The Consett Iron Company Ltd was a major United Kingdom industrial undertaking based in the Consett area of County Durham. The company traded as colliery and limestone quarry owners and iron and steel manufacturers[1]. The company was registered on 4 April 1864[2] as successor to the Derwent & Consett Iron Company Ltd. This in turn was the successor to the Derwent Iron Company, founded in 1840. The Consett Iron Company was absorbed into British Steel in 1967.
The company’s seven collieries and various coke ovens passed to the National Coal Board on nationalisation in 1947. The Consett Iron Company itself was nationalised in 1951, becoming part of the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain, was denationalised shortly afterwards, and renationalised in 1967.
British Steel Consett Works was closed in 1980 by the Thatcher government as part of its neoliberal rationalisation plan, and its works were subsequently removed from the landscape.