SIR HENRY BESSEMER, F.R.S.
AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY.
WITH A CONCLUDING CHAPTER.
*5X
^
UNIVERSITY }
LONDON :
OFFICES OF "ENGINEERING," 35 AND 36, BEDFORD STREET, STRAND, W.C.
1905.
TO THE
PRESIDENT AND MEMBERS
OP THE
IRON AND STEEL INSTITUTE
OP
GREAT BRITAIN
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED
BY THEIR OLD COLLEAGUE AND
PAST PRESIDENT
SIR HENRY BESSEMER
IN REMEMBRANCE
OF
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
CONTENTS
EARLY DAYS
PAGES
Introductory — Parentage— -Flight from Paris — Childhood and Youth at Charlton
— Early Days in London — Art Castings from Natural Objects — Copper-
coated Medallions — Acquaintance with Dr. Ure — "Lost Wax" Castings —
Dies for Stamping Cardboard - 1 to 18
CHAPTER II
THE REWARD OP INVENTION
Forged Stamps — Visit to Somerset House — The Legion of Honour — Letter to
Lord Beaconsfield (1878) — Letter to The Times — The Reward of Invention
— A Tardy Recognition — The Honour of Knighthood 19 to 32
CHAPTER III
COMPRESSING PLUMBAGO DUST, CASTING TYPE, TYPE-COMPOSING MACHINE, ETC.
Sawing Plumbago — Compressing Powdered Plumbago — Casting Type — Engine
Turning — Manufacture of Alloys — Marriage — Stamping Medallions —
Young's Type-Composing Machine 33 to 47
CHAPTER IV
UTRECHT VELVET
Stamping Utrecht Velvet — Embossing Utrecht Velvet — Terry Edging 48 to 52
CHAPTER V
THE MANUFACTURE OF BRONZE POWDER
Early Schemes for Making Bronze Powder — First Experiments — Failure —
Microscopic Examination — Fresh Attempt — The First Success — Prepara-
tions for the Manufacture of Bronze Powder — Designing Bronze Powder
Machinery — The Erection of the Machinery — Making Coloured Bronzes —
The Manufacture of Gold Paint — "Charlton House" — Introduction to
Mr. Robert Longsdon — A German Spy — A Defence of the Patent Law 53 to 85
VI CONTENTS
CHAPTER VI
IMPROVEMENTS IN SUGAR MANUFACTURE
PAGES
The Society of Arts Gold Medal Offered for Improvements — Experiments with
Canes — Invention of Cane Press — Presentation of the Gold Medal- 86 to 95
CHAPTER VII
A HOLIDAY IN GERMANY
A Police-Court Adventure — Home Again 96 to 99
CHAPTER VIII
IMPROVEMENTS IN GLASS MANUFACTURE
Optical Glass — Experiments with Viscid Fluids — Furnace for Making Optical
Glass — Mixing Materials for Glass-making — Open-Hearth Glass Furnace —
Continuous Sheet Glass Furnace — Interview with Mr. Chance — Project
for Glass Works in London — Pneumatic Glass Polishing Table — Silvering
Glass Mirrors 100 to 123
CHAPTER IX
THE EXHIBITION OF 1851
The Centrifugal Pump — The Opening Day — Consultations with Inventors —
Continuous Brakes for Railways - -124 to 129
CHAPTER X
EARLY GUNNERY EXPERIMENTS.
Rifled Projectiles — Introduction to the Emperor Napoleon — Experiments at
Vincennes with Rotating Projectile — Materials for the Construction of
Guns 130 to 137
CHAPTER XI
THE GENESIS OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS
Experiments with Reverberatory Furnaces — Early Experiments on the Bessemer
Process — Early Forms of Bessemer Converters — The Tilting Converter —
The Bessemer Steel Works, Sheffield 138 to 151
CHAPTER XII
THE BESSEMER PROCESS
The First Bessemer Ingot — The Cheltenham Meeting of the British Association —
The Cheltenham Paper, 1856 — Imitations of the Bessemer Process — The
Introduction of the Bessemer Process — The first Licensees — An Offer of
Purchase of Patents — Early Difficulties with the Bessemer Process —
Phosphoric Pig Iron — The Introduction of Bessemer Tool Steel — The
Profits of the Sheffield Works . - - - - 152 to 177
CONTENTS vil
CHAPTER XIII
BESSEMER STEEL AND COLONEL EARDLEY WILMOT
PAGES
Bessemer Pig — Bessemer Steel Works at Sheffield — The First Malleable Iron
Gun — Swedish Iron — Investigations at Woolwich — Bessemer Steel-making
at Sheffield 178 to 188
CHAPTER XIV
THE BESSEMER PROCESS AND THE WAR OFFICE
Interview with the Secretary of State for War — Early Difficulties — Steel Gun-
Tubes — Colonel Wilmot's experiments — Tests made at Woolwich - 189 to 199
CHAPTER XV
BESSEMER STEEL : THE ARMSTRONG CONTROVERSY
Pressed Steel Cups — Bessemer Steel Boiler Plates — Experiments with Bessemer
Steel — Steel Guns — Cost of Bessemer Steel — Bessemer Steel versus
Wrought Iron— Built-up Steel Guns — Bessemer Steel-making at Sheffield 200 to 215
CHAPTER XVI
BESSEMER STEEL GUNS
Bessemer Steel at Woolwich — Rejection of Delivery — Bessemer Iron and Steel —
Paper at the Institution of Civil Engineers — Steel-making at Sheffield —
Gun-making at Sheffield — Paper Read before the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers at Sheffield — The Exhibition of 1862 — Cost of Bessemer Steel
— The Sale of Part of the Bessemer Patents — Government Compensation
to the Elswick Ordnance Factory — Bessemer Steel for Guns - - 216 to 239
CHAPTER XVII
OAST STEEL FOR SHIPBUILDING
Bessemer Steel for Boiler Plates — Steel for Shipbuilding — Sir N. Barnaby on
Steel Ship-plates — Tests of Bessemer Steel Boiler-plates at Crewe - 240 to 255
CHAPTER XVIII
MANGANESE IN STEEL-MAKING
Patents relating to the Use of Manganese in Steel-making — Heath's Patent, and
Use of Manganese — Martien and Mushet's Inventions — Manganese and
Pitch — Spiegeleisen in Steel-making — Fluid-compressed Steel — The Dis-
advantages of Spiegeleisen — Franklinite — The Manufacture of Ferro-
Manganese — Swedish Bessemer Steel — The Bessemer Process in Austria —
The Neuberg Works in Austria — Honours and Recognitions — The Effect
of Manganese on Steel — Carburet of Manganese — Alloys of Iron and
Manganese — Visit to Cornwall — The Production of Bessemer Pig-iron —
Early Experiments at Ebbw Vale — Interview with Miss Mushet —
The Death of Mr. Mushet - - - 256 to 295
Vlll CONTENTS
CHAPTER XIX
EBBW VALE
PAGES
A Momentous Journey — Interview with Mr. David Chad wick — Ultimatum
Offered to the Ebbw Vale Company — Agreement with the Ebbw Vale
Company — End of Opposition - - - 296 to 303
CHAPTER XX
THE BESSEMER SALOON STEAM-SHIP
First Design of the Bessemer Saloon — Working Model of the Bessemer Saloon —
The Formation of a Company — The Design of the Hull — The Saloon —
The Control of the Bessemer Saloon — Sir E. J. Reed's Letter to The
Times — The Builders of the Ship — Financial Difficulties of the Bessemer
.Saloon Ship Company — The Collision with Calais Pier — The First Trip
of the Bessemer Saloon Steam-ship — The Second Trip — Liquidation of
the Company 304 to 326
CHAPTER XXI
CONCLUSION
List of Patents granted to Henry Bessemer, 1838-1883 — Skill as a Draughtsman
— Reminiscences — Early Struggles — First Steel Rails — Bessemer Steel at
the Exhibition of 1862 — First Bessemer Steel in the United States —
American Bessemer Plant — The Original of the Popojfrka — The "Dial of
Life" — Nasmy th's System of Puddling — The Occupation of Besserner's
Later Years — Lens and Mirror Grinding Machine — Telescope — Solar
Furnace — Diamond Polishing — Mr. W. D. Allen — Resolution Passed by
the Iron and Steel Institute on Sir Henry Bessemer's Death — Bessemer*'
Cities in the United States — A Billion Dissected — Easter and the Coal
Question — Death of Lady Bessemer — Death of Sir Henry Bessemer —
Bessemer's Parents - - - - 327 to 380
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
FIG. PAGE
Portrait of Sir Henry Bessemer - - Frontispiece
1. (Plate I.) Copy in Relief of Raphael Cartoon To face page 13
2. (Plate II.) Copy of Oval Medallion „ 13
3. Extract from Dr. lire's Dictionary, "Electro-Metallurgy" 14
4. (Plate III.) Government Deed Stamp To face page 20
5. ( „ „ ) Bessemer Perforated Stamp - „ 20
6. (Plate IV.) Facsimile of Lord Beaconsfield's Letter - „ 31
7 and 8. Method of Compressing Plumbago Dust - 37
9 to 11. (Plates V. and VI.) Reproductions of Medals and Medallions To face page 43
12 to 14. Young's Type-Composing Machine 45
15. (Plate VII.) Reproductions of Stamped Utrecht Velvet To face page 51
16. Diagram Showing Base of Pyramids for Bronze Powder 56
17. Sugar-cane Passing between Rolls . 87
18. (Plate VIII.) Side Elevation of the Bessemer Sugar-press To face page 90
19 and 20. Vertical Section and Plan of Bessemer Sugar-cane Press, 1849 91
21. Section of Fireclay Saucer and Glass Disc - 102
22 and 23. Experiment showing Air Carried into a Viscid Fluid by a Stirrer 104
24. (Plate IX.) Furnace for Making Optical Glass To face page 105
25 and 26. (Plate X.) Furnace and Rolls for making Continuous Sheet Glass „ 111
27 and 28. (Plate XL) Elevation and Section of Glass Works Designed by
Mr. Longsdon To face page 117
29 to 32. Bessemer's Pneumatic Polishing Table for Plate Glass 120
33. Section of Experimental Mortar - - 131
34. Model of Bessemer's Revolving Shot - - 133
35 to 37. (Plate XII.) Vertical and Horizontal Sections of Furnace for Malleable
Iron To face page 142
38 to 41. (Plate XIII.) Sections of Crucible with Blow-pipe, and of Forms of
Vertical Fixed Converters To face page 143
42. (Plate XIV.) Section of Converter, Ladle, and Hydraulic Ingot
Mould - To face page 146
43. (Plate XV.) The First Form of Bessemer Moveable Converter and
Ladle - -To face page 148
b
X LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS
FIQ. PAGE
44. (Plate XVI.) Early Form of Bessemer Converting Plant at Sheffield
To face page 150
45. (Plate XVII.) Bessemer Plant at Sheffield : Converters, Ladle and Crane,
and Casting Pit - To face page 150
46. (Plate XVIII.) Plan of Bessemer Plant at Sheffield - „ 150
47. Ingot Crane ; Bessemer Plant at Sheffield - - 150
48. Malleable Iron Ingot - - 154
49. (Plate XIX.) Specimens of Bessemer Steel Gun Tubes - To face page 194
50 to 55. Bessemer Steel Boiler Plate being Pressed into a Cup (1861)- 201
56. (Plate XX.) Bessemer Steel Boiler Plate Pressed into a Cup (1861)
To /ace page 202
57. (Plate XXI.) Square Bar of Bessemer Metal Twisted Cold, and Shown at
Sheffield, 1861 To face page 204
58. (Plate XXII.) Square Bar of Bessemer Steel Twisted Cold, and Shown at
Sheffield, 1861 To face page 204
59 and 60. (Plate XXIII.) Square Bars of Bessemer Steel Twisted Cold, and shown at
Sheffield, 1861 - To face page 204
61. Pressing Bessemer Steel Block for Rifle Barrel - 204
62. (Plate XXIV.) Disintegrated Wrought Iron Bars To face page 208
63. (Plate XXV.) Bessemer Mild Steel Bar, Flattened under Hammer
To face page 209
64. Particulars of Tool Steel supplied to Woolwich Arsenal, 1859 - 218
65. (Plate XXVI.) Bessemer Steel Locomotive Tyre, Tested under Hammer -
66. ( „ „ ) Section of Bessemer Steel Gun supplied to the Belgian
Government, 1860 To face page 226
67. Forged Bessemer Steel Gun, with Test Pieces - 228
68. (Plate XXVII.) Group of Test-pieces from Bessemer Gun Forgings
To face page 229
69. (Plate XXVIII.) Bessemer Steel Gun Test-piece, Shown at the Meeting of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Sheffield, 1861. To face page 234
70. (Plate XXIX.) Bessemer Steel Gun Test-piece, Shown at the Meeting of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers at Sheffield, 1861. To face page 234
71. (Plate XXX.) The Bessemer Display at the International Exhibition,
London, 1862 - To face page 234
72. (Plate XXXI.) Alleged Faulty Bessemer Plate, 1875 „ 246
73. System of Testing Bessemer Steel Plates adopted at Crewe by Mr.
F. W. Webb 251
74. (Plate XXXII.) Examples of Bessemer Steel Plate "Spun" into Vases,
etc. - To face page 253
75. (Plate XXXIII.) Test Specimens of Bessemer Steel made at Sheffield,
1859-1869 To face page 253
76. Experimental Apparatus for Exposing Molten Steel to the Action of a
Vacuum - - - - - 270
LIST OP ILLUSTRATIONS XI
FIQ. PAGE
77. (Plate XXXIV.) Reproduction of a page from the Supp lement to Dr. lire's
"Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines" - To face page 281
78. Facsimile reproduction from Bessemer's Note-book - - 284
79. (Plate XXXV.) Facsimile of Pages from Bessemer's Note-book. To face page 285
80. (Plate XXXVI). Statuary and Clock in Sir Henry Bessemer's Hall at
Denmark Hill . To face page 287
81 and 82. (Plate XXXVII.) Sections Through Early Form of Bessemer Saloon in
Still "Water, and with Vessel Rolling - To face page 304
83. (Plate XXXVIII.) Model of Bessemer Saloon, with Hull in Horizontal
Position To face page 307
84. (Plate XXXIX.) Model of Bessemer Saloon, with Hull inclined. „ 307
85. (Plate XL.) Transverse Section of Saloon on the Channel Steamer
"Bessemer" To face page 310
86. (Plate XLI.) General View of the Bessemer Saloon Steam-ship. „ 315
87. (Plate XLII.) Interior of Saloon, Bessemer Saloon Steam-ship „ 322
88. (Plate XLIII.) View of Sir Henry Bessemer's Residence at Denmark Hill
To face page 344
89. (Plate XLIV.) The Conservatory at Denmark Hill - „ 344
90. (Plate XLV.) The Grotto at Denmark Hill „ 344
91. "Dial of Life," for Mr. James Nasmyth 345
92. "Dial of Life," for Sir Henry Bessemer - 346
93. (Plate XLVI.) Facsimile of a Letter from Mr. James Nasmyth. To face page 347
94 and 95. Lens and Mirror Grinding Machine - 351
96. (Plate XLVIL) The Observatory, Denmark Hill To face page 352
97. (Plate XLVIII.) Gallery Floor of Observatory „ 352
98. (Plate XLIX.) Interior of Observatory, Ground Floor „ 352
99 and 100. The Bessemer Solar Furnace - 355
101 to 103. Diamond Polishing Machine 359
104. Method of Driving Diamond Polishing Machines - 360
105. Method of Driving Diamond Polishing Machines - 361
106. Sketches of Steel Wheel and Steel Rail; London and North-Western
Railway - 366
107. Solid Steel Column Illustrating the World's Production of Bessemer Steel
in 1892 - 376
(Plate L.) Portraits of Mr. and Mrs. Anthony Bessemer To face page 380
...
'VERSfTY
PREFACE
TT is fifty years since Henry Bessemer made the great invention which
has rendered his name famous, not only in English-speaking countries,
but also in all civilised communities, and it is seven years since he died.
If this Autobiography had dealt with the story of a lesser man, its
appearance so long after his death might have reduced its interest and
value so far as to render it scarcely worth while to place the narrative
before the reader. But lapse of time cannot tarnish the lustre of
Henry Bessemer's memory, nor can common and world- wide use of the
great invention that crowned it, render uninteresting a story of the
struggles through which he passed and the battles he had to fight before
the world became enriched by his inventive genius.
