Scunthorpe remembers: 50 Years since the Queen Victoria blast furnace disaster
Daughter of a steelworker killed in the 1975 blast says the anniversary is a vital moment of remembrance
Tuesday 4th November marks fifty years since one of Scunthorpe’s darkest days - the Queen Victoria blast furnace disaster, which claimed the lives of eleven men at the town’s steelworks.
Families, friends, and former colleagues are set to gather at the Appleby-Frodingham site, now run by British Steel, to pay tribute to those who died in 1975.
The explosion happened when water leaked into a torpedo ladle holding around 175 tonnes of molten metal, triggering a catastrophic blast that tore through the cast house.
Among those killed was Herbert Fish. His daughter, Tracie Maxwell, was just seven years old when she heard the news.
“I remember the knock on the door,” she said. “My mum answered it and there were two plain-clothes detectives standing there. They took my mum into the front room and told her my dad had died. She burst into tears - and it set me off crying too.”
Her father, she revealed, shouldn’t have been at work that night.
“He’d swapped a shift,” she said. “Things would have been completely different if he hadn’t gone in that night.”
“It should be remembered - not just for my dad, but for all eleven men who lost their lives,” she said. “I’m glad British Steel are doing something to mark it.”
Half a century on, Scunthorpe continues to feel the legacy of that night - a reminder of the town’s industrial past, its resilience, and the families forever changed by what happened at the Queen Victoria blast furnace.