Steelworker at forge tending a rolled steel plate, Consett Iron Company, 1957

Steelworker at forge tending a rolled steel plate, Consett Iron Company, 1957. In 1840 a group of entrepreneurs, who introduced the first blast furnaces to Britain, set up the Consett Iron Company which exploited local supplies of ironstone and coal. Consett was a company town with most of the workforce employed at one of the iron or steel plants. Consett was until the 1960s one of the premier world producers of steel. This close knit community was devastated by the closure of the last steel plant in the town, in 1980. Photograph by Walter Nurnberg (1907-1991) who transformed industrial photography after WWII using film studio lighting techniques. Photographie ©SSPL/NMeM/Walter Nurnberg