The late Abram S. Hewitt, himself an engineer of universal reputation,
and one of the pioneers of the Bessemer Process in the United States,
speaking at the American meeting of the London Iron and Steel
Institute, in 1890, said : —
A very few considerations will serve to show that the Bessemer invention takes its
rank with the great events which have changed the face of society since the time of the
Middle Ages. The invention of printing, the construction of the magnetic compass, the
discovery of America, and the introduction of the steam-engine, are the only capital events in
modern history which belong to the same category as the Bessemer process. They are all
examples of the law and progress which evolve social and moral results from material
discoveries and inventions. It is inconceivable to us how the world ever existed without the
appliances of modern civilisation ; and it is quite certain that if we were deprived of the
results of these inventions the greater portion of the human race would perish by starvation,
and the remainder would relapse into barbarism. I know it is very high praise to class the
XIV PREFACE
invention of Bessemer with these great achievements, but I think a careful survey of the
situation will lead us to the conclusion that no one of these has been more potent in
preparing the way for the higher civilisation which awaits the coming century than the
pneumatic process for the manufacture of steel .... The name of Bessemer will therefore
be added to the honourable roll of men who have succeeded in spreading the gospel of
"Peace on earth and goodwill toward men," which our Divine Master came on earth
to teach and encourage.
The words of Abram S. Hewitt are frequently quoted in the
following pages, always in the same spirit of appreciation of the great
inventor ; but on no other occasion did he so justly and clearly
crystallise his opinion of Bessemer as in the foregoing passage addressed
to the Iron and Steel Institute, at a time when all the futile attempts
that had been made to deprive Bessemer of the profit and glory of his
great invention, had faded into almost forgotten history, and its practical
outcome in the United States was measured by millions of tons of steel
every year.
On an early page of this volume the author tells us he makes
no claim to literary merit. He, certainly, was without training in the
art of writing, but the happy gift, which characterised all his mechanical
work, of instinctively selecting the simplest and best means of attaining
a given end, did not desert him here. He wrote just as he talked, and
infused into his writing the charm of his conversation. It was one of the
great pleasures of his latter years to discuss with his old and valued
friends — the proprietors of Engineering — the details of his Autobiography,
and each printed page is more or less a reflection of the man himself
in his varying moods. The eighty-five years of busy life which had
been allotted him, had in no measure dimmed his memory, or even
paled his enthusiasm : and in his Autobiography he lived over again the
ambitions of youth, the struggles of manhood, the bitterness of injustice,
the pleasure of appreciation, and the satisfaction of success. The
world, as it recollects Bessemer, only knew him as the triumphant
inventor, but in this volume we tread with him the thorny road to
PREFACE XV
success, and more than that, he shows us the seamy side of the
inventor's career.
Unfortunately, this Autobiography is not complete ; even a Chapter
of the history of the steel process is wanting — that recording its brilliant
success in the United States. Sir Henry laid down his pen only a year
before he died, but his self-told story goes no further than the episode
of the Bessemer Saloon Steamer, in 1872. After that incident was
closed he retired into private life, but not to a life of idleness. He
had many occupations : the beautifying of his home ; the installation
of a large diamond-cutting and finishing plant ; his telescope and
observatory ; his method of cutting and polishing optical lenses ; his
solar furnace ; all these and other things kept him very busy, and formed
not the least interesting part of his long life. It is unfortunate that
he has left no consecutive record of this period ; but he did leave
many drawings, letters, and other documents referring to it, and from
these has been prepared the supplementary Chapter which concludes
the present volume.
CHAPTER I
EARLY DAYS
T71OR many years past my most intimate friends have urged on me
the desirability of giving to the world an authentic account of the
origin and progress of the several inventions which together constitute
what has, by common consent, been called the " Bessemer Steel Process ; "
thus tracing back to their earliest inception the various ideas and incidents
which have led, by almost imperceptible degrees, to the development
and practical working of that great steel industry, which, in so short
a period, has spread itself over the whole of the continents of Europe
and North America.
If we contemplate the rise and progress of almost all the great
industries of the world, we find their origins lost in the mist of ages,
with but few indications remaining of their gradual progress and
development, or even of the names of those persons to whom we are
indebted for their discovery.
This difficulty in tracing the origin of inventions is not less marked
at the present day, when the increased rate of progress in all things
brings about, in a few short years, a succession of changes, which, in olden
times, centuries were required to effect ; for the inventor of to-day is
to-morrow overshadowed by the accumulated mass of improvements
that follow in the wake of every new discovery.
I well remember how the world was startled by the great discovery
of Daguerre ;* how few minds could, at the first moment of its announce-
ment, realise the wondrous fact that by the aid of chemistry combined
with knowledge, he had seized upon and trapped the fleeting shadow
on his silver plate and held it there immovable for ever.
* The production of Daguerreotype plates was announced on February 6th, 1839
B
HENRY BESSEMER
The mind had scarce time to grasp the importance of this marvellous
discovery before there commenced that ceaseless flow of inventive talent
which, growing with years, has wholly submerged the original invention
of Daguerre. Process succeeded process with immense rapidity. At
every step new ground was covered ; more beautiful and more permanent
effects were almost daily produced by scientific investigators whose name
was legion ; until at last the glorious orb of day has taken over the
business of the engraver, and daily produces its hundreds of deeply-
etched blocks from which our common printing machines throw oft' their
thousands of printed sheets with the same facility with which they
print a page of common type. In the midst of these marvels of modern
invention we look around and exclaim, " Where is now Daguerre ? " and
echo answers " Where ? " Simply buried beneath the huge monument
which, instead of being raised to his fame, has placed him out of sight
and out of memory.
I have referred thus prominently to this great discovery of Daguerre
and its subsequent marvellous developments, not only because it made
a deep impression on my youthful imagination at the time, but because
I purpose making a somewhat extensive use of photography in illustrating
the following pages, where its absolute truthfulness will afford indisputable
evidence of some facts which would otherwise have been altogether
omitted, rather than allow them to rest on the uncorroborated testimony
of the writer. At the same time this beautiful art will serve to illustrate
many existing objects, an equally realistic idea of which the most elaborate
description would fail to impart.
It is to the rapid passing into oblivion of great inventions like
that of Daguerre that I attribute the pressure of my kind friends
who ask me to give them some account of my early life and its
relation to the more immediate past, while yet the process which bears
my name remains an existing fact among us, aud has not been engulfed
in that ever-advancing tide of scientific knowledge and commercial
enterprise which sweeps away the past and leaves us face to face only
with the present.
So energetic in this matter was my friend, Mr. Price Williams,
that some years ago he called on me with Mr. Samuel Smiles, LL.D.,
INTRODUCTORY
whose well-known talent as a biographer had all but tempted me to
commit this task to him. We had a long consultation on the subject,
but I could not feel that my life and its labours were a theme which
could be treated in such a way as to make them interesting to the
general reader, even when clothed in the beautiful language and charming
style of that eminent writer. There were none of the exciting incidents
of travel to relate : no hairbreadth escapes, no dangers by land and sea,
to seize upon and captivate the imagination. Indeed, I could not
help feeling that my daily pursuits were of too technical a character
to supply the necessary materials to form an interesting book ; and
if the narrative were simply treated in the plain matter-of-fact style
of which alone I was capable, I felt it would have inevitably failed to be
of sufficient interest, either to the general reader or to the man of
science. Thus the proposed biography was for the time abandoned.
Nevertheless, several of my friends have from time to time tried to
induce me to write a concise account of my steel invention in my own
quiet way. More especially was this view commended to my notice by my
old friend Alexander Hollingsworth and his colleagues, the able editors
of Engineering, William H. Maw and James Dredge. Thus it was in
the year 1884 I found myself busily engaged in preparing large coloured
drawings of the converting and other apparatus, and in the course of two
or three months at least a dozen drawings were completed, from which
photographic copies on a reduced scale were made on wood-blocks to
illustrate the work I had just begun. At this time I was also engaged
designing the whole of the machinery about to be erected by my grandson,
William Bessemer Wright, at the new diamond mills in Clerkenwell ;
and I became so deeply engrossed in working out the details of several
experimental diamond-cutting machines which were in course of con-
struction on my own premises at Denmark Hill, that by degrees my
attention was gradually more and more drawn from the book I had
commenced, and I became at last wholly absorbed in the more congenial
work of construction going on every day in my workshop. Again the
long-contemplated autobiography was laid aside, and I must confess that
there always was in my mind an undercurrent of feeling averse to the task.
I have at all times keenly experienced the difficulty, which must
HENRY BESSEMER
necessarily confront an author when speaking of himself, and of what
he has accomplished, of setting forth what I have done and what credit
I am entitled to, without appearing to be self-assertive, and displaying
a personal bias in relation to certain controversial matters into which
I am obliged to enter. From this difficulty I see no way of escape without
abandoning the work laid upon me by the importunity of my friends.
I have, therefore, resolved to follow out rigidly the unenviable task of
self-assertion, and not to shrink from fearlessly and truthfully claiming
what is due to me, just as though I were speaking of some other person,
whose advocate for the time I had constituted myself. And I shall, with
equal candour, point out the persistent opposition and obstructive tactics
to which my invention has been subjected in a few prominent cases ;
while, on the other hand, I shall with pleasure place on record my
grateful acknowledgments to those in the world of science who have
honoured me by their kind appreciation : a gratitude which is also due
from me to the many iron and steel manufacturers who have unreservedly
acknowledged my patent-rights, and with rigid and scrupulous honour
have fulfilled to the letter all their engagements with me.
Having thus entered upon a task so long deferred, I shall endeavour
to make assured accuracy of historical detail take the place of literary
ability, which I know but too well will be only conspicuous by its absence
in these pages. Fortunately, I am in a position to review the past
wholly uninfluenced by any mercantile considerations, having long ceased
to possess pecuniary interests in the iron or steel manufacture; and
having arrived at that late period of life when there is no desire for
new worlds to conquer, and there are no strong ambitions to bias the
mind and obscure the judgment.
The name of Bessemer does not sound like an English one, and has
often given rise to doubts as to my nationality. I may therefore
mention a few facts in relation to my father. He was born at No. 6, Old
Broad Street, in the City of London, and at the age of eleven years
was taken to Holland by his parents, who settled there. In due time
he was articled to a mechanical engineer, and during his apprenticeship
assisted in erecting the first steam-engine in Holland, this engine being
employed in draining the turf pits near Haarlem.
MY FATHERS EARLY CAREER 5
After arriving at the age of twenty-one, my father went to Paris,
and there commenced a career which did him much honour. At the
early age of twenty-six he was made a member of the Academy of
Sciences, as a reward for a great improvement he had effected in the
microscope. He was at that period engaged in the Paris Mint, and
while there invented that very simple and beautiful machine now known
as the Portrait Lathe, by means of which medallion dies of any desired
size can be engraved in steel from an enlarged model.
He was still residing in Paris at the time of the great French
Revolution, and, as an active member of the Commissariat Department,
he had to distribute a certain dole of bread and rice to the starving
thousands, who formed a long queue for many hours every morning
before the municipal bakery was opened. Everyone in Paris at that
time felt the pinch for food. My father had a small estate some twenty
miles out of town, and when he saw the probability of a famine, he
had a few sacks of wheat taken to his house in Paris, and there secretly
stowed away ; for a knowledge of their presence would have brought
the hungry mob upon him. It was my mother's task at night, when the
household had retired to rest, to grind some of this wheat in a coffee
' O
mill, so that cakes might be made for the morrow's breakfast ; and
thus in secret my parents enjoyed the luxury of whole-meal bread of
their own manufacture.
My father was most anxious to return to England, but it was very
difficult to get away. He could obtain nothing from his bankers but
the paper money then well known as Assignats, which were issued for
amounts as low as fifty sous, or about two shillings in English value.
Fortunately a short lull occurred in those stormy times, and, taking
advantage of the opportunity, my parents escaped to England, bringing
with them about £6,000 in nominal value in Assignats, and only a very
small sum in cash.
Arrived in London, my father had to begin the world over again ;
so availing himself of his intimate knowledge of the use of the stamping-
press and dies, and the working of gold, he commenced the manufacture
of gold chains of a novel and beautiful description. By using gold
of a high standard of quality, and with the assistance of finely -executed
HENRY BESSEMER
steel dies for stamping each link, a splendid chain was produced, which
appeared very massive while in reality it was very light. These chains
were bought by the retail jewellers as rapidly as they could be made.
While this new branch of trade was going on satisfactorily, a great
panic was created in London by a report that Napoleon was about
to invade England in flat-bottomed boats, which were said to be then
at Boulogne, prepared for the expedition. My father, who had lost
all in Paris, was determined at this juncture to secure some solid
property in his own country, and at once dispatched his traveller to
collect all the money he could from his various customers. With this
money he purchased a small landed estate in the village of Charlton,
near Kitchen in Hertfordshire, to which he shortly afterwards retired,
and where I was born on the 19th January, 1813.
My father's active business habits did not permit him to lead a life
of idleness, and, after a year or two of quiet retirement, he commenced
to cut letter-punches for Mr. Henry Caslon, the proprietor of the
well-known Caslon type-foundry of London. The eminence my father
had acquired in this art, while in the Paris Mint, enabled him to
produce specimens of typography far more beautiful than any others
that could be met with at that time. An immense accession of trade
to the Caslon foundry resulted, and Mr. Henry Caslon became a
frequent visitor at my father's house at Charlton ; where, on one of
these occasions, he acted as my godfather, and gave me the name of
Henry.
Some years later, my father was joined in business by a former
partner of Mr. Caslon's, and a type-foundry was built on our estate at
Charlton. The knowledge of metal work which I acquired in this foundry,
assisted, I doubt not, in fostering and developing that taste for casting
and other metallurgical works in which, as an amateur, I took so deep
and abiding an interest.
After leaving school, I begged my father to let me remain at home,
and learn something of practical engineering. This he acceded to, and
as a preliminary step he bought me one of those beautiful small slide-
rest lathes, made by Messrs. Holtzapffel of London, and which are still
produced in all their original excellence by that eminent firm.
MY CHILDHOOD AT CHARLTON 7
After a year or two at the vice and lathe, and other practical
mechanical work, my father allowed me to employ myself in making
working models of any of the too-numerous schemes which the vivid
imagination of youth suggested. Among these, I well remember, was
a machine for making bricks, which was one of the most successful of my
early attempts, producing pretty little model bricks in white pipeclay.
I always had access to molten type-metal, which I used for casting
wheels, pulleys, and other parts of mechanical models where strength
was not much required. Hence arose various devices for moulding
different forms, a matter that caused me very little trouble, for by some
intuitive instinct modelling came to me unsought and unstudied. Often
during my evening walks round the fields, with a favourite dog, I
would take a small lump of yellow clay from the roadside, and fashion
it into some grotesque head or natural object, from which I would
afterwards make a mould and cast it in type-metal.
In this quiet village life there was a break every two months,
when the large melting-furnace was used to make type-metal, in which
proceeding a great secret was involved. In spite of injunctions to the
contrary, I would, by some means or other, find my way into the
melting-house, where large masses of antimony were broken up to form
the alloy with lead. The dust arising from the powdered antimony,
on more that one occasion, caused me severe sickness, and betrayed my
clandestine visits to the melting-house, where I discovered that the
addition of tin and copper, in small quantities, to the ordinary alloy,
was the secret by which my father's type lasted so much longer than
that produced by other typefounders.
There was, however, one other attraction in the village, which played
a not-unimportant part in moulding my ideas at this very early period.
I was very fond of machinery, and of watching it when in motion ; and
if ever I was absent from meals, I could probably have been found at
the flour mill at the other end of the village, where I passed many
hours, gazing with pleasure upon the broad sheet of water falling into
the ever-receding buckets of the great overshot water-wheel ; or, perhaps,
I might have been watching, with a feeling almost of awe, the huge
wooden spur-wheel which brought up the speed, and was one of the
8 HENRY BESSEMER
wonders of the millwright's craft in those days. Its massive oak shaft
and polished horn-beam cogs have long since passed away, and yielded
to their successor, cast iron, which in its turn is now being rapidly
replaced by the stronger metal, steel, thus keeping up that ever-changing
cycle of advancement in the arts which is carrying us forward to
discoveries that may change every phase of civilised life, if the exhaustion
of our coal does not land us again into a state of barbarism.
I had now arrived at my seventeenth year, and had attained my
full height, a fraction over six feet. I was well endowed with youthful
energy, and was of an extremely sanguine temperament. At this period
of life all things seem possible if you have once made up your mind to
conquer, and not to allow any temporary disappointments to weaken
your resolution. The opportunity to put this beautiful theory to the
proof was about to be afforded to me, for my father had resolved to
remove his business to London, when I should have to change my
solitary country life, which had so many irresistible charms, for a totally
different one. I should see for the first time the great metropolis, about
which I had heard so much but knew so little.
