Harry Brearley, the son of a Sheffield steel smelter, left school at 12 to go to work in one of the city’s steelworks. He was an 1AMBITION chap and started to study metallurgy at home and in evening classes. He 2GRADUAL built a reputation for expertise, and still in his 30s was chosen to run a new 3SEARCH facility funded by two of Sheffield’s largest steel companies. In 1912, he was tasked by a small-arms manufacturer to find a material that could 4LONG the life of their gun barrels. He set out to find erosion-resistant steel but found corrosion-resistant steel instead. The story goes that in 1913 he threw out some 5EXPERIMENT steel made of 12.8 per cent chromium and 0.24 per cent carbon. A few weeks later, he found it in the yard still 6SHINE as new. This apparently serendipitous discovery led to the 7TRANSFORM of the already established cutlery industry in Sheffield. Stainless steel is now used in everything from 8SURGERY instruments and turbine blades to architectural cladding.