Tributes on death of Forgemasters chief ‘who preserved hundreds of jobs’

AN INDUSTRIALIST who led Sheffield’s most famous engineering company has died at 73 following a short illness, his family said.

Peter Birtles spent most of his working life at Sheffield Forgemasters, eventually becoming its managing director.

In 2005, as a non-executive director, he partnered the then chief executive and chairman in a management buyout that rescued the firm from administration.

The present chief executive, David Bond, said: “He was an integral part of the Sheffield story, committing his working life to the engineering and steel industry and he will forever be an important part of this company’s history.”

Born in Sheffield in 1946 and educated at High Storrs Grammar and Sheffield University, he graduated in metallurgy and subsequently trained in general management.

He took on metallurgical training roles at Osborne Steels in the 1960s, moving into sales management during the 1970s and specialised in exports to the Far East.

After a series of management and production roles at Osborne

Steels he moved to Firth Rixson before starting at Sheffield Forgemasters in 1984. He became managing director in 1988.

His later work as a consultant to Forgemasters led him in 2005 to take on the role of non-executive director, a position he held until his retirement in 2016.

Dr Graham Honeyman, head of international business development for Forgemasters, said: “Peter Birtles never sought the limelight for his work. He was a quiet, unassuming man with a passion for good. His belief and enthusiasm was his driving force, not public recognition. Yet his personal efforts have helped to preserve hundreds of jobs and recreate state-of-the-art engineering in Sheffield.

“He had encyclopaedic knowledge of specific markets and was known the world over by people who understood large-scale engineering.”