Scunthorpe
Scunthorpe is an industrial town in Lincolnshire, England, and the county's third most populous settlement after Lincoln and Grimsby, with a population of 81,286 in 2021. It is the administrative centre and largest settlement of the North Lincolnshire district. Scunthorpe lies north of Lincoln and is between Grimsby to the east and Doncaster to the west, while Hull is to the north-east via the Humber Bridge.
Toponymy
The town appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Escumesthorpe, which is from the Old Norse Skumasþorp meaning "Skuma's homestead", a site which is believed to be in the town centre, close to Market Hill. Today Skuma’s homestead means ‘A secondary settlement, a dependent outlying farmstead or hamlet’.History
Scunthorpe as a town came into existence due to the exploitation of the local ironstone which began in 1859; iron production commenced in 1864, steel smelting in 1891.Scunthorpe's population grew from 1,245 in 1851 to 11,167 in 1901 and 45,840 in 1941. The boundaries of Scunthorpe expanded to include the former villages of Bottesford, Yaddlethorpe, Frodingham, Crosby, Brumby and Ashby. Scunthorpe became an urban district in 1891, merged as 'Scunthorpe, Brumby and Frodingham Urban District' in 1919, and became a municipal borough in 1936. Scunthorpe was originally dominated, socially, politically and culturally, by Rowland Winn, the most significant landowner in the district. By the First World War local working class culture, drawing on trade unions and the Labour Party had emerged to challenge the Conservative Party's hegemony.
Geology
Scunthorpe is located close to an outcrop of high-lime-content ironstone from a seam of the Lias Group strata which dates from the Early Jurassic period and runs north–south through Lincolnshire. Ironstone was mined by open cast methods from the 1850s onwards, and by underground mining from the late 1930s. In the 1970s the steel industry in Scunthorpe began to use of ores imported from outside the UK with higher iron content. Underground mining in the area ceased in 1981.Scunthorpe was close to the epicentre of the 2008 Market Rasen earthquake, the second largest earthquake experienced in the British Isles, which had a magnitude of 5.2. Significant shocks were felt in Scunthorpe and the North Lincolnshire vicinity. The main 10-second quake, which struck at 00:56 GMT on 27 February 2008, at a depth of, was second only to a 1984 quake, with a magnitude of 5.4, in North Wales.
Governance
Scunthorpe forms an unparished area located within the borough and unitary authority of North Lincolnshire. The town forms seven of the borough's nineteen wards, namely Ashby Central, Ashby Lakeside, Brumby, Crosby & Park, Frodingham, Kingsway with Lincoln Gardens and Town. The Scunthorpe wards elect 16 of the borough's 43 councillors. As of 2025, 27 are members of the Conservative party, and 16 are members of the Labour party. The councillors form the charter trustees of the Town of Scunthorpe and they continue to elect a town mayor.North Lincolnshire Council was based in Scunthorpe Civic Centre off Ashby Road next to Festival Gardens. It was designed by Charles B. Pearson, Son and Partners and was completed in 1962. It was the home of Scunthorpe Borough Council until 1996. It was named Pittwood House after Edwin Pittwood, a local Labour politician, who worked in the opencast ironstone workings near Normanby Park.
Civic history
In 1889 the area was included in the Lincolnshire, Parts of Lindsey administrative county. Separate local government began in 1890 when the Scunthorpe local board of health was formed. In 1894 the local board was replaced with an urban district council. At the same time the neighbouring townships of Brumby and Frodingham were also constituted an urban district. The two urban districts were amalgamated, along with the parishes of Crosby and Ashby in 1919 to form an enlarged Scunthorpe urban district. Scunthorpe received a charter incorporating the town as a municipal borough in 1936.Local authority boundary changes brought the town into the new county of Humberside in 1974, and a new non-metropolitan district, the Borough of Scunthorpe was formed with the same boundaries as the old municipal borough. The opening of the Humber Bridge on 24 June 1981 provided a permanent link between North and South Humberside but did not secure Humberside's future. To the relief of its many detractors, the county of Humberside was abolished on 1 April 1996 and succeeded by four unitary authorities.
The previous Humberside districts of Glanford and Scunthorpe, and that part of Boothferry district south of the northern boundaries of the parishes of Crowle, Eastoft, Luddington, Haldenby and Amcotts, now compose the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire. On amalgamation charter trustees were formed for Scunthorpe, and they continue to elect a town mayor.
