Obituary – Professor Terry Gladman MBE FREng FIMMM
Terry Gladman spent the whole of his working life in the field of steel metallurgy and in doing so gained a world class reputation.
Professor Terry Gladman MBE FREng FIMMM
1933–2021
In 1950, Terry Gladman was engaged as a metallurgical assistant at the Park Gate Iron and Steel Co, UK, and stayed with that Company until 1956, gaining his HNC in metallurgy at Rotherham Technical College and then the Associateship in Metallurgy at Sheffield University in 1956. He remained at Sheffield University for his PhD which he received in 1960 and in that same year he was appointed Investigator at the United Steel Companies Research Centre, Swinden Laboratories, UK, where he remained until his final full-time appointment as the first British Steel Professor of Metallurgy at Leeds University in 1989.
In the early 1960’s, the United Steel Companies was about to change the process route for production of its range of engineering steels at its Steel, Peech & Tozer Works in Rotherham from 18 pig iron charged open hearth furnaces to the then world’s largest electric arc furnace plant (SPEAR) with just six very large units charged with commercially available steel scrap.
Almost every department at the laboratories was engaged in some aspect of this unique proposal. Terry was appointed to the team investigating metallurgical questions by working creatively, using the techniques (then new) that became available with increasingly more powerful electron microscopy and then electron beam microanalysis. He was instrumental in the successful development of Steel, Peech and Tozer’s high strength engineering steels using just the ‘tramp’ elements in selected charges of scrap to achieve the required properties and enhanced inclusion morphologies in the end-product directly from the arc process route.
Terry remained in the metallurgy group at Swinden Labs, becoming its Head in 1976 and remaining in that post until his appointment as Professor in Leeds in 1989. He worked on many aspects of steel production and properties, including the development of niobium grain refined and control rolled steels with Irvine and Pickering which received international acclaim.
His work is widely published in more than 100 journals and in two books he wrote for the Institute, including The Physical Metallurgy of Micro-alloyed Steels (1997) and Grain-size Control (2009).
In recognition of his work, he received several awards:
• Sir Robert Hadfield Medal (Metals Society) – 1977
• John Wilkinson Medal (Staffordshire I&S Institute) – 1977
• Bessemer Gold Medal (Materials Society) – 2000
• MBE –1990
His appointment as the first British Steel Professor of Metallurgy at Leeds University was not at all surprising. He had a wealth of experience in solving metallurgical problems and had taught at the local colleges (Rotherham & Barnsley). He was also external examiner for higher degrees at many universities. At Swinden Laboratories, as I well remember, he was the man to go to when seeking explanation and understanding of some aspect of steelmaking or property. Help was always given on the spot – and with a smile.
Terry was President of the local Historical Society and author of two books on its early history. Like his metallurgical writing, there will be no doubt be much to learn from them. He was a true friend, a fine gentleman and a highly respected world-class metallurgist with a very strong commitment to family life.
Dr Frank Fitzgerald FREng FIMMM