On March 4th, 1830, I arrived in London, where a new world seemed
opened to me. I was overwhelmed with wonder and astonishment ; all
the ideal scenes in the "Arabian Nights," which had held me spellbound
in my native village, were as nothing to the ceaseless panorama which
London presented, with its thousands of vehicles and pedestrians, its
gorgeous shops and stately buildings, and its endless miles of streets
and numerous squares. I was never tired of walking about, for every
turn presented some new object to rivet my attention ; and in this way
I passed my first week's residence in London. I usually returned home
in the evening, greatly tired and worn out, only to go forth on the
morrow to make new explorations and again lose myself in those endless
labyrinths of streets ; and yet, with all the delight inspired by the
novelty of the scene, there was one thing strange to me, and sadly
wanting. I felt that I was alone ; no one knew me. I never met, in
all this excited rush, one human countenance that I could recognise, or
a friendly face to smile and give a passing salutation as in my old
home : where the little children on their way to school would drop a
EARLY DAYS IN LONDON
curtsy and leave me the best side of the path, while the farm-labourer
at his cottage door would give me " Good morning, Master Henry ! "
All this had passed away for ever, and here amidst the countless
thousands I stood alone, as much uncared for as the lamp-post beside
me. How often I thought, in those early days in London, "Shall I ever
be known here ? Shall I ever have the pleasure of seeing a smile of
recognition light up the face of any person in these ceaseless streams of
unsympathetic strangers?" The thought made me very sad, and at
times sigh for the old home ; but it has been truly said that " hope
springs eternal in the human breast," and so I found the advantage of
my sanguine temperament. " Why," I asked myself, " instead of pining
after the old associations of my native village, should I not strive to
make a name for myself, even in this mighty London ? It is not
impossible, for many others have done it, and I at least will make
the effort." Such reflections as these enabled me to settle down again,
and resume my old home occupations.
I knew full well that I laboured under the great disadvantage of
not having been brought up to any regular trade or profession, but, on
the other hand, I felt a consciousness that Nature had endowed me
with an inventive turn of mind, and perhaps more than the usual
amount of persistent perseverance, which I thought I might be able to
use to advantage.
In the course of my ramblings I had met with an Italian, who
had shown me several boxes full of plaster casts of the most beautiful
medallions ; real gems of art at one penny a-piece. I selected a number
of them with the intention of casting them in metal, an occupation in
which I took a deep interest at that time. But the moulding and
casting of more intricate objects had even a much greater charm, and I
began to try my hand on the reproduction in metal of natural objects,
both vegetable and animal. For this purpose the article to be cast was
immersed in a semi-fluid composition, of which plaster-of-Paris formed
the base. The mould was gradually dried and then made red-hot, and
the object was thus destroyed. An opening into the mould on one side
allowed the ashes to be removed, and gave entrance for the metal of
which the object was to be formed. In this way a rosebud or other
c
10 HENRY BESSEMER
flower, with its stalk and leaves, could be produced ; but, alas ! the
whole of those thin, delicate leaves were destroyed in attempting to
break away the mould. Some of the fragments were exquisitely
beautiful, but no entire cast could be obtained.
All sorts of schemes were tried, and tried in vain, until, when on
the eve of abandoning the whole affair as impossible, I hit upon the
happy idea of using unburned blue-lias limestone ground to a fine powder.
This, and the dust of Flanders brick, with a small quantity of plaster-
of-Paris, formed the mould ; the destruction of the succulent vegetable,
by making the mould red-hot, had also the effect of burning the
limestone portion of the composition, while the brickdust served to
destroy much of the cohesive strength of the plaster- of-Paris, the
hardness of which had proved so great an obstacle in extricating the
casting. When the mould had cooled down, all that was required to
get out the casting was to apply cold water to it, when the burnt lime
slaked, became hot, and fell away from the cast. A sharp jet of water
from a tap on the main service sufficed to wash out all the small
particles from the deep recesses, and liberate the casting perfect and
unbroken. I prepared for this purpose an alloy of antimony, iron,
bismuth, and tin, and in all cases made the mould with a very tall
gate or runner, keeping it red-hot for half an hour after the metal
was poured into it. In this way the static pressure of the metal
which remained fluid forced the air slowly but surely through the pores
of the mould, and occupied every minute cavity ; so that the fine pile
on the back of a leaf and the tiny prickles on the stem of a rose were
all produced as sharp as needle-points.
The love of improvement, however, knows no bounds or finality.
Beautiful as these representations of nature were, there was one great
drawback which I still desired to surmount. They were only white metal,
and were sometimes looked upon as merely "lead castings."* I therefore
attempted to cast them in brass or yellow metal, but this I found was
impossible. I then conceived the idea of coating them with a deposit
of copper from an acid solution of that metal. Many were the trials
* Vide Dr. Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mining
ART CASTINGS H
and failures in these attempts, but after a time I made more suitable
solutions, and found out how to cleanse the surfaces of the delicate
objects without injuring them ; and finally I succeeded in getting a
beautiful thin coating of copper on every part of the surface. The
castings were simply laid on the bottom of a shallow zinc tray, and a
saturated solution of sulphate and of nitrate of copper, in certain
proportions, was poured into the bath, which resulted in producing a thin
coating of bright metallic copper over the entire surface of the castings,
so that no suspicion could be entertained as to the metal of which they
were really formed. In the case of medallions I sometimes put into the
solution some crystals of distilled verdigris, which produced a good
imitation of antique bronze. Several specimens of these bronzed medals
and copper-coated castings of natural objects were exhibited by me at
Topliss' Museum of Arts and Manufactures, which at that time occupied
the present site of the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Among the
things I exhibited there were a basso-relievo of one of the cartoons of
Raphael, a large medallion head of St. Peter, and several smaller casts
of medals. I also exhibited a group of three prawns lying on a large
grape-vine leaf, a moss-rose bud with leaves, and a beautiful piece of
Scotch kale, the intricate convolutions of which appeared to all who saw
it a thing impossible either to mould or cast, but which was nevertheless
a comparatively easy one, because this vegetable leaf is very thick and
succulent, and consequently leaves scarcely any ash in the mould when
burned.
I may mention that various devices were tried to get rid of the fine
ash resulting from the burned vegetable matter.
Sometimes small passages open to the outer air were left in the mould,
and into these a blast of air was blown to assist the combustion and
destruction of the vegetable matter while still in a red-hot state. At
other times the mould, when cooled down, was filled with a strong solution
of nitre, which saturated the dried vegetable matter. The remainder
of the fluid was then poured out and the mould again made red-hot, when
the nitre, causing complete combustion, reduced the contents to a fine
white ash. When the mould had again cooled down, the ash so
formed was floated out of it, by pouring mercury in and well shaking it.
12 HENRY BESSEMER
111 fact, the treatment resorted to for cleansing the mould had to be
adapted, in each case, to the nature of the object to be destroyed and
got rid of.
I had a strong belief that the mode I have described, of reproducing
the most delicate and, at the same time, the most intricate vegetable forms,
might be utilised by botanists, and other collectors, in remote or solitary
places, from whence the transmission of such objects in their natural state
would be impossible. It would be perfectly easy for the botanist to take
abroad with him a few tin cans filled with the dry powdered materials
required for his moulds, ready to be mixed with water at a moment's
notice. A number of small cardboard boxes, painted in oil colour so
as to render them waterproof, and fitting inside each other, would enable
him to choose one suitable in size, for any particular specimen to be
moulded in. He would have nothing to do but to mix with water a small
quantity of his prepared plaster, place the delicate fungus, lichen, or other
specimen, in the bottom of the box, and pour in the semi-fluid mixture,
filling the box, and gently tapping its sides and bottom to ensure the
penetration of the fluid matter into every interstice of the specimen.
In less than a quarter of an hour, he would find in his fragile little box
a hard, solid, square mass, in which the specimen would be safely embedded,
where it might remain uninjured for any necessary period, and then be
burnt out, and the object reproduced in metal. An absolutely perfect
copy of nature's most beautiful work, in an indestructible material, would
thereby be obtained by a minimum of labour and cost.
I made many attempts to impress the importance of these facts
on some of the managers of the British Museum, with whom I had several
interviews, but all to no purpose ; and so the whole thing dropped, and
I had all my trouble in vain.
Returning from this digression, I may state that the site occupied
by Topliss' Museum was required for the erection of the present National
Gallery.* A museum was, however, erected in Leicester Square, where
the Panopticon was subsequently built, and it was to this new home that
my specimens of casting were removed.
* Opened April, 1838
OF THF
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COPPER-COATED MEDALLIONS 13
About the year 1836 I made the acquaintance of Dr. Ure, author
of the well-known Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, and Mining, and of
him I can only speak with affectionate regard. I had sought his assistance
in some analyses, and after several interesting interviews he furnished
me with the information I desired, and seemed to take so much interest
in me that I was induced to give him a short sketch of my isolated country
life. I described to him my love of experiments in casting, and how I made
use of the continued statical pressure of a high column of metal, retained
in a fluid state for a considerable time, in a red-hot mould. He was
much interested in my founding operations, and generously declined to
take any fee for the analysis he had made for me, saying, if I wanted
any further analyses he would be happy to do them for me. Needless
to say how pleased and grateful I felt for his disinterested kindness,
and the encouragement which his appreciation gave me.
With the exception of three or four samples still remaining in my
possession, all these beautiful castings have been sold or given away many
years ago.
Among those I still have is one of the cartoons of Raphael, repre-
senting the " Woman taken in Adultery," a plaster-of-Paris copy of which
I bought for a few pence from an itinerant Italian. It was fairly sharp
and perfect in detail, and I planed some strips of type-metal into an
ornamental moulding, so as to form a frame around it. I then made
a mould from it as framed, and took a cast in a white metal alloy, which
I afterwards coated with a thin film of copper, in the manner already
described.
It is now in much the same condition as it was when cast, with the
exception of the loss of the more prominent features, caused by the
continued rubbing and dusting of the housemaid — or rather, I may say,
of a succession of housemaids, who during the last sixty-four years have
gradually wiped away, not only the copper film from the projecting parts,
but a noticeable quantity also of the soft metal of which it is made : as will
be at once seen on examining the photographic reproduction, Fig. 1,
Plate I., which is a full-sized representation of it.
I also give, in Fig. 2, Plate II., a copy of an oval medallion, the
numerous figures on which were originally very sharp and perfect, but
14 HENRY BESSEMER
it has suffered somewhat by rubbing and dusting from time to time
during these many years.
These medallions were, as Dr. Ure says in his article on Electro-
Metallurgy, simply used as " mantel-piece ornaments," and I doubt not
that this oval medallion was one of those I had. shown to him in 1836,
and had made in 1832 when I was about nineteen years of age. This
perfect casting was, like the cartoon, coated with a thin film of copper,
giving it the appearance of being cast in that metal.
ELECTRO-METALLURGY. 629
rounded by a cylinder of zinc, and then introduced into another vessel (a wooden tub
for instance) containing dilute sulphuric acid. The earthen vessel is intended to con-
tain the solution of gold or silver, and is furnished with a web of copper wire, which
is made to communicate with the zinc by means of one or more conducting wires. The
objects to be gilt or silvered are placed upon the net-work. The earthen vessel contain-
ing a zinc cylinder, and some hydrochloric acid, is introduced into another vessel, con-
taining the solution of gol,d or silver, placed in the centre of a wire web partition,
which communicates with 'the zinc cylinder by means of a conducting wire. In the
first case, the articles which are to receive the thickest coating are placed nearest the
outer sides of the apparatus; in the second, nearest to the earthen vessel : in both cases
it is advisable to shift their position occasionally. By combining these different
arrangements, the deposit obtained is more abundant, and more equally distributed
upon the surface to be gilded or to be silvered. For this purpose an opening is made
in the centre, of the web in which the tine cylinder is inserted, with connecting wires
to the web. When the articles to be operated upon can be easily suspended from a
given point, the web of the apparatus may be made with wider meshes, and the articles
suspended vertically between them. Dr. Philipp prefers a single galvanic arrangement
to a battery, as it affords more solid deposition.
ELECTRO-METALLURGY. By this elegant art perfectly exact copies of any
object can be made in copper, silver, gold, and some other metals, through the agency
of voltaic electricity. The earliest application of this kind seems to have teen prac-
tised about 16 years ago, by Mr. Bessemer, of Camden Town, London, who deposited
a coating of copper on lead castings, so as to produce antique heads in relief, about 3
or 4 inches in size. He contented himself with forming a few such ornaments for his
mantelpiece; and though he made no secret of his purpose, he published nothing upon
the subject. A letter of the 22d of May, 1839, written by Mr. J. C. Jordan, which ap-
peared in the Mechanics' May. for June 8, following, contains the first printed notice of the
manipulation requisite for obtaining electro-metallic casts; and to this gentleman, there-
fore, the world is indebted for the first discovery of this new and important application
of science to the uses of life. It appears that Mr. Jordan had made his experiments in
the preceding summer, and having become otherwise busily occupied, did not think of
publishing till he observed a vague statement in the Journals, that Professor Jacobi, of
St. Petersburg, had done something of the same kind. Mr. Jordan's apparatus consisted
FIG. 3.' ..EXTRACT PROM DR. URE'S DICTIONARY, "ELECTRO-METALLURGY"
When the Doctor published a supplement to his Dictionary in
1846, he referred to these medallion castings, under the head of "Electro-
Metallurgy," as having to his knowledge been cast in " lead " (sic) and
coated with copper, about ten years previously : that is, about five or
six years prior to the discovery of the electrotype process, by Jacobi
of St. Petersburg, Jordan of London, and Spencer of Liverpool. This
process was afterwards perfected by Dr. Wright, and Messrs Elkington,
"LOST WAX" CASTINGS 15
of Birmingham, to whose joint labours we owe the practical development
of the beautiful art of Electro-Metallurgy, to which I had " approached
within measurable distance," but of which I had nevertheless failed to
recognise the full importance, excepting as a means of producing artificial
bronzes by coating the cheaper white metal castings, as is now largely
practised in France, in imitation of bronze for clocks, etc. In order that
there shall be no misapprehension as to what Dr. Ure has said on the
subject, I give on the opposite page a photographic reproduction of the
upper part of page 629 (Electro-Metallurgy), in the Fourth Edition of his
Dictionary, published by Longman, Brown, Green and Longman, the
title-page of which bears date 1853. This extract clearly shows that
I practised the art of depositing copper from an acid solution of that
metal on the surface of ornamental castings, several years before we had
any known or published account of that process.
It is quite true, as the Doctor states, that I kept some of these
medallions as ornaments on my mantel-piece, where three of them may
be found at this very day ; but Dr. Ure appears to have forgotten, or
possibly was unaware of the existence of, the beautiful specimens of
natural objects cast in white metal and coated with copper, which I
exhibited in Trafalgar Square, and afterwards in Leicester Square,
and which had the effect of bringing me in contact with several large
business firms, and in one case resulted in the development of an entirely
new and important branch of the Utrecht velvet manufacture, to which
I shall have occasion hereafter to refer.
There is yet another description of casting known as the " lost wax "
process, which was at that time practised in France ; and I was anxious,
if possible, to acquire this art, as it seemed to offer greater facility for
obtaining white metal casts of busts and statuettes from wax models that
were cast in plaster-of-Paris moulds. To the metal casting so obtained,
the appearance of real bronze could be imparted by depositing a green
copper coating thereon. By doing this the " lost wax " process need
not have been confined, as it then was, to the production of original works
of art modelled in wax ; and the effect would have been to immensely
facilitate the multiplication of copies of the highest examples of classic
art, by simply obtaining thin wax casts of them, in lieu of the plaster
16 HENRY BESSEMER
casts sold so cheaply in the streets by itinerant Italians. The loss
of the wax model so produced forms only a very small part of the cost
of the process.
All persons conversant with the ordinary mode of casting a bust
or statuette must be aware that the mould is formed of a great number
of small pieces, more or less perfectly fitted together, and that the metal
in casting will run into all the minute joints or cracks which lie between
the numerous parts of which the mould is composed, forming little ribs
or " fins," which cross the face and other portions whereon the talent
of the artist who prepares the model is chiefly expended. The removal
of these ribs or fins, with chisels or files, must be done by a workman
after the cast is made, and this greatly interferes with the delicate
touches of the artist, and not unfrequently mars his work. In the
" lost wax " process, the artist may put on his finest touches, may
" undercut " as much as he pleases, or form intricate hollows to any
extent, which he could not do if the mould had to be made in pieces ;
when the model is complete in wax, a mould can be made over it in one
piece, after which the wax original is melted out or " lost." Molten
metal is then poured into the space previously occupied by the wax,
and a cast is produced, absolutely identical with the model. Every
delicate touch of the artist is there, free from the fins and ribs so
inseparable from casts made in a mould which is built up in pieces. But
here lies the difficulty and great risk of this process. The artist's model
is irretrievably destroyed, and if a bad casting should result, all his
labour is lost.
