MARK

See also:

• FIRTH, CHARLES HARDING (1857– )
• MARK FIRTH (1819-1880)

FIRTH (1819-1880)  , English steel manufacturer and philanthropist, was born at Sheffield on the 25th of April 1819, the son of a steel smelter . At the age of fourteen Mark, with his brother, left school to join their father in the foundry where he was employed, and ten years later the three together started a six-hole furnace of their own . The venture proved successful, and besides an extensive home business, they soon established a large American connexion . Their huge Norfolk works were erected at Sheffield in 1849, and still greater were afterwards acquired at Whittington in Derbyshire and others at Clay Wheels near Wadsley . The manufacture of steel blocks for ordnance was the principal feature of their business, and they produced also shot and heavy forgings . They also installed a plant for the production of steel cores for heavy guns, and for some time they supplied nearly all the metal used for gun making by the British government and a large proportion of that used by the French . On the death of his father in 1848 Mark Firth became the head of the firm . In 1869 he built and endowed " Mark Firth's Almshouses " at Ranmoor near Sheffield, and in 1895, when mayor, he presented to his native place a freehold park of thirty-six acres . He founded and endowed Firth.College, for lectures and classes in connexion with the extension of university education, which was opened in 18i9 . He died on the 28th of November 188o, and was accorded a public funeral .