People dislike industrial cities because of the polution, noise and busy traffic. But Charleroi has none of these problems. The air is clean, the steel industries are silent, people have moved away or stay home because they have no jobs. What's left is a giant steel factory, a monument of a once glorious economical past.

From the city center it's only a short walk along the Sambre towards the abandoned steel factory.

Unloading and fall of scrap.

Belgian steel

Between 1823 and 1827 the first steelworks appeared in Charleroi. Soon the Société Anonyme John Cockerill with factories in Seraing (near Liège) and Charleroi became the worlds largest steel industry. Belgium became the second largest economical power after the United Kingdom. A hundred years later after a number of fusions and take-overs the company name was Cockerill and it employed 18000 workers. The demand of steel declined and Charleroi could not stand the competition of facturies that were located at a sea-port. In the 1980ties the state took over the factories. Then in 1998 the French Usinor took over 75% of the shares. Gradually parts of the steel factories and other dependent factories were closed. In 2007 the last blast furnace closed down.

Links

• About John Cockerill
• Encyclopedia of the nations
• Belgian locomotives (French)
• Railway museum Brussels North. The museum currently has no website.
• Railway museum De Mijlpaal in Mechelen (Dutch)
• Railway museum PFT-TSP in St. Ghislain is under construction and has limited opening hours (French and Dutch)

John Cockerill

John Cockerill was born in 1790 in Haslington, England. His father built machines for the textile industry in Verviers. Together with his brother James, John took over the company in 1813. In 1917 king Willem I of the Netherlands asked the brothers to modernize the steel-industry in Liège (Luik.) They built the first blast furnaces that used cokes from the nearby coalmines for fuel. John Cockerill introduced mass production of iron and steel in Belgium. He also founded factories where locomotives and train supplies were made for the then upcoming railroads. In 1824 he opened a shipyard in Antwerp. But after some time he ran into financial difficulties and investors lost confidence. Disappointed he went to St. Petersburg in Russia to investigate the possibilities to make a new start. Unfortunately he became ill and he died in 1840 in Warsaw on his way back.

• TOP
• NEXT