How well I remember the heartbreaking disappointments that beset
all my early attempts to cast from the lost wax in plaster-of-Paris
moulds. For this was the very great desideratum for which I was
striving. The plan was to first carefully dry the massive plaster envelope
in which the wax model was embedded, and then to put it into a
stove heated sufficiently to melt the wax, which, if the mould was
inverted, would run out.
The difficulty in obtaining a good casting arose from the plaster
mould absorbing a small portion of the wax during the melting process,
so that when the molten metal was poured into the mould, the wax so
DIES FOR STAMPING CARDBOARD 17
absorbed and retained in its pores was converted into gas, which bubbled
up through the metal, and made a most unsound and imperfect casting.
Over and over again I essayed to prevent this result, but all to no
purpose, and I almost gave it up in despair. I pondered over many
schemes to remedy this defect, when at last it occurred to me that
there was only one way that must succeed. Plaster-of-Paris very quickly
sets, and gets hard and firm while it is quite saturated with water ; and
it seemed probable that if I kept the mould in this saturated condition
instead of drying it, the melted wax could not be absorbed by it. After
several trials I found it advisable to render the wax a little more fusible
by the addition to it of a small quantity of animal fat, and then it was
quite easy to melt out the wax by simply immersing the mould in a
caldron filled with boiling water. The wax was melted by the heat of
the water, and floated up to the surface, allowing the water to take its
place. As soon as the melted wax ceased to rise to the surface the
mould was taken out of the bath, emptied of the water which had
taken the place of the melted wax, and slowly dried ; after this
its temperature was raised to a point sufficiently high to allow the
metal to be retained in it in a fluid state for some time, thus ensuring
a perfect cast. By this simple device there was no absorption of the
wax, and consequently no gas produced in the mould, and no longer
any fear that the model would be lost without getting a perfect cast in
return.
A fine bust of Shakespeare which I produced in this way, and
coated with copper, was purchased of me by an eminent sculptor, who
saw in this simple plan a means of getting faithful copies of his works
uninjured by the chipping and filing of a mere mechanic. Indeed, it was
finally arranged that I should cast for him a bust of the Hon. George
Canning, for which he had received a commission ; but, unfortunately,
while engaged in modelling this bust, he was seized with a sudden illness
which terminated fatally, and the work was never completed.
My attention was at this period directed to the production of
castings suitable for stamping ornamental scroll-work, medallions, and
basso relievos in cardboard. This was a much more difficult subject to deal
with than casting in white-metal alloys, and required moulds of quite a
D
18 HENRY BESSEMER
different character. It was, however, mainly a question of mixing metals
so as to produce great hardness, while absolutely free from brittleness,
and in this manner to obtain an alloy that would melt at a comparatively
low temperature, and run very fluid in the mould. All of these conditions
to their fullest extent could not be combined in any one alloy ; but after
a few months expended in making a systematic series ot experiments, I
succeeded in obtaining a die metal that pretty closely approximated to
all the desired requirements, and I also found a " facing " for the moulds,
which stood the heat of these hard alloys without suffering any destructive
action or the formation of surface cracks. I could thus form moulds
capable of taking an impression of the finest and most delicate lines,
and in these I succeeded in casting many works of art in brass.
After a certain amount of practice, I produced a great many very
beautiful dies, from which thousands of fine sharp impressions were made.
I erected a powerful " fly-press " for stamping impressions from these
dies, and thus achieved what was in reality my first commercial work.
It will be easy to imagine my delight on securing a first order for
500 copies on buff-coloured cardboard of a beautiful basso-relievo of
one of the cartoons of Raphael, from Messrs. Ackerman, the well-known
art publishers. These impressions cost me only threepence each, including
the material, and I found a ready sale for them at half-a-crown, when
taken in wholesale quantities. They must still exist in many families,
for hundreds were stamped in leather on the covers of a beautifully got-
up quarto edition of the Bible, the cartoon chosen being the one in
which Raphael represents Our Saviour giving the keys to St. Peter.
I also made a great many dies in this way for bookbinders, cardboard-
box manufacturers, etc., thus turning to commercial account the art of
"fine-casting," which I had heretofore only practised as an amusement.
A year or so previously, 1831, I made the acquaintance of a
Mr. Richard Cull, then a youth about my own age, who, when I last
heard of him, had become a noted philologist and a member of the
Antiquarian Society. My friend Cull was a great admirer of these
beautiful cast dies, and we very nearly entered into a deed of partnership,
with the intention of carrying on this business on a greatly extended
scale ; but for some reason or other this intention was never carried out.
CHAPTEE II
THE EEWAED OF INVENTION
"YTTHILE this die-making and stamping business was going on, I had
discovered another and distinctly different mode of making, from
an embossed paper stamp, dies which were capable of reproducing
thousands of facsimile impressions. I at once saw to what a dangerous
result this discovery might lead if made known to unscrupulous persons,
and hence I carefully guarded the secret, which was, in fact quite useless
to me, and might soon have been forgotten had not my attention been
directed by some accidental circumstance to the fact that the forgery
of stamps to an alarming extent was known by the Government to have
been practised.
One of these sources of fraud was the removal from old and
useless parchment deeds of stamps, which were again stuck on to
new skins of parchment. Thinking over this subject, it struck me that
a stamp might be made which it would be impossible to transfer from
one deed to another, and at the same time would be much more difficult
to produce by the stamping press ; while it would be impracticable to
obtain from it a die that would be capable of reproducing the stamp.
This appeared to me to be a most important invention, and one that
I conceived it would be impolitic for the Government to reject ; I
supposed that I should be handsomely rewarded if I brought it under
the notice of the authorities. I felt the more certain of success because
I was able to show that their ordinary receipt and bill stamps, as well
as the blue paper adhesive stamps on parchment deeds, could be forged
by any office-boy, who could make a die from a paper stamp for a few
pence, wholly without talent or technical knowledge.
Thus confident of success, I set to work to make a die for parch-
ment deeds on my new plan, for the time putting aside and neglecting
20 HENRY BESSEMER
everything else, for this grand project was to make my fortune at once.
After providing myself with a suitable press and experimenting with
different forms of cutting punches, I decided on a plan. Having worked
for some months, making long days which not unfrequently extended
to the early hours of the morning, the task was finished, and I prepared
some specimens to take with me to Somerset House.
With the idea of showing that there was no escape from the adoption
of my new plan, I thought it advisable to make a die from a genuine
Government stamp. For this purpose, I obtained a dozen ordinary
embossed bill stamps, and from one of them made a die, and stamped
about as many impressions with it as I had real stamps. In order that
I might be able to prove that these were forged ones, I stamped the
impressions on a large sheet of paper, and then cut out a slip from it
with a slightly indented edge, but otherwise of the same form and size
as those I had purchased. I may mention that the Stamp Office presses
were so constructed that they could not put a stamp in the middle of
a large sheet of paper, and hence I was enabled to prove that these
particular stamps, with their slightly-indented edges, did not emanate
from the Stamp Office. I made up a small parcel containing six genuine
stamps and six of those I had myself made, and also the sheets of
paper from the centre of which they had been cut. With these I also
enclosed a few impressions of my new parchment stamp. The old form
of Government stamps is illustrated in Fig. 4, Plate III., while Fig. 5
illustrates my perforated stamp. Below is shown a system introduced a
few years ago for cancelling cheques and other documents.
Full of hope and high expectation, I started off one morning to call
on Sir Charles Presley, the then President of the Stamp Office. I had,
up to this moment, kept all my plans and what I was doing a profound
secret. The whole affair seemed to my overwrought imagination almost
like a skilful plot, such as we see depicted on the stage or read of in
a sensational novel ; and I had, like the hero of the piece, only to walk
into Somerset House and accept unconditional surrender.
On my way to the scene of my intended conquest I passed up
Farringdon Street, and went into a fruiterer's shop at the corner of the
New Market to buy an orange. How vividly I still remember this trifling
PLATE III.
FIG. 4.
The above is an example of an ordinary impressed stamp as now daily issued by
the Stamp Office. The figures 21, 1, and 79, each in their respective circles, show the
system of dating stamps communicated to Sir Charles Presley in 1833.
FIG. 5.
The above impression represents the Bessemer perforated stamp approved by
the Stamp Office officials. The black portions show the perforations which were
made by the die in a manner similar to the perforated word CAXCBLLED, below.
This word "cancelled" shows a mode of perforating paper introduced by
Mr. J. Sloper a few years ago, and now much used in banks and public offices.
'No fraudulent ingenuity can efface this mark.
FORGED RECEIPT STAMPS (1833) 21
incident in all its details. I ate my orange as I went jauntily up Fleet
Street, thinking of nothing but how I should introduce the subject,
what they would say, and how I should go through the ordeal I had
to face, on the results of which depended all my dearest earthly hopes.
Had I not in the silent hours of night, when I was pursuing my experi-
ments, and wearily working at these new dies, told myself triumphantly :
" A few more weeks will seal the fate of my whole life. If I succeed in
saving the Government so much revenue, they must liberally reward me.
I shall then establish myself in a new home, and marry the young lady
to whom I have for two years been engaged." I had needed no stronger
incentive to urge me onward as the lonely hours of night found me engaged
in the laborious work of making these dies. I now felt that the task
was over, and that I was well on the road to my reward ; but suddenly
my day-dream came to an end, for just as I approached Temple Bar
I discovered that I was not in possession of my parcel of stamps. I was
staggered for a moment, and a cold perspiration seemed to break out
all over me. I felt faint and alarmed, for in a second I began to fully
realise the fact that I had actually been possessed of forged stamps,
and had left them on the counter of the shop where I had bought the
orange. The little paper parcel was not sealed. What if curiosity had
caused it to be looked into and handed over to the police? It was
but a momentary hesitation, for I knew well that I was innocent of
all intentional wrong, though perhaps not technically so, and I hastened
back with all speed to the fruiterer's shop.
" Did you," I asked, " see a small parcel left here by me half an
hour ago ? "
" Oh, yes, sir," was the reply. " I put it on the shelf, thinking
you would come back for it."
How gladly I once more grasped it, and felt that I was now safe,
even from a momentary suspicion. I own that I was a little crestfallen
and unnerved ; but a sharp walk soon restored my confidence, and I entered
Somerset House with a firm step and full faith that I should succeed
in my mission. I was admitted into the private office of Sir Charles
Presley, and said that I desired him to tell me if a dozen receipt stamps,
which I handed him, were genuine. He looked at them attentively with
22 HENRY BESSEMER
a large magnifying glass, and laid two aside which he thought were not
genuine. As far as I can remember exactly what passed, I said there
were more forgeries among them, when he enquired, " How do you
know that?"
I answered : " Simply because I forged them myself."
I could not quite suppress a smile as I said this somewhat triumphantly,
and I distinctly remember his severe frown, as he said : " Young man, you
treat this subject with a great deal of levity."
I at once apologised, and assured him that my object was solely
to prevent all future forgery of stamps, and that I had ventured to test
his experienced eye in order that he might himself appreciate the full
danger to the State if my system were publicly known ; unless, indeed,
some remedy could be suggested for the prevention of further forgery.
As my scheme was unfolded he gradually relaxed that severe expres-
sion of countenance which plainly evinced that he felt annoyed at being
tricked by a youth in so bold a manner, and the importance he evidently
attached to my communication was manifested by his request that I would
call again in a few days.
I may here briefly state that one of the plans I brought before
the Stamp Office authorities was adopted by them, and has been to this
day employed as a security against forgery on every stamp issued by the
Stamp Office during the last half century ; but I was nevertheless pushed
from pillar to post, and denied all remuneration for the important services
I had rendered. I was too busy making my way in life at this period
to press any legal claims on the Government. I had no friend at Court,
and had to bear this shameful treatment as best I could ; and so, this
matter of the stamps sunk gradually into oblivion until the year 1878,
when my angry feelings against the Government were again excited by
their refusal to allow me to accept the Grand Cross of the Legion
of Honour, which the French Government desired to present me with,
provided that the British Government would permit me to wear it.
The failure of all attempts to get this permission aroused my just
indignation, and I, as so many aggrieved persons have done before me,
and doubtless will do again, wrote a letter to The Times. As this
letter has played a not-unimportant part in my life's history, I think it
LETTER TO LORD BEA.CONSFIELD (1878) 23
desirable to insert it in this place, although it is not in the
chronological order of events.
I may, however, say that I no sooner saw this letter in print than
it occurred to me that an ex parte statement of so grave a character
against the Government in general, and some of its officials in particular,
demanded at my hands some documentary or other proof of the truth
of the statements thus publicly made, and that I ought to lay the whole
matter before the Government of the day in justice to myself. With
this object I determined to address myself to our then Prime Minister,
Lord Beaconsfield, and also to furnish printed copies of this communication
to each of the other Ministers of State. The following is a verbatim
copy of a portion of these communications, as well as of my letter
to The Times : —
To THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OP BEACONSFIELD.
Denmark Hill,
November 16th, 1878
MY LORD,
Under a feeling of some irritation, excited by recent events in connection with
the Paris Exhibition, I felt impelled to relieve my mind of a long-suppressed grievance which
my excessive dislike to controversy has hitherto prevented me from making public.
Under these circumstances I addressed a letter to The Times on the "Keward of Invention,"
which was published in that journal on the 1st November, 1878, a verbatim copy of which
is embodied in this communication, and, as you will see, brings a very grave charge against
some of the executive of a former Government; and, after perusing it in print, I saw at
once that it was due to my own honour, and but fair to the Government, that I should
bring forward some evidence in corroboration of the serious allegations therein contained,
the more so as the public press have warmly espoused my cause, and commented in not
very measured terms on the treatment I had received at the hands of the Government of
that day.
No sooner, however, did the desirability of such corroborative evidence present itself
to my mind than I took the necessary measures to acquire it ; and notwithstanding the length of
time that has elapsed since these events took place, I have succeeded in obtaining the most
unimpeachable testimony in support of the charge brought by me against the British Stamp
Office ; but prior to bringing these proofs before the public, I have deemed it a duty which
I owe, alike to myself and to the State, to bring the whole subject under the individual attention
of each one of Her Majesty's present Cabinet Ministers ; hence I have forwarded a copy
of this letter separately addressed to each of them.
As far as my experience of the great commercial transactions of this country extends,
I have found that in every instance where a firm takes in a new partner, and in every change
of the directors of a railway, bank, or other public institution, all those who have been
elected to administer these great establishments have ever held inviolate the engagements
24 HENRY BESSEMER
of those whose position they have been called upon to occupy ; nor can I for one moment doubt
but that Her Majesty's Ministers will feel themselves equally bound in honour, if not to
carry out the letter of the engagements entered into with me by their predecessors, at least
to make such reparation and acknowledgment of my services to the State as will be both
satisfactory to me and honourable to themselves, for I cannot believe it possible that my
just claims will be repudiated by the British Government, and that its present Ministers will
plead the Statute of Limitations as a sufficient bar to them ; for this, after all, would be
but to reduce it to a simple debt of honour, a form of obligation which it has ever been
the pride of Englishmen to regard as their most sacred bond; and you will, I hope, pardon
me when I confess that I cannot but coincide in the opinion so pithily expressed at the
close of a leader in an influential journal,* viz., that " The Eulers of the State at the present
day must be held to have inherited the responsibility of rendering to Mr. Bessemer the
reward of the services by which they and the country have so largely profited."
In order that you may fully understand and appreciate the value of the evidence which
I have the honour to lay before you, I must beg the favour of your perusal of my letter
on the " Eeward of Invention," in which you will find a detailed account of my transactions
with the Stamp Office, and on which my present claims are based.
The following is a verbatim copy of that letter : —
THE REWARD OP INVENTION.
To the Editor of The Times.
SIR,
The letter which you favoured me by publishing last week in relation to the
refusal of our Government to allow the Grand Cross to be accepted by our countrymen,
has elicited many kindly and sympathising expressions from private correspondents; but
to the mind of one gentleman I appear to have written "with some bitterness." Now, I
may plead guilty to such feeling whenever my memory is driven back by force of circumstances
to a period when the Government of this country inflicted on me a great and grievous
injustice in exchange for a great and permanent benefit conferred by me on the State.
