Obituary: Peter Birtles, industrialist

Peter Birtles, who has died at 73, was an industrialist who for headed up Sheffield Forgemasters, perhaps the most famous of all the city’s engineering companies.

He spent the vast part of his working life at the firm, eventually becoming its managing director.

It was in 2005, by which time he was a non-executive director, that he partnered the then chief executive, Graham Honeyman, and chairman, Tony Pedder, in a management buyout which rescued the firm from administration.

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 following decade and specialising 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 Forgemasters in 1984. He became managing director in 1988 and led the company’s entry into the world nuclear forgings market, pioneering sales to Japan for domestic nuclear power generating apparatus.

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

His work helped raise Sheffield’s profile as a major exporter to India, China, Russia and elsewhere, and he initiated the triennial International Forgemasters Meetings, which would become world’s leading forum on the process of open die forging, taking place at venues across the globe. Forgemasters has led the gathering since 2003 with Mr Birtles acting as its chairman for many years.

In 2017, his strong Christian faith led him to launch, alongside Tony Pedder, the South Yorkshire Chaplaincy and Listening Service, a charity that provides confidential pastoral care to many of the region’s industries.

Mr Birtles was married to Linda and is survived by his two sons, Matt and Tim.