Today’s meeting was attended by 18 members with apologies from ??
Photos and words by Tony Taft
Today we had a talk by Ian Handford on the life of Harry Brearly the inventor of stainless Steel.
Ian is well known to the club and lives in the Redcliffe hotel , he is a member of the Torbay Civic Society and so he started his talk on three of the Blue Plaques that are of people of interest that once lived in Torbay and will be placed on the walls of the properties where these people lived.
The main subject of his talk was about the extreme difficulties that Harry had to endure getting his process of the manufacture of rustless Steel as it was known then to be accepted by the manufacturers of the time especially the cutlery industry.
Harry made the mistake of not getting a patent on his process and as such did not benefit financially as much as he could have.
Today stainless Steele is used all over the world and has even been sent into space
Ps
So next time you are drinking your brew of earl grey out of a shiny stainless tea pot think of Harry had it not been for him you would be drinking out of a rusty pot.
Ian gave a good talk without the the use of visual aids and kept all of us interested. We hope he makes a return visit one day.
Paignton Probus Club 