Perhaps nothing would tend so much to dispel this morbid feeling as a brief recital of
the circumstances to which I refer.
The facts are briefly these : — At the age of seventeen, I came to London from a small
country village, knowing no one, and myself unknown, a mere cypher in this vast sea of
human enterprise. My studious habits and love of invention soon gained for me a footing,
and at twenty I found myself pursuing a mode I had invented of taking copies from antique
and modern basso-relievos in a manner that enabled me to stamp them on cardboard, thus
producing thousands of embossed copies of the highest works of art at a small cost. The
facility with which I could make a permanent die, even from a thin paper original, capable
of producing a thousand copies, would have opened a wide door to successful fraud if my
process had been known to unscrupulous persons; for there is not a Government stamp or
the paper seal of any corporate body that every common office-clerk could not forge in a
few minutes at the office of his employer or at his own home. The production of a die
from a common paper stamp is the work of only ten minutes ; the materials cost less than
a penny. No sort of technical skill is necessary, and a common copying-press or letter-stamp
yields most successful copies. There is no need for the would-be forger to associate himself
* The Times
THE REWARD OF INVENTION 25
with a skilful die-sinker capable of making a good imitation in steel of the original, for the
merest tyro could make an absolute copy on the first attempt. The public knowledge of
such a means of forging would, at that time, have shattered the whole system of the British
Stamp Office, had I been so incautious as to allow a knowledge of my method to escape.
The secret has, however, been carefully guarded to this day.
No sooner, however, had this fact dawned on me than I began to consider if some
new sort of stamp could be devised to prevent so serious a mischief. During the time I
was engaged in studying this question, I was informed that the Government were themselves
cognisant of the fact that they were losers to a great amount annually by the transfer of
stamps from old and useless deeds to new skins of parchment, thus making the stamps do
duty a second or third time, to the serious loss of the Eevenue. At a later date, this fact
was confirmed by Sir Charles Presley, of the Stamp Office, who told me that he believed
they were defrauded in this way to the extent of probably £100,000 per annum. To
fully appreciate the importance of this fact, and realise the facility afforded for this species
of fraud by the system then in use, it must be understood that the ordinary impressed or
embossed stamp, such as is employed on all bills of exchange, if impressed directly on a
skin of parchment, would be entirely obliterated if the deed be exposed for a few months
to a damp atmosphere. The deed would thus appear as if unstamped, and therefore invalid.
To prevent this, it has been the practice as far back as the reign of Queen Anne, to gum
a small piece of blue paper on to the parchment ; and to render it still more secure a strip
of metal foil is passed through it, and another piece of paper with the printed initials of
the Sovereign is gummed over the loose ends of the foil at the back. The stamp is then
impressed on the blue paper, which, unlike parchment, is incapable of losing the impression
by exposure to a damp atmosphere. But, practically, it has been found that a little piece
of moistened blotting-paper applied for a whole night so softens the gum that the two pieces
of paper and the slip of foil can be removed from the old deed most easily and applied to
a new skin of parchment, and thus be made to do duty a second or third time. Thus the
expensive stamps on thousands of old deeds of partnership, leases and other documents, when
no longer of value, offered a rich harvest to those who were dishonest enough to use them.
With a knowledge of these facts I was enabled to fully appreciate the importance of
any system of stamps that would effectually prevent so great a loss to the Government; nor
did I for one moment doubt but that Government would amply reward me if I were successful
in so doing. After some months of study and experiment — which I cheerfully undertook,
although it interfered considerably with the pursuit of my regular business, inasmuch as it
was necessary to carry on the experiments with the strictest secrecy, and to do all the work
myself during the night after my people had left work — at last I succeeded in making a
stamp that satisfied all the necessary conditions. It was impossible to remove it from one
deed and transfer it to another. No amount of damp, or even saturation with water, could
obliterate it, and it was impossible to take any impression from it capable of producing a
duplicate.
I knew nothing of patents or patent law in those days, and if I had for a moment
thought it necessary to make any preliminary conditions with Government, I should have
at once scouted the idea as one utterly unworthy. Dealing direct with Government, I argued,
must render my interest absolutely secure; and in this full confidence, I wended my way
one fine morning to Somerset House, and was ushered into the presence of the chief, Sir Charles
Presley. I explained the object of my call, and showed him numerous proofs in my possession:
how easily all his stamps could be forged, and also my mode of prevention. He was greatly
astonished at what I had communicated and shown to him, and asked me to call again in
E
26 HENRY BESSEMER
a few days, which I did, and after further conversation on the subject he suggested that I
should work out the principle of my invention more fully. This I was only too anxious
to do ; and some five or six weeks later, I called on him again with a newly-designed stamp,
which greatly pleased him. The design was circular, about 2| inches in diameter, and consisted
of the garter, with the motto in capital letters surrounded by a crown. Within the Garter
was a shield, with the words "Five Pounds." The space between the shield and the Garter
was filled with network in imitation of lace.* The die had been executed in steel, which
had pierced the parchment with more than four hundred holes, each one of the necessary
form to produce its special portion of the design. Since that period, perforated paper has
been largely employed for valentines and other ornamental purposes, but was previously
unknown. It was at once obvious that the transfer of such a stamp was impossible. It
was equally clear that mere dampness could not obliterate it ; nor was it possible to take
any impression from it capable of perforating another skin of parchment.
The design gave great satisfaction, and everything went on smoothly; Sir Charles again
consulted Lord Althorp, and the Stamp Office authorities determined to adopt it. I was
then asked if, instead of receiving a sum of money from the Treasury, I should be satisfied
with the position of Superintendent of Stamps, at some £600 or £800 per annum. This
was all I could desire, and great was my rejoicing at the prospect before me, for I was at
that time engaged to be married, and my future position in life seemed now assured. A few
days after affairs had assumed this satisfactory position, I called on the young lady to whom
I was engaged (now Mrs. Bessemer), and showed her the pretty piece of network which
constituted my new parchment stamp. I explained to her how it could never be removed
from the parchment and used again, mentioning the fact that old deeds with stamps on them
dated as far back as the reign of Queen Anne could be fraudulently used, when she at once
said, "Yes, I understand this; but surely, if all the stamps had a date put on them they
could not at a future time be used again without detection ? " This was, indeed, a new light,
and I confess greatly startled me, but I at once said the steel dies used for this purpose can
have but one date engraved upon them. But after a little consideration I saw that moveable
dates were by no means impossible; and shortly afterwards it came into my mind that this
could easily be effected by drilling three holes of about a quarter of an inch in diameter in
the steel die, and fitting into each of these openings a steel plug or type with sunk figures
engraved on their ends, giving on one the day of the month, on the next the month of the
year, and on the third circular steel type the last two figures of the year. I saw clearly
that this plan would be most simple and efficient, would take less time and money to inaugurate
than the elaborate plan I had devised ; but I must confess that while I felt pleased and
proud at the clever and simple suggestion of the young lady, I saw also that all my more
elaborate system of piercing dies, the result of months of study, and the toil of many a
weary and lonely night, was shattered to pieces by it, and I more than half feared to
disturb the decision that Sir Charles Presley had come to as to the adoption of my perforated
stamp ; but with my strong conviction of the advantages of my new plan I felt in honour
bound not to suppress it, whatever might be the result. Thus it was that I soon found
myself again closeted with Sir Charles at Somerset House, discussing the new scheme, which
he much preferred, because he said all the old dies, old presses, and old workmen could be
employed, and there would be but little change in the Office ; so little, in fact, that no new
Superintendent of Stamps was required, which the then unknown art of making and using
piercing dies would have rendered absolutely necessary. After due consideration my first
* See engraving of this stamp, Fig. 5, Plate III
THE REWARD OF INVENTION 27
plan was definitely abandoned by the Office in favour of the dated stamps, with which
everyone is now familiar. In six or eight weeks from this time, an Act of Parliament was
passed calling in the private stock of stamps dispersed throughout the country, and authorising
the issue of the new dated ones.
Thus was inaugurated a system that has been in operation some forty-five years,* success-
fully preventing that source of fraud from which the Kevenue had so severely suffered. If
anything like Sir Charles Presley's estimate of £100,000 per annum was correct, this saving
must now amount to some millions sterling; but whatever the varying amount might have
been, it is certain that so important and long-established a system as that in use at the
Stamp Office would never have been voluntarily broken up by its own officials except under
the strongest conviction that their losses were very great, and that the new order of things
would prove an effectual barrier to future fraud.
During all the bustle of this great change, no steps had been taken to instal me in the
office. Lord Althorp had resigned, and no one seemed to have any authority to do anything
for me; all sorts of half promises and excuses followed each other with long delays between,
and I gradually saw the whole thing sliding out of my grasp. Instead of holding fast to my
first plan, which they could not have executed without my aid and the special knowledge
I had acquired, I had in all the trustfulness of youthful inexperience shown them another
so simple that they could put it in operation without any assistance from me. I had no patent
to fall back upon. I could not go to law, even if I wished to do so, for I was reminded
when pressing for mere money out of pocket, that I had done all the work voluntarily and
of my own accord. Wearied and disgusted, I at last ceased to waste time in calling
at the Stamp Office, for time was precious to me in those days, and I felt that nothing but
increased exertions could make up for the loss of some nine months of toil and expenditure.
Thus, sad and dispirited, and with a burning sense of injustice overpowering all other feelings,
I went my way from the Stamp Office, too proud to ask as a favour that which was
indubitably my just right ; and up to this hour I have never received one shilling or any
kind of acknowledgement from the British Government. Such has been my reward.
I am, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
Denmark Hill, (Signed) HENRY BESSEMER.
29th October, 1878.
In all the early stages of the development of my invention for piercing designs on
parchment, I had depended entirely on my own hands; but when I was desired by the
Stamp Office authorities to show how I proposed practically to carry out the invention,
I designed the form of stamp described in my letter to The Times, and which is faithfully
represented by an impression on the fly-leaf at the commencement of this letter ; the
execution of the somewhat elaborate design in steel, represented by this impression, was
entrusted by me to Messrs. Porter and Son, die-sinkers of some eminence, at that time
carrying on business in Percival Street, Clerkenwell, and whom I had frequently before
employed to re-touch the cast-metal dies used by me for stamping works of art in relief on
cardboard.
Now, in order to obtain positive evidence in corroboration of my letter to The Times
of November 1st, it was of paramount importance that I should find Mr. Porter, if still
* Now over seventy years ago
28 HENRY BESSEMER
alive ; I had strong hopes of doing so, as I had both seen and conversed with him twice
within the last eight or ten years, but had no knowledge of his present residence; failing
to obtain this information, I resorted to an advertisement in the second column of The Times,
on November 6th and six following days, which happily resulted in Mr. Porter communicating
with me. He knew me well as an old customer of his firm, and reminded me of some
of the more important dies re-touched by him ; in consequence of the extremely novel
character of the piercing die referred to, and the unusually difficult and laborious nature
of the work, consequent on the extreme depth of the engraving, it had been fully impressed
on his memory, and he was enabled at once to recognise the impression given on the fly-leaf
of this letter as a faithful (though somewhat less artistically finished) copy of the piercing
die executed by his firm for me in 1833.*
In order to secure permanently this important evidence, Mr. Porter made, at my
request, a statutory declaration to that effect, his identity being witnessed by a gentleman
of position who had known him intimately for the last thirty-five years. A verbatim
copy of this declaration is appended hereto.
The advertisement referred to induced many persons to whom I was known to tender
such information as they might happen to possess in reference to Mr. Porter; one of these
letters was from a Mr. Richard Cull, a gentleman with whom I became personally and
intimately acquainted soon after my first arrival in London, about the year 1831. Being
a man of taste and superior education, he took great interest in my invention for cheaply
reproducing works of art in bas-relief, and during our intimacy of that period he proposed
to join me as partner in the commercial carrying -out of my invention, but this proposition
was never carried into effect.
Many years had elapsed since I had seen Mr. Cull, during which time he had risen
to the highest eminence as a philologist and a prominent member of the Society of
Antiquarians. Most fortunately, he had happened to see my advertisement for Mr. Porter
in The Times, and having been acquainted in early life with Mr. Porter and his family,
he at once wrote to me on the subject; he had also seen my letter in The Times on the
"Reward of Invention," and it is to that circumstance, no doubt, that I owe the closing
remarks of his letter, of which the following is a verbatim copy, omitting only some irrelevant
family matters lelative to Mr. Porter: —
12, Tavistock Street,
Bedford Square,
November 9th, 1878.
DEAR MB. BESSEMER,
It is some time since we met, but seeing your advertisement for Mr. Porter,
the die-sinker, I determined to write to inform you what I can on the subject. He was a
very good artist, but he failed in business and took a situation in the City ; I knew him
very well, and his family, including his father, mother, and sister I think he
must now be dead, as I have not met him for fourteen or fifteen years, and he never
said where he lived after leaving Percival Street.
I remember SEVERAL CONVERSATIONS with you concerning Sir C. Presley and your
* See Fig. 5, Plate III
THE REWARD OF INVENTION 29
invention, AT THE TIME OP YOUR INTERVIEWS WITH HIM. I well remember the unfavourable
opinions I formed of that official.
I am,
Yours very tiuly,
(Signed) R. CULL.
This letter from a gentleman I had for so many years lost sight of was a most unexpected
and spontaneous confirmation of the fact that I was at the time mentioned in constant
communication with Sir Charles Presley on the subject of my newly-invented stamps, and
also that our conversations at the time had impressed Mr. Cull with "an unfavourable
opinion of that official." I have no doubt but that in our frequent and friendly intercourse
I had complained loudly of the constant evasions with which my claims were met at the
Stamp Office, which must have given rise to this unfavourable impression in the mind of my
friend, and which, it appears, was strongly enough imprinted to survive for so many years,
although the precise reasons for it are no longer distinctly remembered. At my suggestion,
Mr. Cull unhesitatingly made a statutory declaration on the 15th of November embodying
these facts, a verbatim copy of which is appended.
In my letter on the "Reward of Invention," I stated that I was twenty years of age
when my experiments for the prevention of forgery were commenced. Now, I was born
on the 19th January, 1813, hence I had arrived at twenty years of age in January, 1833.
I have also stated that after some months of study and experiment, I succeeded in producing
a stamp which satisfied all the necessary conditions; then follow the intervals between
my several interviews with Sir Charles Presley, and also the five or six weeks occupied by
Mr. Porter in engraving the die, which was accepted by the Stamp Office authorities; and
then came the application to Parliament for an Act to empower the Commissioners of Stamps
to call in all the old stamps and issue new ones in lieu of them. This Act of Parliament,
if I correctly understood Sir Charles Presley, was hurried through the House in six or
eight weeks; it was, in fact, as I now find, passed on August 29th, 1833, or just seven
months and ten days after I was twenty years of age; thus, proving how accurate I was
in my statement of the period when these transactions took place, and which family matters
had impressed indelibly on the memory.
I mentioned also in my letter to The Times that an Act of Parliament was passed
calling in all stocks of stamps dispersed throughout the country, and authorising the issue
of the new dated ones. I did not know of my own knowledge that such an Act had
been passed, but I perfectly well remember being told so by Sir Charles Presley, because
it was an absolute assurance to me that my plans would be adopted ; but I relied solely
on Sir Charles Presley's statement to that effect. Hence, when it occurred to me that this
Act of Parliament would form a most important link in the chain of evidence I desired
to establish, I must confess to some trepidation lest Sir Charles had misinformed me, or
had spoken only of an Act in the course of passing through Parliament, but which might
have been thrown out and never passed at all ; thus, when I applied to my solicitor to
obtain, if possible, a copy of the Act in question, I was greatly pleased to find that not
only was the statement of Sir Charles Presley (repeated by me in The Times) confirmed,
but I found that this Act of Parliament* in its preamble admitted the fact that "the laws
* This Act is the 3rd and 4th of William IV., Chapter 97, dated August 29th, 1833
30 HENRY BESSEMER
heretofore enacted, and now in force in Great Britain, have been FOUND INSUFFICIENT TO
PREVENT THE SELLING AND UTTERING OF FORGED STAMPS ON VELLUM, PARCHMENT, AND PAPER.
Powers are given under the different sections of this Act to BUY UP AND DESTROY ALL
STAMPS AND STAMPED PARCHMENTS then in possession of all vendors of stamps throughout the
country. Full powers are also given to the Commissioners to DISCONTINUE the use of ALL
DIES HERETOFORE USED in the Stamp Office, and authorising the employment of ANY NEW DIE
OR DIES, with such DEVICE OR DEVICES as the Commissioners MAY THINK FIT.
The Act also declares that after three months from that date all stamps previously
issued, or any deeds stamped therewith, shall be deemed to be illegal.
