1920 Deloro Smelting and refining Co. looking east. Building with cupolas is silver plant. Cobalt oxide behind water tower
For many in Marmora, Deloro is the quaint little village to the east of Marmora, once known for mining and processing, and later a catastrophic pollution problem that set the Canadian government back millions of dollars in clean-up costs. But unbeknownst to many is the global importance that Deloro represented as a bustling centre of processing and manufacturing, contributing to the war effort and the world economy.
Here we present an article by Robin Riddihough, whose father was a key figure in the expansion of Deloro into the United Kingdom
DELORO GOES GLOBAL !
By Robin Riddihough
The gold mine that opened just east of Marmora in 1868 was named by combining two Spanish words: DEL meaning ‘of the’ and ORO ‘gold’. The gold was geologically associated with arsenic which then had to be removed by heat and condensed in large wooden chambers.
Lots of shafts were sunk but the gold soon worked out. Fortunately new life was injected into the mine by the discovery of silver and cobalt ores elsewhere in Ontario with the same arsenic problem. They were brought to the Deloro Smelting and Refining Company (financing by M.J. O’Brien) for treatment. In the case of cobalt, the ore was crushed and roasted, mixed with sulphuric acid and calcined to form a salt dissolved in water. The cobalt oxide was filtered off and finally turned into cobalt metal by heating with charcoal.
There was no immediate demand for this new metal but in 1907 Elwood Haynes in the USA, patented an entirely new cobalt/chromium/tungsten alloy which he named “Stellite”. In 1910 he granted a Stellite manufacturing licence to the Deloro company in exchange for a supply of cobalt for his own company in the USA.
“High speed” (extra hard wearing) steel had been recently invented (1898) but the highly superior properties of Stellite quickly revolutionized the metalwork industry. It vastly improved such things as the output of shell turning lathes during World War 1 and the productivity of drilling for oil in the USA.
Somewhere along the way a sample of Stellite bars cast in graphite moulds was sent from Deloro to Messrs. Alfred Herbert in Coventry, England. My grandfather, Tom Riddihough, was Chief Chemist and used to relate how Mr. Alfred came into the laboratory one morning and threw down a piece of metal saying it was the “latest tool from America”!
It took several months to analyze this Stellite but by that time it had been tried out on the lathes and ordered in bulk. At the end of the World War 1, it was decided in Canada that it now made sense to set up a Deloro Smelting and Refining sales office in England.
The first, very small, office was opened in Birmingham in 1919 and held 500lbs of Stellite bars and rods shipped from Deloro, Ontario. With a staff of only 3 people it developed machinery to cut and grind the Stellite for a growing group of clients. Sales steadily increased and greater quantities of Stellite were required by businesses such as Fords and a number of companies in Germany. Larger premises and staff soon became essential and in 1924 a 14 year lease was taken on a building in Hubert Street, Birmingham.
Just a mile from the centre of the city, the premises consisted of 3 storey terrace dwelling house with a driveway at one side. The backyard was roofed over to house the foundry, the whole operation being approximately 30 ft. wide and 100 ft. deep. On one side was a woodyard and some stables - a prolific source of flies in the summer!
A new Director, Mr. G.E. Bell, was sent over from Canada. Even during the trade slump of the 1930’s, Deloro Smelting and Refining’s British business continued to grow and in 1933 the staff was enlarged. By 1934 there were 25 employees consisting of five salesman and twenty staff (including my father, Maurice Riddihough, as Metallurgist). History records that at one point there was actually only one skilled Stellite welder and when an important job was held up by his absence, he was found to be in prison and had to be bailed out to get the work completed. Moulding materials changed and the necessary skills to produce Stellite for a range of uses rapidly evolved. In 1936 the appointment of an experienced Sales Manager put Deloro’s Stellite into a prominent position on the British market in the days prior to World War 2. One of the first big successes was ensuring that Deloro’s Stellite was used in the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s aircraft engines.
Robin Riddihough, born in Birmingham, UK in 1938, probably owes his existence to Deloro. His father, Maurice, graduated with a Masters degree in Metallurgy in the “dirty” 1930s, got his first real job with Deloro Smelting and Refining in Birmingham, and married Robin’s mother in 1935. He stayed with Deloro Stellite UK until he retired in 1970 as Technical Director.
Robin graduated in Geophysics in London, England went on to work for research establishments in Italy, England, Ireland, USA and Canada. His career spanned the Plate Tectonic “revolution” in earth science and involved work in the Mediterranean, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. He spent time as a Director-General and Chief Scientist in the Geological Survey of Canada in Ottawa, retiring in 2001. His “re-discovery” of Deloro came from regular travel to Toronto on Highway 7.
1930’s UK Advert by Deloro Smelting and Refining, Canada
1937, Deloro Smelting and Refining, Shirley, Birmingham,UK.
With all this success, during 1934 it became clear that a new works building was going to have to be found. A site in a new factory estate at Shirley, a few miles south of Birmingham, was chosen. A new building, custom designed by one of its employees, was completed in 1937.
During the two years before war broke out, industrial activity in the UK grew rapidly and sales of Stellite tools and rod in the UK followed. In 1939, to meet demands for more precision products, the number of employees was increased to 55.
War with Germany broke out in September 1939 but German bombers did not arrive overhead until a year later. Although some nearby houses were destroyed, the factory suffered no damage. A “Home Guard” squad and Air Raid Protection rota was established, the building was painted with camouflage and a surrounding (very smelly) smoke-screen maintained.
