The outbreak of the First World War in 1914 caused a major disruption to Lysaght's commercial plans. The Orb's output was turned over to the production of steel for trench plates, helmets and other military hardware including vast quantities of cartridge brass. The war had a severe impact upon the companies export trade especially in the Australian market which entirely depended on Britain for steel imports. Once peace returned Lysaght's main priority was rebuilding its international business.

In 1921 the company established an Australian subsidiary with a brand new galvanising works in Newcastle, New South Wales. Many of the experienced workers form the Orb and their families emigrated to form the nucleus of the work force to operate the new mills. The company went on to acquire the Dominion Sheet Metal Corporation, Hamilton, Canada in 1924 and constructed a new galvanising work in Buenos Aires, South America, in 1930 to which black sheets were regularly exported from Newport. The foreign plants had little impact upon the output of the Orb which was busy fulfilling demand from newly emerging domestic markets, but the loss of foreign demand for galvanised products which were now supplied from their local mills had a major impact on the St Vincent's works which had previously supplied the export trade. In 1930 the St Vincent's were closed and the companies headoffices were moved to the Orb.

The 1920's also saw some major changes to the company at home, in 1921 Lysaght's joined the combine of Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds, Ltd, although the company was to remain an independent entity still under the leadership of W.R Lysaght. The company also benefited from the demand for a range of newly emerging steel products. The formation of the Central Electricity Generating Board and the development of the "National Grid" for high voltage AC distribution in 1926 led to a rapid and sustained demand for Transformer grade steels. As one of the few works in the country capable of their production the Orb was quick to take advantage of the new market. The main key to the works success between the World Wars was the automotive industrys demand for sheet steel. As car ownership in Britain became popular for the first time the demand for automotive grade steels took off. The Orb installed new 72" mills in 1928, which produced the widest rolled steel in the world at the time, which were highly sought after by car makers.

As the company flourished, the work force at the Orb peeked at over 3,500 men and women. Lysaght's prided itself on it's worker relations, during the General Strike in 1926 the company closed the works for 9 days rather than see their workers strike maintaining its much prized industrial relations record. The company provided excellent facilities for its workers a small workings mans club had been provided on Jenkins Street from the first days of the Orb, It was reconstituted in 1928 in the newly built W.R Lysaght Institute on Corporation Road. The institute had been constructed as a memorial of W.R Lysaght's fifty years as the company's chairman and was financed jointly by the company and workers contributions. The institute stood in 8 acres of ground near the work's main gates and provided a public bar, smoking room, lounge, billiards room, skittle alley, reading room and recreation hall within the elaborate building. Surrounded by tennis courts, bowling green, putting green and ornamental garden.

Many industrial concerns had their works football teams, but the Orb's made a major contribution to the sporting life of Newport. Almost as soon as the companies football loving workers from the midlands arrived in South Wales a work's football team was formed, initially nicknamed the "Iron Sides" in 1912 the team became the core of the newly formed Newport County AFC, the majority of the teams early players were Midlanders to be found in the workforce of the Orb and the team's nickname remained the "Ironsides" for many years because of their links to the works. The club's chosen colors were amber and black, opinion is divided whether they were chosen in honor of Wolverhampton Wanderers or Newport Rugby Football Club who both use the same colors, but for many years copies of the Saturday night the football edition of the Wolverhampton Express & Star was shipped by express train to the newsagents along Corporation Road.

Rising demand for the Orbs products threatened to outstrip the production capabilities of the works traditional hand operated rolling mills. To meet the ever increasing demand several several of the mills were mechanised in 1933 with the installation of chain driven sheet feeds and elevated returns which increased the mills production capabilities while reducing the number of operators. The company also installed the countries first four-high mechanical cold-reducing mill capable of rolling wide highquality auto steel.

In january of 1939 the Orb once again became involved in war work, as the storm clouds of WWII gathered the works were engaged in the production of heavy corrugated iron sheeting for anderson shelters and during the course of the next six years the Orb contributed to the countries war effort by producing jerry can's, ammunition boxes and landmine's. The work's mills also rolled large quantities of Duralumin and stainless steels for airframes along with cartridge brass used in he 20mm shells for the RAF's fighter aircraft used in the battle of Britain. In recognition of its contribution to the war effort, the Orb was visited by the Royal family in March on 1944. King George the VI, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Elizabeth were shown around the works by R P Perry MBE the works manager and Mr Tom Crowther, mayor of Newport. Although the visit was kept secret for security reasons work had spread into the community and the Royal Family were greeted by large crowds.

