BSC was formed from the assets of former private companies which had been nationalised, largely under the Labour government of Harold Wilson, on 28 July 1967. Wilson's was the second attempt at nationalisation, the post-war government of Clement Attlee had created the Iron and Steel Corporation of Great Britain in 1951 taking public ownership of 80 companies but this had been largely reversed by the following Conservative governments of the 1950s with only Britain's largest steel company, Richard Thomas and Baldwins, remaining in public ownership.