Then follows a most stringent clause (Section 12), making it felony punishable by
TRANSPORTATION FOR LIFE BEYOND SEAS, for any person to JOIN, FIX, OR PLACE UPON any
vellum parchment or paper, any stamp, mark or impression, which shall have been cur,
TORN, OR GOTTEN OFF, OR REMOVED from any vellum, parchment or paper, etc.
The object of this last clause is clearly to add, by the terrors of a most sweeping and
stringent penal law, to the security which the new stamp was calculated to afford against the
heavy losses which the Government had for so many years sustained by the transfer of
stamps from one deed to another ; and bears evidence, as indeed does the whole document,
of the perfect state of panic into which the Stamp Office was thrown when they fully
realised the extreme facility which my method of making composition dies from any paper
impressions afforded for successfully forging every description of embossed stamp.
It is almost impossible to realise the spectacle afforded by one of the most conservative
of all the institutions of the State — one which has stood its ground for generations — suddenly
and without the smallest reserve flinging over every tradition of the past, repudiating all its
former issues, and buying back again from the public all the stamps it could lay hands upon,
for no better purpose than their destruction, and proclaiming by advertisement that their use,
if not brought back, would be illegal ; thus suddenly waking up, as it were, from a long
period of fancied security, and seeking in hot haste powers from the legislature to protect
them by the most severe of all penal laws next to that of death, and asking at the same
time full powers to search all domiciles, shops, warehouses or places, under the mere suspicion
that forged stamps may be concealed there, and to seize all stamps suspected of being
forged; thus showing a not unnatural dread lest the secret of my method of reproducing
embossed impressions might become known, and result in flooding the country with spurious
Thus does it sometimes happen that the stern realities of life overstep the boldest flights
of imagination. Who in his wildest dreams could have supposed that one of the oldest
departments of the State would be thrown into utter confusion, requiring immediate legislative
action for its security ; that the loss of vast sums annually to the Revenue would be pre-
vented, and that a great temptation and incentive to crime would find a perfect remedy at
the hands of a mere boy and girl ? Such things are of themselves strange enough, but it is
still more extraordinary that the Government of a country which prides itself more than
any other in the civilised world on its simple justice and inviolable honour should have
received so great a boon at the hands of a youth who was struggling hard to create for
himself a position in the world, and who, in the fulness of his unbounded faith in their
honour and integrity, placed unreservedly in their hands the power of doing all this, without
PLATE IV,
pq
Q
K
O
A TARDY RECOGNITION 31
retaining the smallest check on them for his own protection ; and who up to this hour has
never received one iota of the remuneration held out to him as an inducement to persevere
with his invention, or even one word of thanks or acknowledgment of the great and lasting
benefits he has conferred upon the State.
Such, then, are the circumstances under which I now come forward to vindicate my
honour, by proving the truth of the statements publicly made through The Times; and to
claim, at the hands of Her Majesty's present Ministers, such payment or acknowledgment of
my past services as may be consistent with the honour and dignity of the State, and at the
same time acceptable to myself.
I scarcely need say that I shall at any time be happy to give personally any further
facts or explanations that may be desired in relation to this matter ; and I may further add
that Mrs. Bessemer as well as myself, has a perfect remembrance of the circumstances
connected with her suggestions of the dating on stamps, and which has for more than half
a generation been a sort of tradition in the family, perfectly well known and fully understood
by more than a dozen of its members.
I have mentioned all these facts most unreservedly, that you might be in a position to
judge if I have not had substantial grounds for dissatisfaction with the administrators of
former Governments.
But the one and only claim I now make has reference to the engagements entered into
with me by the Stamp Office, and in this case I merely ask that a simple act of common
justice may be done, such as in private life the law would compel, and individual character
would render imperative; nor do I doubt for one moment that Her Majesty's present
Ministers, who have so nobly maintained untarnished the honour of the British nation in
every part of the world, will (now they are aware of the fact) most gladly blot out from the
page of history the deep stain on the nation's honour which has been so long recorded in
the annals of the British Stamp Office.
In conclusion, allow me to apologise for the length to which I have extended this
letter, and to offer you my most grateful thanks for your kind perusal of it; and further
allow me the honour to subscribe myself —
Your most obedient, humble Servant,
(Signed) HBNEY BESSEMER.
I need not say how anxious I was to receive a reply from Lord
Beaconsfield to this rather bold assertion of my claims on the Govern-
ment, but I felt well assured that every enquiry among the still existing
officials at Somerset House could not fail in establishing the justice ot
my demands. These printed letters to Her Majesty's Cabinet Ministers
were posted on May 5th, 1879, and were most courteously acknowledged,
and resulted in an investigation being instituted. On May 29th, I was
honoured by an autograph reply from Lord Beaconsfield, of which a
photographic copy is here given (Fig. 6, Plate IV.) ; and which clearly
shows that both he and his colleagues were not only satisfied of the
32 HENRY BESSEMER
truth of the charges I had made, but were honourable enough to
offer such compensation as they had in their power to bestow, and
which I cordially accepted as a full acknowledgment of the services
rendered. The form taken was the more satisfactory to me, inasmuch
as it was a reward in which Mrs. Bessemer would take an equal share
with myself, as she had already done in the invention which had been
of such signal service to the State.
On the 21st June I received an intimation from the Right
Honourable R. A. Cross that Her Most Gracious Majesty had been
pleased to signify her intention of conferring on me the honour of
Knighthood, after the Council which would be held at Windsor Castle,
on Thursday, the 26th instant ensuing. I accordingly repaired to
Windsor on that day. One of the royal carriages awaited my arrival
at the station, and conveyed me to the Castle, where I had the
honour of passing through the quaint and interesting ceremony of
kneeling on one knee before Her Majesty, and receiving a gentle blow
across the shoulder from a light and beautifully jewelled sword, and
was commanded to express my gratitude by kissing the hand of Her
Most Gracious Majesty. I afterwards took lunch at the Castle, and
then returned to London.
CHAPTER III
COMPRESSING PLUMBAGO DUST ; CASTING TYPE •
TYPE-COMPOSING MACHINE, ETC.
A FTER this long digression I must retrace my steps, forget for a
-£*• time all the great doings of the 26th June, 1879, and remember
only, so far as this little personal history is concerned, that I was at
the time of which I am writing, simply Henry Bessemer, an unknown
youth struggling to get a footing in the world by working with hand
and brain for many hours every day, a task most cheerfully performed. In
those days I had one great and paramount object always before me ; one
bright guiding star that kept me from falling into the almost irresistible
temptations which the pleasures and gaieties of London hold out to
every youth of a sanguine temperament who, like myself, happens to
be sole master of his own actions. With no friendly voice to give
counsel, or to guide and regulate my hours of leisure, or check my
wanderings, that one silent but ever-present irresistible control which
the desire to be worthy of, and united to, a beloved object, ever
exercised over me, kept me in the straight path, made my labour
sweet, and almost converted it into an amusement.
At this period the enthusiasm of the amateur was fast giving way
to a more steady commercial instinct, and I let no opportunity slip of
improving my position, but I felt that I was still labouring under the
disadvantage of not having acquired some technical profession. With
the exception of my card-embossing and die-making business, I had
nothing to depend upon, and I but too readily allowed my attention
to be directed to new subjects which always exercised a sort of
fascination over me ; this tendency I found difficult to control, but I
invariably made myself believe that as soon as I could strike some
"good vein" I should work it to its full capacity, and never again be
tempted to turn aside after mere novelties.
34 HENRY BESSEMER
Just before I had embarked on my luckless Stamp Office enterprise,
I become aware of some curious facts relative to the manufacture of
black lead pencils. The only mine in Great Britain which yields
plumbago, or black lead as it is called, suitable for pencil-making, is
situated in one of the mountains at Borrowdale, in Cumberland, and is
about 1000 ft. deep. This rare and very valuable mineral substance
became the subject of continued robbery about one hundred and forty
years ago, and is said to have enriched many persons resident in the
neighbourhood. It was strongly guarded by the proprietors, but they
were more than once overpowered by an infuriated mob, and possession
of the mines was held for a considerable time by the desperadoes.
When the owners again got possession, their carts, which conveyed the
produce of the mine to Keswick, were always guarded by soldiers.
The entrance to the mine was afterwards protected by a strong
building, consisting of a well-appointed guard room and three other
apartments on the ground floor, in one of which was an opening into the
mine, secured by a trap-door, through which alone the miners could enter.
In another of these apartments, called the dressing-room, the miners
changed their ordinary clothes for a working dress, and after six hours'
work in the mine they had again to change their dress under inspection,
lest some of this valuable substance might be concealed about them.
The plumbago, when perfectly cleaned, was packed up in casks and
despatched to London, and there disposed of at monthly sales by auction,
at the offices of the proprietors, in Thames Street, where it realised
from thirty-five to forty-five shillings per pound, the annual sales ranging
in value from £30,000 to £40,000 sterling.
Plumbago is found in small irregular nodules about the size and
shape of a potato, and consists ot carbon in a peculiar state of
aggregation, with a small impregnation of iron.
The trade in pencil-making at the time of which I am speaking—
about 1838 — was chiefly in the hands of the Jews, and one important
branch of it consisted in sawing these little nodules of plumbago into
slices of about one-sixteenth of an inch in thickness. This art of sawing
the plumbago was a most difficult one to acquire, and hitherto all efforts
to replace hand labour by machinery had failed ; hence it remained a
SAWING PLUMBAGO 35
monopoly in the hands of the Jewish workmen, who were paid as much
as a guinea per pound for sawing the material. The difficulty of cutting
it into slices without breaking them was very great, while the rounded
shape of the nodules and their slippery surface rendered it most trouble-
some to hold them firmly during the sawing operation ; moreover, the
thin slices thus obtained were so brittle as to be easily broken by the
accumulation of sawdust in the bottom of the saw-cut. Another difficulty
arose from the presence of minute sparks of black diamond dispersed here
and there throughout the mass ; whenever the saw struck against one
of them the slice was broken. The hand-saw used by the workmen had
what is called a " wide-set" ; that is, the teeth were bent right and left
so as to well relieve it from the pressure of accumulated sawdust ; the
consequence being that the saw-cut was nearly as wide as the slice of
plumbago produced, and hence each pound was reduced to about nine
ounces of slices and seven ounces of dust. The result was that the
price of the slices, augmented by twenty shillings for the labour
of sawing, was brought up in value from about forty shillings to nearly
£4 10s. per pound.
On enquiry into this matter, I found that I could purchase the
sawdust for about half-a-crown per pound. These facts held out promises
of a very profitable manufacture, if I could only succeed either in
making a sawing-machine that would be less wasteful of the material,
or in finding some means of consolidating this large quantity of dust,
without such an admixture of extraneous matter as would prevent its
being used in the manufacture of the best pencils.
I first tried the sawing-machine, which I constructed with great
care. The principal features of novelty in this machine related to the
saws ; these were made from the main-springs of watches which had
been broken while in use ; they were extremely thin, and of a beauti-
fully fine quality of steel. The " set " on the tooth was made especially
small, and consequently the saw-cut was so narrow as to waste only a
very little of the material in the form of dust. I entirely avoided the
clogging of the saw in these narrow cuts, and the consequent splitting-off
of the slice, by putting the teeth of the saw uppermost, and bringing
the piece of blacklead to be cut downward upon it by the slow motion
36 HENRY BESSEMER
of a fine screw. By this means the dust fell freely downwards out of
the saw-cut, and never clogged the saw or broke a slice of the
material.
I was also successful in getting over the difficulty caused by striking
against the little black diamond sparks, by the use of a spring friction
clutch on the connecting-rod which reciprocated the saw-frame. This
delicately-adjusted clutch was tightened up just sufficiently to overcome
the usual resistance to the saw ; but whenever that resistance was
increased by contact with a diamond spark, the friction clutch simply
yielded and the saw was rendered motionless, although the machine
continued to work until it was thrown out of gear. It was in this way
almost impossible to break a slice in the process of cutting ; whenever
the machine was thus rendered inactive, the diamond was searched for
and removed in the usual way, when the sawing process was resumed.
Having thus succeeded in making a machine capable of saving a
large quantity of the plumbago which had hitherto been wasted as dust
in the ordinary process of sawing by hand, I considered it advisable to
bring my invention under the notice of the eminent pencil-makers,
Messrs. Mordan and Co., offering to saw their plumbago at a mere
nominal cost, and share with them the value of the material saved.
Every offer was rejected by them, under the plea that the firm could
not suffer their " prepared plumbago " to leave their premises ; they, in
fact, wished me to put up my machine and work it in their manufactory ;
but this I declined to do, and consequently I laid the machine aside
for the moment in deep disgust at this unexpected rebuff.
I then determined to try and utilise the plumbago dust which at
that time could be obtained so cheaply, and after several preliminary
trials I obtained leave from a city firm to use in private their
powerful hydraulic press, a machine capable, if necessary, of exerting
a pressure of 400 tons on the plunger of my experimental mould, which
was simply a cylindrical mass of iron, having an internal diameter of
three inches. This cylinder was half filled with the plumbago sawdust
in a pure state, and the short ram or plunger occupied the other half;
it projected above the surface as shown in Figs. 7 and 8, where A,
Fig. 7, represents a section of the cylinder in which the plunger, B, is
COMPRESSING POWDERED PLUMBAGO 37
fitted, and c shows a recessed plate of iron on which the cylinder rests.
The powder to be pressed is shown at D ; in this state the apparatus
was placed in a furnace and heated to redness, after which it was
removed to the hydraulic press, and the plunger forced down with a
pressure of about five tons to the square inch ; the pressure being con-
tinued until the whole had cooled down, and the powder had formed
into a solid mass. The cylinder was then placed over a hollow block of
iron as shown at E, in Fig. 8, when pressure was again applied to the
plunger and the cylindrical mass of plumbago was forced out, after
which it was found to be in every way suitable for making the very
best lead pencils.
A young friend of mine to whom I showed some of this compressed
FIGS. 7 AND 8. METHOD OF COMPRESSING PLUMBAGO POWDER
plumbago, offered to purchase the invention, at the same time saying that
he could not risk more than £200 on the venture ; I, remembering the
rebuff with the sawing-machine, accepted his offer without further con-
sideration ; my friend then went off to Cumberland, and made arrange-
ments with, the Plumbago Company. At the present day we find
that the best lead pencils in the market are made by crushing the
small lumps and odd pieces of plumbago, then washing and floating the
powder, by that means getting entirely rid of the little black diamonds,
and producing various grades of hardness by different degrees of heat
and pressure.
I fear this little episode does not speak very favourably for my
business capacity in those early days, for I certainly ought to have made
much more than I did by this really important invention.
38 HENRY BESSEMER
When I was experimenting with plumbago (about 1838) I was engaged
in designing a new system of casting types by machinery, some features
of which are of sufficient interest to be recorded. The moulds in this
machine were entirely composed of hardened and tempered steel,
shaped by laps, as the metal could be neither planed nor filed. From
fifty-five to sixty types were cast per minute in each of the two com-
partments of the mould ; and in order that the solidification of the
metal should take place in the extremely small interval of time allowed
for that purpose, the moulds were cooled by a constant flow of cold
water through suitable passages made in them, in close proximity to
those parts where the fluid metal came in contact. Another special
feature of this mode of casting was the employment of a force pump
placed within the bath of melted metal, by means of which the latter
was injected into the mould at the proper moment, the pressure of the
injected fluid being under the perfect control of a loaded valve. It will
be readily understood that a sharp jet of fluid metal would propel with
it an induced current of air, and consequently produce a bubbly and
spongy casting, which would have been wholly valueless. The short
space of time occupied in its solidification afforded no opportunity for
the escape of air in the usual way by floating in bubbles upward, as in
the case of castings where the metal is retained in its molten state in
the mould for several minutes.
I found an absolute cure for this apparently insuperable difficulty,
by forming a vacuum in the mould at the very instant at which the
injection of metal took place ; and so successful was this system
of exhausting the moulds, that one might break a hundred types in
succession without finding a single blowhole in any one of them.
The iron or brass founder, whose slow and tedious operations are
performed by quietly pouring his molten metal into the mould with a
ladle, will at once see what a new departure in the art of founding
this machine presented. Firstly, there was the same mould producing
fifty-five to sixty castings per minute, instead of being broken up and
destroyed after one cast : then pouring the metal from a ladle was
replaced by injecting it with a force-pump, the mould itself having a
continuous stream of cold water running through suitable passages
CASTING TYPE ; ENGINE TURNING 39
formed in it so as to cool every part of its surface in contact with
the fluid metal ; and, finally, instead of the mould being composed
of porous materials through which the confined air gradually escaped,
there was an almost indestructible mould, wholly free from pores, from
which all the contained air was withdrawn in the fraction of a second
by its sudden connection with an exhausted vessel at the moment when
the metal was injected.