(My father, Maurice Riddihough, left end middle row)
Sales of Stellite rods increased enormously during the war and they were officially adopted by the War Department for the hardfacing of valves and other wearing parts of army equipment. By 1944 Rolls Royce was using Stellite in their Spitfire engines and for the precision casting of blades for their new Nene Jet Engines. Contracts with Ever Ready batteries were also expanding. The building was now completely full with 3 shifts per day, seven days a week. (Some building expansion was requested but it took until 1947 before it actually happened).
Transatlantic air travel, 1946, a converted Lancaster bomber via Reykjavik
gold in quartz from the original gold mine in deloro, Ontario, discovered in 1868. presented to maurice riddihough, Technical director of deloro stellite (UK) in 1946 during his visit to its parent company, the deloro smelting and refininf company in deloro (part of the M.J. O’Brien “empire”)
Following the end of the War in 1946, the English branch of Deloro Smelting and Refining was legally incorporated in the UK as Deloro Stellite, although still directed from Canada. My father (now the senior Metallurgist) was sent over on a special visit to Deloro in Canada to “see how it was all done”.
He was given a wonderful Ontario welcome with fishing trips on Beaver Creek, Moira River and the Trent, bowls on the Deloro course and all sorts of parties, some even dress-up ones! Along with all the technical information and “know-how” needed to start planning for expanded Stellite investment casting in the UK, he was also presented with a sample of the original gold discovered at Deloro back in the 1800s (donated to the Marmora Historical Foundation).
Christmas 1947 brought a very special Riddihough memory (UK rationing had now become worse than during the War), the sending of Food Parcels by Deloro Smelting and Refining in Canada to all the Deloro Stellite staff in BIrmingham. I well remember our much examined parcel sitting on a top shelf in the kitchen - to be opened only for very special occasions! Staff gratitude was expressed by sending the Canadian company a case of books for Deloro’s library and school.
Deloro Stellite UK staff taking home food parcels from Canada
Jack Carter (later Director of Deloro Stellite UK), Freddie Bell, Jack Shannon, Maurice Riddihough, Rita ? at Deloro, 1946
DID YOU KNOW? In 1909 when the Eastern Canada Association was the only professional hockey league and Renfrew's application for admission was rejected, J. Ambrose O'Brien almost single-handedly organized the rival National Hockey Association and was instrumental in founding the Montreal Canadiens to play in the new league.
In 1948 the UK government restricted the use of Canadian dollars for importing Stellite rods. This required the transfer of furnaces from the Canadian company to England for on-site Stellite production in Britain. The first investment cast Stellite tools had been made in Ontario in 1941 but by 1949 they were also being made in Birmingham. Experience in developing wear-resistant Stellite alloys grew and by 1950 the UK company had an exclusive contract with Rolls Royce for engine valves. “Offshoot” companies were developed in Germany and Italy.
Opportunities continued to grow quickly. By 1954 it was clear that in response to demands for an increasing range of Stellite wear-resistant alloys for everything from trench diggers and aircraft engines to hip replacements, both the Canadian and UK branches of the company needed to expand. In Canada in 1956, Deloro Smelting and Refining left Deloro and moved to a new plant in Belleville. In the UK, Deloro Stellite purchased a new site near Swindon in Wiltshire in 1960 and started construction of a custom built factory for 6-700 employees. It was opened in 1962 by the Canadian High Commissioner to the UK with Ambrose (son of M.J O’Brien) in attendance.
INSCRIBED STELLITE BAR GIVEN TO INVITED GUESTS AT THE 1962 OPENING OF THE DELORO STELLITE FACTORY, sWINDON, uk
One of the challenges of the ultra-hard wearing properties of Stellite is that grinding and shaping it is neither easy nor simple. Direct creation of a Stellite product such as a turbine blade demands using the ancient “lost wax” process (used by sculptors for thousands of years) – making a perfect wax shape that is then enclosed in moulding material. The wax is removed (“lost”) by pouring molten Stellite into the mould that then cools precisely into the required original shape – a process called investment casting.
Apart from rapidly growing industrial uses, the use of Stellite for knee and hip replacements in the UK expanded until it was estimated that by 1969, Swindon was producing 300 per week for one of the major Orthopoedic Hospitals.
In 1970, my father Maurice Riddihough, now Technical Director, retired after over 30 years with the company, almost certainly the only surviving employee of the Deloro Smelting and Refining that started in a little house in Birmingham. However in retrospect (although he never mentioned it) 1970 was also the year in which both the Canadian and British “Deloro Stellite’s” were “taken over” by the British Oxygen Company – it was perhaps time to move on.
The 1970s ushered in over 50 years of global expansion, up to 100 different Stellite alloys for special uses, changes in ownership and sometimes changes of name such as Deloro Wear, Deloro Coatings and Deloro Microfusions. In 2012, Kennametal acquired the Deloro Stellite Group for the equivalent of Can$450 million that then employed 1300 people in the USA, UK, Canada, Germany, Italy, India & Shanghai.
deloro general store 1946, dELORO, oNTARIO
In 2015 the European businesses of Deloro were sold again to Madison Industries. The banner of Deloro in Germany is now “to develop future technologies, reach for the stars”. In a statement about their history they assert ”for over 115 years, Deloro has been the trusted partner worldwide when it comes to protection against corrosion, abrasion and high temperature stability”.
Their 115 years takes us back to the Deloro Smelting and Refining Company and the first production of Stellite in Ontario. The name of DELORO has certainly come a long way from a little gold mine just east of Marmora!