Coat of arms
When Scunthorpe was incorporated as a borough in 1936, it also received a grant of a coat of arms from the College of Arms. These arms were transferred to the new borough council formed in 1974, and are now used by the town's charter trustees.The green shield and golden wheatsheaf recall that the area was until recently agricultural in nature. Across the centre of the shield is a length of chain. This refers to the five villages of Crosby, Scunthorpe, Frodingham, Brumby & Ashby linking together as one. At the top of the shield are two fossils of the species Gryphaea incurva. These remains of oysters, known as the "devil's toenails", were found in the rock strata from which ironstone was quarried.
The crest, on top of the helm, shows a blast furnace. This is also referred to in the Latin motto: Refulget labores nostros coelum or The heavens reflect our labours popularly attributed to the glow observed in the night sky from the steelmaking activities.
Geography
Scunthorpe lies on an escarpment of ridged land which slopes down towards the Trent. The surrounding environs are largely low-lying hills and plains. Although the town itself is heavily industrial it is surrounded by fertile farmland and wooded areas. In terms of general location it lies a mile east of the River Trent, south of the Humber Estuary, west of the Lincolnshire Wolds and north of Lincoln. The town is situated at the terminus of the M181, from Sheffield.Nearby towns and cities are Hull, Doncaster, Grimsby and York.
Scunthorpe is approximately east of South Yorkshire and south by south west to the East Riding of Yorkshire.
Climate
Like most of the United Kingdom, Scunthorpe has an oceanic climate.Average temperatures are around in the summer, and can be as low as in the winter.
Economy
Steel industry
The Iron industry in Scunthorpe was established in the mid 19th century, following the discovery and exploitation of middle Lias ironstone east of Scunthorpe. Initially iron ore was exported to iron producers in South Yorkshire. Later, after the construction of the Trent, Ancholme and Grimsby Railway gave rail access to the area iron production in the area rapidly expanded using local ironstone and imported coal or coke. Rapid industrial expansion in the area led directly to the development of the town of Scunthorpe, eventually incorporating several other former hamlets and villages, in a formerly sparsely populated entirely agricultural area.From the early 1910s to the 1930s the industry consolidated, with three main ownership concerns formed – the Appleby-Frodingham Steel Company, part of the United Steel Companies; the Redbourn Iron Works, part of Richard Thomas and Company of South Wales ; and John Lysaght's Normanby Iron Works, part of Guest, Keen and Nettlefolds.
In 1967 all three works became part of the nationalised British Steel Corporation, leading to a period of further consolidation – from the 1970s the use of local or regional ironstone diminished, being replaced by imported ore via the Immingham Bulk Terminal. Conversion to the Linz-Donawitz process of steel making from the open hearth process took place from the late 1960s onwards and was complete by the 1990s. Both the Normanby Park and the Redbourn works closed in the early 1980s.
Following privatisation in 1988 the company, together with the rest of BSC, became part of Corus, later Tata Steel Europe. In 2016 the long products division of Tata Steel Europe was sold to Greybull Capital with Scunthorpe as the primary steel production site.
In May 2019, after a drop in future orders, and a breakdown in rescue talks between the government and the company's owner, Greybull, British Steel Limited entered insolvency.
Industries associated with the steelworks include metal engineering as well as a BOC plant.
Other industries
Although the historical predominance of the steel industry made Scunthorpe a virtual monotown, there are other industries in the town. These include food production, distribution and retailing. North of the town next a waste management firm, Bell Waste Control, which services the majority of industry in Scunthorpe and the surrounding areas. On the Foxhills Industrial Park, north of the A1077 northern bypass, are many distribution companies, notably a large building owned by the Nisa co-operative type mutual organisation which has its UK headquarters there. Also on the Foxhills Industrial Park is a 500,000 square foot factory occupied by Wren Kitchens, employing 350 full-time workers.2 Sisters Food Group have a large chicken processing plant in the town. Key Country Foods produces meat products on an industrial scale. The Sauce Company produces sauces, soups and other foodstuffs for the catering and supermarket sectors. In 1947, Riley's Crisps was created in the town, moving to Colin Road before becoming Sooner Snacks in 1981. The factory is still operational manufacturing Golden Wonder crisps. Ericsson Mobile Platforms produces printed circuit boards for the telecommunications industry. There are a number of other firms, mostly involved in manufacturing and light engineering.
In the 2001 census 19.3% of the working age population were economically inactive.