The valve through which the metal was injected into the mould
being extremely small, required to be fitted very closely to prevent
its leaking ; it was found that after it had been opened and closed
some six or seven thousand times, a portion of the fluid metal would,
by friction against the sides of the valve, be rubbed into powder, and
more or less obstruct its action. Otherwise, the really beautiful mechanism
of this casting machine performed all its functions with perfect precision,
and formed the bodies of the type so parallel and so perfect in other
respects, that it soon began to create much jealous feeling and opposition
among the type-founders, whose occupation was threatened by it. For
this reason, Messrs. Wilson, the well-known type-founders, of Edinburgh,
to whom I had sold my invention, preferred to make no further efforts
to improve the valve arrangements, and allowed the whole matter to
sink quietly into oblivion rather than face the storm they saw was
brewing.
About this period my attention was directed to the art of engine-
turning, which was a very profitable one to the few who had sufficient
originality of thought to work out those marvellous combinations of
interlacing lines, such as we see at the present time on the coupons
of many foreign bonds. I was a most enthusiastic admirer of these
productions, especially those of that greatest of all engine-turners,
Jacob Perkins, the well-known American engineer. I felt certain that
I could employ one of these beautiful machines to advantage, and I
was fortunate enough to purchase a very good one for £65.
How well I remember its being delivered at my premises one
afternoon ; I had it placed in my private office, close to the window.
I knew pretty well nearly every detail of its construction, but I
commenced by taking it all to pieces, the better to impress my mind
40 HENRY BESSEMER
with the smallest detail. Having put it together again, and taken my
evening meal, I lit my large argand lamp, and, with my back to the
window, I sat facing the Rose engine, and commenced my first essay
on some odd pieces of brass which I had mounted on the straight-line
chuck. I found myself rather awkward at first, but I soon began to
manipulate more successfully, and in a short time became deeply
absorbed in my work. I was ruling some very fine waved lines, which
I could not see so clearly as I wished, when, looking round to the
window on which my back had so long been turned, I was surprised
to find the grey morning light stealing quietly in, and rendering my
lamp useless. I had no idea that I had been sitting up all night, so
imperceptibly had the time glided by. I was, however, well satisfied
with the progress I was making, and was much delighted with my
Rose engine, additions to which I never seemed tired of devising, and
thus obtaining the infinity of beautiful effects which simple interlaced
curved lines were capable of producing. Nor was this delightful work
unaccompanied by a substantial reward, for almost fabulous prices were
sometimes paid for unique specimens of the art, applicable as patent
medicine labels, coupons, and for other purposes where it was desirable
to render fraudulent imitation impossible.
On this machine I engraved many rollers for paper - embossing
and printing for Messrs. De la Rue, and for the firm of Vizetelly and
Co., etc. In cutting deeply-incised lines in metal for surface printing,
there was always a tendency in curves to drag or blur the surface
of the metal block. A little study of the subject convinced me that
this defect was owing to the quality of the metal employed, and after
several attempts I succeeded in making an alloy of tin and bismuth,
which answered admirably. It made a sharp creaking sound as the
tool glided over it, cutting very crisp and raising no burr on the sides
of the line cut. Indeed, so perfectly did this alloy remove a serious
practical difficulty, that I used to manufacture blocks of the metal for
the trade. This was the case also with another alloy, of equal parts
of tin and zinc, to which were added 8 per cent, of copper and
3 per cent, of antimony. The metals forming this alloy have a
tendency to solidify in the order of their fusibility, and the alloy has
MANUFACTURE OF ALLOYS 41
the peculiar property of passing from the fluid to the solid state so
slowly that it may be used at an intermediate stage, when it is neither
liquid nor solid ; in this state it lends itself admirably to the formation
of what are called " forcers," used in embossing leather or cards. This
raised impression, or " forcer," is made by pouring the melted alloy into
an open frame laid on the edges of the die ; when the metal
has attained a state of partial solidification, a beautiful impression of
the die may be obtained by gentle pressure, and the alloy, when quite
cold, is hard enough to stand the wear and tear of stamping in a
most remarkable manner. The sale of these alloys to the trade was a
welcome source of profit to me, and by no one was their usefulness
more appreciated than by the late Mr. Thomas De la Rue, the talented
founder of that well-known firm of fancy stationers, whom I had the
advantage of knowing intimately and numbering among my best
customers.
Thus, one branch of trade seemed to lead imperceptibly to
another ; but I was always waiting and looking forward to the establish-
ment of the one large and steady branch of business that I hoped would
some day allow me to drop the many schemes which my versatile mind
so easily created, seized upon, and engrafted on the business I was
carrying on ; but this one great branch of trade, so earnestly desired,
had not yet manifested itself. I was accordingly content in the mean-
time to hold on to everything that fairly paid for the time and capital
employed in its production.
My life at this time was pretty much one of hard work and
steady attention to business, from which I could only snatch short
intervals. Late in the evening I would drop in and have a chat with
my father, then advanced in years, but ever anxious to hear of my
progress, and desirous to see the latest specimens of Rose engine work,
or to discuss with me some of the many new schemes that occupied
my thoughts. At that time my two sisters kept house for my father,
and in this little family circle I spent many a quiet evening. There
was another house, however, to which my steps were involuntarily wont
to lead me. My friend, Mr. Richard Allen, had a fair daughter, to
whom I had for some time been engaged ; thus, between the two families
G
42 HENRY BESSEMER
all my leisure hours were spent in friendly intercourse and quiet meetings,
without even a desire on my part to mix in any of those gaieties
which the world calls Society. Pleasant and delightful as were these
evenings, replete with all the charm of unrestricted social amenities,
they were, nevertheless, only steps to one great end and aim of all my
earthly aspirations: for above all things I desired to exchange my lonely
bachelor's apartments for a home of my own. I did not see the wisdom
of waiting for an indefinite time on " fickle fortune," so as my betrothed
was willing to share my lot in life, we were married. We settled down
quietly in Northampton Square, close to my place of business, and I
am happy to say that in all the changes and vicissitudes of the sixty-
four years that have passed since that happy event, I have never had
reason to regret a step which I had taken in the full confidence of youth
that I should, in time, be able to carve out for myself a name and a
position in the world worthy of her to whom my life was henceforth
to be devoted.
The white metal medallions and casts of natural objects, coated
with a film of copper and exhibited by me at the Museum of Arts
and Manufactures, in Leicester Square, attracted the attention of a
gentleman who had in his possession a great many of the beautiful
dies that had been engraved in the French mint, the impressions from
which are generally known as the " Napoleon Medals." Some of them
were engraved in steel, others were cut in brass, and all were of the
most exquisite workmanship. I made arrangements with the owner
of these dies to produce a great quantity of bronzed impressions of
them at prices which were highly renumerative. For this purpose, I
devised a simple apparatus for rapidly stamping the impressions in
semi-fluid metal, the only mode by which perfect impressions could be
obtained from those dies that were engraved in brass. After some
considerable trouble, I produced an alloy of tin and other metals, which
differed from the alloy named before in having no zinc in it, though
it nevertheless passed so slowly and so gradually from the fluid to the
solid state, that the most perfect impressions were obtained with unerring
certainty. The shower of splashes inseparable from stamping semi-
fluid metal was received in the case surrounding the dies, and this was
PLATE V.
FIG. 9. KEPRODUCTION OP THE FAMOUS " DOUBLE HEAD " MEDAL, NAPOLEON AND JOSEPHINE
>• OF i nc V»
VERSITY |
OF
PLATE VI.
FIG. 10. REPRODUCTION OF A NAPOLEON MEDAL
FIG. 11. REPRODUCTION OF MEDALLION OF MINERVA'S HEAD
STAMPING MEDALLIONS 43
automatically closed as the press descended. Immense quantities of
these fine medallions were made, and beautifully bronzed without
impairing their sharpness. I still possess a few of them, more or less
damaged by time; and as an example of their general character, I give
photographic reproductions of some of them in the figures on Plates V.
and VI., each being the same size as the original. Those I have
selected include the famous " double - head," Napoleon and Josephine
(Fig. 9, Plate V.), said to be the finest portrait medals of the Emperor
ever produced. Fig. 10, Plate VI., is another of these Napoleon
medals, and Fig. 11 is a medallion of the head of Minerva.
One day I was called upon by a gentleman, a Mr. James Young,
who presented a card of introduction from a barrister to whom I was
well known. His object was to obtain the assistance of a mechanician
to devise, or construct, a machine for setting up printing type. I had
a long and pleasant conversation with this most agreeable client ;
indeed, our frequent meetings and friendly discussions resulted in a
close friendship, terminating only with his death, which occurred several
years later. My friend Young, who was a silk merchant at Lille, had
persuaded himself that by playing on keys, arranged somewhat after
the style of a pianoforte, all the letters required in a printed page
could be mechanically arranged in lines and columns more quickly than
by hand ; but as he was personally wholly unacquainted with mechanism,
he desired someone to elaborate all the details of such a machine, and
asked me if I would professionally study the subject for him, and
prepare models to illustrate each proposition. The matter seemed a
very difficult one at first sight, and I said that it would be impossible
for me to devote more than a portion of each day to its consideration.
It was then arranged that I should give as much thought to the
subject as I could, consistent with due attention to my general
business, and to these terms was attached a guinea per day as a con-
sulting fee.
The general idea on which the machine was based was the
arranging of the respective letters in long narrow boxes, from which
a touch of the key referring to any particular letter would detach the
type required ; this, when set at liberty, was to slide down an inclined
44 HENRY BESSEMER
plane to a terminal point, where other mechanism was to divide the
letters so received, into lines if required, and thus build up a page
of matter, such as a column in a newspaper, etc.
It will be at once understood that this was not a very simple
matter, in consequence of the many signs required. We have first the
twenty-six small letters of the alphabet, and the double letters, such
as ji, fl, jf, ffi, ffl; then we have the points, or punctuations, signs of
reference, etc. ; there are also the ten figures and the twenty-six capital
letters and their respective double letters, as well as blank types, called
" spaces," of different thicknesses, required to divide separate words
from each other, etc, Now, as a primary necessity, these numerous
letters, when wanted, must, of course, come from different places, and
all must descend grooves in the inclined planes in precisely equal
times. The time of the whole journey down the incline, say, 2 ft. long,
must not occupy any one type more that one-hundredth of a second
more or less than the one before or behind it, or its arrival will be too
soon or too late, and the word will be wrongly spelt. Thus, suppose
the word ACT is required, and the keys A, C, and T, are touched
rapidly in succession. If the letter C should arrive first instead
of A, the word would not be "ACT" but " CAT," and so for every
word. A type that is less than 1 in. in length must never, on its
journey, arrive its own length in advance or in the rear of the others
that are simultaneously rushing down the inclined plane to the same
terminus.
The difficulty that this fact presented was almost beyond belief.
Many models were made and much study devoted to it. Thus, suppose
a type detached at the point A in the accompanying diagram (Fig. 12)
is required to slide down the inclined plane to c, and another one from
the point B is immediately to follow, it will be seen that not only is
the road to be travelled by A much longer than that by B, but B also
has the advantage of coming straight down the inclined surface,
encountering friction only on the one surface on which it rests ; while
A has not only got a longer journey to perform, but it lays its whole
weight on the inclined surface, and rubs also against the inclined side
of its groove, thus causing additional friction, so lessening the
YOUNGS TYPE COMPOSING MACHINE
45
speed of its descent, and resulting in the arrival of B at its destination
before, instead of after, A.
a/ be d> e> fa h
Fig. 12.
Fig. 13.
FIG. 14
FIGS. 12 TO 14. YOUNG'S COMPOSING MACHINE
The result of studying this part of the question forced on my mind
the important fact that the grooves on the surface of the inclined plane
would have to be all of precisely the same length, and every letter, in
46 HENRY BESSEMER
descending, would have to encounter exactly the same amount of side way
rubbing surface. This knotty point was at last settled in so simple and
perfect a manner, that when I had accomplished it I felt half ashamed
that it had so long eluded me. The form of grooved incline thus
indicated ensured a perfect spelling of every word, and removed the
greatest obstacle on the way to success.
The diagram, Fig. 13, represents a portion of the inclined plane,
with its small shallow grooves so arranged that any one of the letters
a, b, c, d, e,f, g, and h, at the top of the inclined plane would, if allowed
to slide down this series of curved grooves, pass along precisely similar
paths, and travel precisely equal distances, before arriving at the
terminus c.
It will be readily understood that a simple extension of this system
would allow any number of letters arranged along the upper line to reach
the terminus in the same time ; hence each one would arrive in the
order of its departure and every word would be spelt correctly.
I will not tire the reader with the many other difficult points
surmounted, only by constant patience, during fifteen months. The
type-composing machine was then a success, and my friend Young was
greatly pleased at the result. His patent was much used in Paris, and
in England it was employed by the spirited proprietor of the Family
Herald, who gave an engraving of the machine at the head of the paper,
very similar to the illustration, Fig. 14, on page 45, which shows the
type-composing machine in operation. The person shown on the right
is seated before a double set of flat keys, similar to the keys of a
pianoforte, each key having its proper letter marked thereon ; the
depression of a key detaches its corresponding type from one of the
numerous partitions in the box or case A ; this type will then slide down
the series of grooves allotted to it on the inclined plane B, and arrive
at a point, c, where a rapidly vibrating finger or beater tips up every
letter as it arrives into an upright position, and forces it along the
channel D. These rows of letters are moved laterally, forming one line
of the intended page. The boy on the left hand divides the words
with a hyphen if necessary, or he so spaces them as to fill one
complete line ; this operation he can complete while another line is
YOUNG'S TYPE COMPOSING MACHINE 47
forming in the channel D. In this way he makes line after line until
part of a page is set up, when he moves on the galley E, shown at his
left hand. Thus a page or a long column of matter was produced with
the greatest ease, and in a very short space of time.
In the ordinary way of composing types, each letter is picked up
by hand from one of the numerous small divisions of a shallow box, or
" case," as it is called, and the letters are then arranged in their right
positions in a small frame held in the left hand of the compositor.
About 1700 or 1800 letters per hour can be formed into lines and
columns by a dexterous compositor, while as many as 6000 types per
hour could be set by the composing machine. A young lady in the office
of the Family Herald undertook the following task at the suggestion
of the proprietor of The Times, viz. : she was to set up not less than
5000 types per hour for ten consecutive hours, on six consecutive days ;
giving a total of 300,000 letters in the week. This she easily accomplished,
and was then presented with a £5 note by Mr. Walter.
This mode of composing types by playing on keys arranged precisely
like the keys of a pianoforte would have formed an excellent occupation
for women ; but it did not find favour with the lords of creation, who
strongly objected to such successful competition by female labour, and so
the machine eventually died a natural death.
CHAPTER IV
UTKECHT VELVET
A MONGST the many persons who had seen my castings from
-*••*• Nature coated with copper, at the Museum, was a member
of the old-established firm of decorators, Messrs. Pratt, of Bond Street ;
and being at that time in search of someone to carry out an idea
of his own, he sought an interview with me. He explained his object,
and asked me if I thought it possible to produce an imitation of a
particular material which he required, showing me at the same time
some splendid old specimens of figured Genoa velvet with a satin
ground. Mr. Pratt's idea was to produce an imitation of this beautiful
fabric on Utrecht velvet, woven plain, and to have the desired patterns
produced thereon by stamping, after the manner of the embossed
cotton velvet so much in fashion at that time. He told me that
various qualities of Utrecht velvet had been tried for him by the
best manufacturers of embossed cotton velvet, but all attempts to pro-
duce a permanent effect on this stubborn material had utterly failed,
and he had abandoned the idea of getting it made, until he had by
chance seen the metal castings from Nature before referred to. Ex-
plaining this circumstance to me, he complimented me by saying that
the idea at once struck him that the man who had found out how to
produce such marvellous castings would, in all probability, soon discover
how to emboss Utrecht velvet.
The result of this interview was that Mr. Pratt left with me a
specimen of his woven Genoa velvet, a copy of which I undertook to
try and produce by heat and presssure on a plain fabric. This Utrecht
velvet is a long-piled, very harsh and stubborn worsted material,
as, indeed, every one would at once recognise who had seen chairs
STAMPING UTRECHT VELVET 49
covered with it, and sat upon for years, without the pile being flattened
down.
