies, number 3- Harry Parsons, number 6- Billy Dudley. Courtesy of Wendy Marston.

Another photo from World War One. The building in the background on the right is the old canteen. Wilf Brown is at the controls of the steam lorry. Courtesy of Wendy Marston.

An advert from 1913.

Francis Henry Lloyd (born in 1844) died after a railway accident in 1916 and was replaced by his son, Daniel Charles Lloyd, who lived at Tettenhall, Wolverhampton. He would leave home at a quarter to eight each morning and catch the tram to Wolverhampton, the train to Wednesbury, and presumably the tram to James Bridge via Darlaston. After the return trip each afternoon, he arrived back home around 6 p.m.

The senior partner, John Hemming, died in the early 1920s. After his death, Daniel Charles Lloyd became Chairman and Managing Director. Daniel's wife Hilda was convinced that Francis Henry Lloyd got leukaemia from standing too close to the new X-ray machine, bought to detect faults in castings.

Francis Henry Lloyd also founded the Weldless Steel Tube Company at Wednesfield, which was taken over by Tube Investments in about 1927.

An advert from 1916.

After the depression of the late 1920s production greatly increased with over 13,000 tons of steel products being produced annually.

Their success was no doubt helped by the excellent management-employee relations that always prevailed at the works. A training scheme for young men began at the factory, and by the time the recession had ended, the firm had a large number of skilled workers.

Tapping a furnace to produce pig iron.

Tapping an electric arc furnace at F. H. Lloyd.

In the early 1930s the company started to produce heavy castings for mechanical excavators and earth-moving machines for an engineering firm in Lincoln.

The company's staff magazine "The Steel Casting" appeared in 1938, around the same time as many operations in the factory were reorganised.

Mr. A. B. Lloyd made an exploratory visit to America to discover how large American engineering companies were organised. He visited Bucyrus Erie Company, manufacturers of surface, and underground mining equipment, including steam shovels, draglines, hydraulic excavators, and mining trucks. He also talked to engineering consultants.

The consultants began their investigation on April 1st, 1938, which resulted in the formation of a central production department to take responsibility for the coordination of production throughout the works.

A standards department was also created to oversee and standardise production times. Internal order forms were redesigned, and a printing machine was installed to print them.

Before the reorganisation, productive effort was measured by tonnage produced, which was misleading, due to the increased use of intricate steel castings with lighter sections.

Under the new scheme, man hours were taken into account when considering the efficiency and output of each department.

The reorganisation ensured that every department was kept fully employed without congestion, and an improved standard of service was given to customers.

The staff magazine.

The installation went well. Within 14 weeks of the initial order the furnace was in operation. The furnace was charged by a swing roof, actuated by a hydraulic ram, which also swung the electrode gear. The steel scrap used to charge the furnace was loaded into a bucket with drop-bottom doors, secured with a hemp rope.

The bucket is swung into position in readiness for charging.

The winch motors controlling the electrodes.

The roof, the body of the furnace, the electrode holders, the doors, and all metal parts exposed to heat were water-cooled.

The hearth was lined with refractory material to remove as much sulphur and phosphorus from the charge as possible.

The charge was heated by the current flowing through the graphite electrodes, arcing across the gap between the electrodes and the charge.

The gap had to be precisely maintained to supply the correct amount of heat.

The transformer and automatic electrode control.

The machine shop.

The average time taken from charging to tapping was about three hours, giving an output of one ton per hour.

The furnace was mainly used for the production of carbon steels, but also for the alloy steels which were being developed at the factory.