Ministry of Power and successors: Iron and Steel Division and Minerals and Metals...

BT 255

1940-1986

These files contain papers of the Iron and Steel Division of the Ministry of Power and its successors, and includes many re-registered Ministry of Supply files (including some which have been re-registered into the I and S series, otherwise in SUPP 14).

Also contained are papers inherited by the Ministry of Power from its predecessors - the Ministry of Supply, including its Iron and Steel Board, and the Board of Trade - together with a very small number from the Ministry of Fuel and Power dealing with ties with Europe.

The files from the I and S series deal with a wide range of topics affecting the iron and steel industry, including its development and funding, and its nationalisation, denationalisation and renationalisation and the relevant legislation. Supply and demand for iron and steel, including imports and exports, are also dealt with, as are price control and scrap in particular. Relations with national bodies also figure, for example with the British Iron and Steel Federation and the British Steel Corporation, as do relations within the European Coal and Steel Community, the European Free Trade Area and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. This series also contains records of the Minister of Power's Iron and Steel Advisory Committee.

For further files of the Power Divisions see division in FV: Records of the Power Divisions and predecessors.

Papers of the Iron and Steel Boards are in:

Other files in the MM series are in FV 46 POWE 5

Papers dealing with events leading to nationalisation and de-nationalisation are in BT 231 BE 1

I&S (or IS) and MM file series

Public Record(s)

English

• Department of Trade and Industry, Iron and Steel Division, 1970-1974
• Ministry of Power, Iron and Steel Division, 1957-1969
• Ministry of Supply, Iron and Steel Board, 1946-1949
• Ministry of Supply, Iron and Steel Control, 1939-1946
• Ministry of Supply, Iron and Steel Division, 1946-1949
• Ministry of Supply, Iron and Steel Division, 1949-1951
• Ministry of Supply, Iron and Steel Division, 1951-1955
• Ministry of Technology, Iron and Steel Division, 1969-1970

1051 file(s)

Open unless otherwise stated

From 1982 Department of Industry

Topics

Trade and commerce

Europe and Russia

Aid and development

Coal

Iron, steel and metals

Series is accruing

Just before the outbreak of World War II, a system of raw material controls had been set up by the Committee of Imperial Defence, assisted by the Board of Trade, and was incorporated within the Ministry of Supply, formed in 1939. A section of the British Iron and Steel Federation formed the nucleus of an Iron and Steel Control, which was responsible for the supply and distribution of iron and steel, supervising imports and exports, and co-ordinating efforts to raise production to war tempo.

Control was wound up at the end of the war, but the Ministry continued to be concerned with the iron and steel industry, and was responsible for nationalisation in 1949 and the subsequent de-nationalisation in 1953.

In 1946, when the Ministry of Supply was reorganised to absorb the Ministry of Aircraft Production, the former's Raw Materials Department and the various specialised organisations known collectively as the Raw Materials Controls and Directorates were transferred to the Board of Trade, although the Ministry of Supply retained responsibility for iron, steel, non-ferrous and light metals.

In 1950 the Raw Materials Department was abolished and its functions distributed among the various divisions of the Industries and Manufactures Department, but less than a year later, these functions, together with almost all the controls and directorates, were transferred to the new Ministry of Materials.

In August 1954 the Ministry of Materials was abolished and the board regained its raw materials functions and organisations, with some others which the defunct ministry had acquired from the Ministry of Supply; iron and steel, which had remained with the Ministry of Supply, came to the board the following year, but passed to the Ministry of Fuel and Power in 1957. Within this matters relating to iron and steel were dealt with by the newly formed Iron and Steel Division which had responsibility for the administration of the Iron and Steel Act 1953, and in particular questions relating to supply and demand (including imports and exports); development; supplies of raw materials (including the control of prices and distribution of scrap, and the break-up of Government-owned ships for scrap); the European Free Trade Area and other international organisations.

The industry remained de-nationalised until the establishment of the National Steel Corporation under the Iron and Steel Act 1967, which also revived certain provisions of the 1949 Act. In 1969 the iron and steel functions of the Ministry of Power were absorbed within the Ministry of Technology, which was merged with the Board of Trade the following year to form the Department of Trade and Industry. Responsibility for iron and steel later passed to the Department of Industry when this department was formed in 1974.