I live near Sheffield, UK and members of my family have worked in the local casting pit (pouring pit) refractory industry for many years. My grand dad was a blacksmith at one works where I also worked for a time. My dad and brother worked at another of the local works. I have a long standing interest in the refractory industry and in the refractory using industries such as the iron and steel, cement, glass, non-ferrous industries etc and in the technologies used in those industries. I also worked in the engineering and electronics industries and worked for many years in a consultancy role in both the public and private sector working with small firms in the UK. I’m now retired. The local refractory industry has closed down as a result of changes in steel making technology as continuous casting has replaced the ingot casting route that was formerly used and needed huge volumes of refractory bricks of the type made locally. I like to record information about those now closed works and publish these including by ensuring the Wiki pages are correct.

Sheffield was an early leader in the development of world steel because of it’s attributes - water power, coal, refractory materials such as ganister and the local pot clays. I particularly want to ensure that the Sheffield born or based steel making pioneers have appropriate and correct entries. Those Sheffield pioneers such as Thomas Boulsover, Benjamin Huntsman, Henry Bessemer, Thomas Firth, John Brown, Charles Cammell. Edward Vickers, Thomas Jessiop, Robert Hadfield, Robert Abbott Hadfield, Henry Sorby and Harry Brearley were and are important figures in world steel industry development. But the supporting industry such as the refractory industry made it all possible - no refractories no steel.