After the second world war the company made the decision to specialise in electrical steel production at the Orb. Electrical steels are specialty steels manufactured in cold-rolled strips or laminations often less than 0.30 mm thick used in the laminated cores of power transformers, and the stator and rotor parts of electric motors. However the largest change in works history was just around the corner, In 1949 the post war Labour government announced its intention to nationalise the Iron and Steel industry. When the Iron and Steel act came into effect on the 15th of February 1951 the Orb Steel Works was taken over by the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain. Eventually the Orb became separated from the rest of the former Lysaght's empire and found itself merged into the Steel Company of Wales one of the new nationalised industries subsidiary companies. The conservative party had vigorously opposed the nationalisation of the steel industry and when they were reelected later in the year they immediately made plans to return the industry to the private sector.

The Orb remained part of the Steel Company of Wales when it was sold back into the private sector, specialising in the production of Electrical steels and a new cold rolling mill for their production was erected at the site during the early 1950's, this mill is still in operation today. The companies time in private ownership lasted until 1967 when the British steel industry was nationalised for a second time, the Orb now found itself in the ownership of the British Steel corporation. The following decade was hard on the steel Industry and the loss making British Steel decided to concentrate steel making in the united kingdom in five areas, one of these was the South Wales which secured the future of the Orb while many steelworks across the country were closing. During the 1980's the Conservative government embarked on a program of nationalisation and in preparation for British Steels eventual sell off the corporation concentrated on its core activities which lead to the sale of the Orb works which emerged as Orb Electrical Steels Ltd.

The new company did not remain independent long and merged with the expanding European Electrical Steel's group which was in turn taken over by Cogent a wholly owned subsidiary of Corus. a move which reunited the Orb with the remainder of British Steel which had merged with the dutch steel maker Koninklijke Hoogovens N.V. to form Corus in 1999. In 2004 Cogent embarked on a major restructuring and investment program at the Orb, the first significant investment in the works since the 1960's. The project included the sale of the oldest parts of the works on a 23 acre plot known as monkey island, included in the sale were the administration building's which were housed in Pill farm house which had survived since 1895, the training center and steel packaging plant.

I visited the Orb Steel works with another photographer shorty after the site had been sold off for redevelopment, I knew very little about the steelworks before the visit so once on site I was intregued by the administration buildings I was'nt expecting what looked like a farm house when visiting a steelworks so we made our way over to these first. Once in sidethe building we enterd the former reception area which just like the rest of the offices was striped out shell of a bland modernised office very little of the buildings original carachter remained. Out in the offices hall ways a notice board still had some pinned up greeting cards from staff bidding farewell to the works, some after 30 years service. Throughout the office were scattered reminders of the works centaury of history folders from the 60's carried the name of the Steel Company of Wales, Reports form the 1970's compiled for British Steel and a Cogent Mug perhaps used only a weeks before. The real gem of the office building was a dust filled archive room tucked away at the back of the building apparently forgotten when the office was cleared, on it's shelves were reports dating back to 1930's and Lysaghts' ownership.

Alongside the original Pill Farmhouse a second office building had been built once from the inside this building appeared to have been built in the 1930's perhaps coincideing with Lysaghts' headquarters moving to Newport in 1930. This second office building was just as empty as the farmhouse, even the oak paneling and marble fireplace in the board room was piled up ready for removal.

Outside the administrative buildings lay a small sports field which was over grown and neglected beyond this was the training school where we headed next. The training school was a substantial brick building which appeared to have been built in the years following the second world war. Inside the training center contained a large hall flanked on both sides with small classrooms. The hall was filled with abandoned training tool, lathes, drills ect along with some more unusual items like a cut away internal combustion engine possibly from a original Mini. The classrooms were fitted out for the different trades employed in the steel works one for the electricians and another filled with ARC welding benches. Behind the hall a larger classroom was fitted out as a lecture theater where the firms apprentices did their training in years gone bye.

Leaving the training center we moved on to the factory proper, very little had been left behind in the unwanted buildings, machine pits marked out where where machines had once stood but all that remained in place was a battered old generator in one of the halls, apart from this the only indication of the heavy industry that once took place within its walls was an over head 10ton crane. Behind the two machine floors roughly on the site of the original "race" was a long thin factory floor, there was nothing left to suggest what its original purpose was but a small office within was labeled "packaging" and abandoned rolls of Corus packing tape and storage bays marked out on the floor indicated that this hall was last used as the goods outward loading bay. The only things left for shipment were a few milling machines packed up on pallets. Having spent a few hours within the silent buildings of the Orb disturbed occasionally by the sound of industry in the active parts of the steelworks next to us, it was time for us to leave. Not long after our visit the farm house buildings were gutted by fire and by July of 2008 the whole site had been demolished and flattened, the oldest parts of Lysaghts' Orb Steelworks due to be come the site of 550 homes.