Sheffield, England born Harry Brearly discovered stainless steel in 1913. In an experiment, he found that steel's corrosion resistance increased when the chromium content is raised to 12 percent or more. He is seen as the person who laid the foundation for the development of various stainless steel grades.

The development of stainless steel almost came to a complete standstill during the First World War. By the late 1920's it was found that two grades of stainless steel namely martensitic stainless steel and austenitic stainless steel were the most versatile and useful. Martensic stainless steel has a chromium content of between 13 and 18 percent while austenitic stainless steel contains 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel.

In today's terms stainless steel is used as a generic term to describe corrosion resistant steel that has a minimum chromium capacity of 10.5 percent. The chromium creates a passive and self renewing chromium oxide film around the steel at atomic level and this prevents the iron from rusting.

Development of stainless steel still continues today and stainless steel is mainly divided into austenitic, ferritic and martensitic, duplex and precipitation hardening categories.