I provided myself with a flat brass die, or plate, engraved nearly
a quarter of an inch deep, each of the parts sunk in it having vertical
sides and a flat bottom, so that the pile at certain parts was left
wholly untouched by the die, and therefore in its normal state ; while
those parts which came in contact with the plate were crushed down.
All this was perfect enough, as far as it went ; but I, like others,
failed to produce a permanent effect, for in two or three days the
pile so pressed down would partially rise again, and the pattern
almost disappear. Many things were tried, but neither hot water nor
steaming, nor the application of alkaline solutions, were of any avail, and
I began to fear that I should be no more successful than others had
been in dealing with this material. Further consideration, however,
and a little study of the nature and properties of hair and wool, led to
the idea that these substances were really of the nature of horn ; and
this material, I knew, was capable of semi-fusion at high temperature,
and was, in that condition, suitable for being moulded into various
ornamental shapes, which permanently retained, when cold, the forms
thus impressed upon them in a heated state. I now felt that I was
on the right scent, and believed that if I could rapidly submit the
material to a very high temperature, and then move it away as quickly,
a partial fusion of the part in contact with the hot surface of the die
would take place, and produce a glossy surface like satin, which would
never again stand up as pile.
I had no sooner got this view of the subject than I took measures to
put it to a practical test. The result went to show that by maintaining
the metal surface, which was in contact with the velvet, at a very high
temperature for a short and definite period, and acting under a carefully-
regulated amount of pressure, the process could be made a perfect
success. These experiments also proved that the temperature must be
so high as to produce a semi-fusion of the wool, and that if continued
for a fraction of a minute too long the fabric would be destroyed.
The next step was to devise a machine in which these very critical
conditions could be practically carried out on a commercial scale. This
H
50 HENRY BESSEMER
I undertook to do at my own cost, in consideration of the very liberal
price per yard offered me for embossing the velvet. I erected, on my
own premises, the machine I had designed, and personally regulated
its operations. The apparatus consisted mainly of a massive iron frame,
in which was mounted a very deeply -engraved hollow roller of cast
iron, having a plain or unindented paper roller running in contact
with its under-side. The iron roller was not heated by steam, as the
temperature absolutely necessary was too high for that mode of heating ;
so I had to apply a powerful Bunsen gas-burner, extending the whole
length of the interior of the open-ended, hollow-engraved roller, and
by that means I kept it at a constant temperature just short of what
would be destructive to the fabric. Now, a cast-iron roller working in
the open air is not a thing to which one can apply the glass bulb of a
thermometer, and ascertain the precise temperature of its external
surface ; consequently, the accurate control of the temperature of the
roller presented many difficulties ; but, after some study of the question,
I found a most satisfactory way of ascertaining this all-important fact.
I was aware that metallic lead fuses at a temperature of 640 deg.
Fahr., and by additions to that metal of tin and bismuth, in varying
proportions, its melting temperature can be lowered until the alloy will
fuse at the boiling point of water, viz., 212 deg. With these facts before
me, I had simply to form a standard alloy, fusible at, say, 450 deg. Fahr.,
that being the required temperature of the roll. This we may call alloy B ;
another alloy, A, was made that would fuse at 10 deg, lower than B, and
a third, c, was made whose melting temperature was 10 deg. Fahr. higher
than B. These three alloys were made into rods about the length and
size of a black-lead pencil. Their use was extremely simple. When
commencing to heat up the roller for working, one end of the most
fusible rod, A, was pressed against the hot iron roller as it revolved, and
as soon as the first symptom of the fusion of the end of the rod manifested
itself, it was known that the roller was within 10 deg. of its proper working
heat. Care was then taken to gradually regulate the gas supply, and
when the end of the standard or working rod B was found to fuse on being
pressed against the roller, the machine was put in motion at the exactly-
ascertained speed, thus producing with certainty a beautiful figured fabric
PLATE VII.
FIG. 15. REPRODUCTION OF STAMPED UTRECHT VELVET
EMBOSSING UTRECHT VELVET; TERRY EDGING 51
that twenty -years after would be found in much the same condition,
less the amount of wear and tear to which it had been subjected.
The first practical working of this new process was upon a beautiful
design, for which Messrs. Pratt had obtained an order for furnishing a
suite of apartments at Windsor Castle, so that the new material, under
so favourable an introduction, was certain to become fashionable.
In those palmy days of Utrecht velvet embossing, I was paid six
shillings a yard for putting fabric through the rolls ; but gradually this
very high price was reduced, and when it came down to a shilling per
yard immense quantities were embossed. Prices were still on the decline,
when my machines and the stock of engraved rollers were purchased from
me by Messrs. Gillett, Lees and Company, the well-known Utrecht velvet
weavers of Banbury. A general taste for this material soon afterwards
set in ; prices for embossing were lowered ultimately to one penny per
yard, and many persons may still remember, some forty years ago, seeing
the cushions of cabs and omnibuses covered with this decorative fabric.
It is curious that the present fashion for antiquated furniture has again
brought it into use, and it may now be seen in many of the best houses.
The original specimen of figured Genoa Velvet brought me by
Mr. Pratt had what is called a narrow edging of " Terry," or uncut velvet,
forming a series of little ribs which surrounded each leaf or scroll in the
design, and made a sort of natural shading between the dark untouched
pile of velvet, and the bright and satiny pressed-down surface of the
ground on which the design was formed. A very beautiful specimen
of my imitation of this " Terry" edging came into the possession of my
niece, Mrs. Ada Allen, of Wingerworth Hall, and this she kindly
presented to me ; it has some historic interest, being the design of
Mr. Pugin for covering the benches in the House of Lords ; the roller
was engraved by myself, and it was the first attempt to produce an
imitation of the " Terry " edging in this new fabric. A photographic
reproduction of this old specimen is given in Fig. 15, Plate VII., and it
shows that after the many years' use of the fabric the design still
retains marked tracing of the " Terry" edging.
In the early part of these pages, I referred to the fact that the
origin of many important inventions and manufactures was lost in the
52 HENRY BESSEMER
" mist of ages," but here we have an example of one that has passed
out of memory whilst its originator is still living : for I venture to say
that few indeed of the thousands who daily lounge in their easy chairs
on embossed Utrecht velvet would ever suspect that this material issued
from the same room in " Baxter House " in which all my first steel
experiments were made ; and that the same hand which regulated and
controlled the fiery steel converter also drew the first few hundred yards
of that very beautiful material through the rolls.
CHAPTER V
THE MANUFACTURE OF BRONZE POWDER'
1% /|~Y eldest sister was a very clever painter in water colours, and in
her early life, in the little village of Charlton, she had ample
opportunities of indulging her taste for flower-painting. My father had
lived too long in Holland not to have imbibed a love of the beautiful
Dutch tulips, for which there was a great rage in his young days, so
much so, indeed, that a single bulb would sometimes realise a fabulous
price. At Charlton, my father grew his beloved tulips, and my sister
used to paint all the finest specimens he produced. I also well remember
the many beautifully -coloured chrysanthemums we there cultivated,
although none of the magnificent varieties since introduced from Japan were
then known. My sister had accumulated a great collection of charming
groups of these and other flowers, and had, with much ingenuity made
a most tastefully -decorated portfolio for their reception. She wished to
have the words —
STUDIES OF FLOWERS
FROM NATURE,
BY
MISS BESSEMER,
written in bold printing letters within a wreath of acorns and oak leaves
which she had painted on the outside of the portfolio ; as I was
somewhat of an expert in writing ornamental characters, she asked me
to do this for her, and handed me the portfolio to take home with me
for that purpose.
How trivial and how very unimportant this incident must appear
to my readers. It was, nevertheless, fraught with the most momentous
consequences to me ; in fact, it changed the whole current of my life,
and rendered possible that still greater change which the iron and steel
54 HENRY BESSEMER
industry of the world has undergone, and with it the fortunes of hundreds
of persons who have been directly, or indirectly, affected by it.
The portfolio was so prettily finished that I did not like to write
the desired inscription in common ink ; and as I had seen, on one occasion,
some gold powder used by japanners, it struck me that this would be
a very appropriate material for the lettering I had undertaken.
How distinctly I remember going to the shop of a Mr. Clark, a
colourman in St. John Street, Clerkenwell, to purchase this " Gold
Powder." He showed me samples of two colours, which I approved.
The material was not called "gold," but " bronze" powder, and I ordered
an ounce of each shade of colour, for which I was to call on the following
day. I did so, and was greatly astonished to find that I had to pay
seven shillings per ounce for it.
On my way home, I could not help asking myself, over and over
again, " How can this simple metallic powder cost so much money ? "
for there cannot be gold enough in it, even at that price, to give it this
beautiful rich colour. It is, probably, only a better sort of brass ; and
for brass in almost any conceivable form, seven shillings per ounce is a
marvellous price."
I hurried home, and submitted a portion of both samples to the action
of dilute sulphuric acid, and satisfied myself that no gold was present.
I still remember with what impatience I watched the solution of the
powder, and how forcibly I was struck with the immense advantage it
offered as a manufacture, if skilled labour could be superseded by steam
power. Here was powdered brass selling retail at £5 12s. per pound,
while the raw material from which it was made cost probably no more than
sixpence. " It must, surely," I thought, " be made slowly and laboriously,
by some old-fashioned hand process ; and if so, it offers a splendid oppor-
tunity for any mechanic who can devise a machine capable of producing
it simply by power."
I adopted this view of the case with that eagerness for novel
inventions which my surroundings had so strongly favoured, and I plunged
headlong into this new and deeply-interesting subject.
At first, I endeavoured to ascertain how the powder was then made,
but no one could tell me. At last I found that it was made chiefly at
EARLY SCHEMES FOR MAKING BRONZE POWDER 55
Nuremberg, and its mode of manufacture was kept a profound secret. I
hunted up many old books and encyclopaedias, and in one which I found at
the British Museum, the powder was described as being made of various
copper alloys beaten into thin leaves, after the manner of making gold leaf,
in books of parchment and gold-beaters' skin. The delicate thin leaves so
made were ground by hand labour to powder on a marble slab with a stone
muller, and mixed with a thick solution of gum arabic to form a stiff
o
paste and facilitate the grinding process. The gum so added was
afterwards got rid of by successive washings in hot water.
It thus became evident to me that the great cost of bronze powder
was due to this slow and most expensive mode of manufacture, and it
was equally evident that if I could devise some means of producing it
from a solid lump of brass, by steam power, the profits would be very
considerable. With these convictions I at once set to work. I had at
that time a two-horse power engine, partly made by myself, which I
finished and erected in a small private room at the back of my own
house, for there I could make my experiments in secret.
Then came the all-important question, from what point was I to
attack the new problem ? An attempt to imitate the old process by
any sort of automatic mechanism seemed to present insurmountable
obstacles — the thousands of delicate skins to be manipulated, the fragile
leaves of metal that would be carried away by the smallest current of
air from a revolving drum or a strap in motion, and the large amount
of power which must of necessity be employed to reduce the metal in
whatever way it was treated. This necessity for delicate handling
combined with great mechanical force, gave a direct negative to any
hopes of producing the powder in a way analogous to the one in use.
How could I then proceed ? A mass of solid brass did not appear to
be a likely thing to fall to powder under treatment by a pestle and mortar.
Then came the question : Can the metal be rendered brittle, and so facili-
tate its reduction ? No, it cannot be made brittle except by alloying it
with such other metals as will destroy its beautiful gold colour. Then there
was the question of solution of the metal in acid, and its precipitation in
the form of powder. These and many other plans were thought of, only to
be again put aside as theoretically improbable or impracticable schemes.
56 HENRY BESSEMER
The first idea which presented itself to my mind as a possible
mode of reducing a piece of hard, tough brass to extremely minute,
brilliant particles, was based on the principles of the common turning-
lathe, with which I made my first attempt on a circular disc of brass,
one-quarter of an inch in thickness, and four inches in diameter. This
was mounted on a suitable mandril, and made to revolve at a speed of
200 revolutions per minute. The revolving brass disc was tightly pressed
between two small steel rollers, having fine but very sharp diagonal
grooves formed on their surfaces, sloping to the left on one of them
and to the right on the other ; the effect of this was to impress
diagonal lines crossing each other on the periphery of the brass disc,
and to form on it a series of minute squares. If the reader examines
the milled edge of a sovereign, he will see just such indented lines
FIG. 16. DIAGRAM SHOWING BASE OP PYRAMIDS FOR BRONZE POWDER
running across its periphery, but in the experiment described the lines
impressed on the brass disc were V-shaped. A flat-faced turning tool
mounted on a slide-rest was slowly advanced in the direction of the
disc, so as to shave off an extremely thin film of metal from the apex
of every one of the truncated pyramids formed on the periphery of the
disc. The actual size of the base of each of these pyramids is shown
in Fig. 16, where a surface of 1 in. square is divided into a hundred lines
to the inch, and is crossed at right angles by another series of lines of
similar pitch, forming, of course, 10,000 small squares, which represent
the base of each pyramid ; hence it will be seen that if the small square
upper surface of each pyramid is one-half the width of its base, its area
will be one-fourth that of the base, or only one 40,000th of a square
inch, and this will be the uniform shape and size of each particle of the
powder so produced. Thus, if the area of the periphery of the disc is
equal to four square inches, and is revolving at the very moderate speed
FIRST EXPERIMENT IN MAKING BRONZE POWDER 57
of 200 revolutions per minute, we shall have 40,000 by 200, or just
8,000,000 small particles of brass cut off per minute, every one of exactly
the same form and size, the continued pressure of the steel rollers
renewing the depth of the grooves as fast as the cutter pares them
down.
From this it will be obvious that in a machine closely resembling
a lathe, discs of much larger diameter and much thicker than my small
4-in. experimental disc, could be employed ; and, further, that ten or a
dozen such discs could be put at a small distance apart on the same
mandril. Thus, large quantities of solid brass could, in a short space
of time, be made into powder by this simple device. It will also be
understood that the cutting tool could be advanced so slowly by a fine
screw properly geared, that a mere film of brass would be taken off the
summit of each pyramid, and so very fine powder would be produced.
Such then was the theory on which I relied in my first attempt
to produce a bronze powder direct from solid brass. My experimental
apparatus was made very accurately in all its working parts, and it was
with much anxiety that I awaited the time necessary to get the first
results of this novel scheme, which I may say at once were very
unsatisfactory. It is true that the machine worked admirably, and
minute particles of brass were produced and thrown up like a little
fountain of yellow dust as the disc spun round ; but, alas ! neither to
the touch nor to the eye did it resemble the bronze powder of commerce.
I was, I may freely own, deeply disappointed at this failure, because the
promise was so large. The direct production of powder, worth sixty
shillings to eighty shillings per pound wholesale, from brass plates costing
only ninepence per pound, was, to use a common phrase, " too good to
be true," and so I found it ; and I well remember that at the time it
required all my philosophy to persuade myself that I must look forward
to such disappointments as the natural result of trying so many novel
schemes. It was not the first castle I had built, only to see it topple
over. Fortunately, my sanguine temperament soon enabled me to forget
this failure, and to again quietly pursue my usual avocations.
About a year after the incidents I have just related, I happened
to be talking to the elder Mr. De La Rue, when he mentioned to me
58 HENRY BESSEMER
a matter in which he was at that moment greatly interested ; indeed,
I may say, he was very justly irritated with a merchant who sold him
arrowroot largely adulterated with potato starch, which had spoiled
a considerable amount of valuable work for which the pure starch
of arrowroot was required. He had, he said, just found out a mode
by which he could accurately ascertain the percentage of potato starch
present ; he added that chemically these substances were so much alike
in their constituents that he could not rely on simple analysis as a proof
of fraud. He told me that by putting, say 100 granules of the adulterated
starch, in the form of powder, under the microscope, he could see that
there were present granules of two distinct shapes. The genuine arrowroot
consisted of oval granules, while the potato-starch granules were perfectly
spherical ; and by simply counting the number of each shape in any given
quantity he could ascertain beyond question the percentage of adulteration.
I was a good deal struck by this ingenious mode of detecting adultera
tion ; and a few days later, when thinking it over, it occurred to me that
possibly the microscope might throw some light on the cause of the
failure of my then almost forgotten attempts to produce bronze powder.
I submitted some of the brass powder I had made, and some of the
ordinary bronze powder of commerce, to microscopic examination, and saw
in a moment the cause of my failure. The ordinary bronze powder is, as
before mentioned, made from an exceedingly thin leaf of beaten metal,
resembling an ordinary leaf of gold. Now, such a thin flake, rubbed
or torn to fragments, will, on a smaller scale, resemble a sheet of paper
torn into minute pieces ; and if such fragments of paper were allowed
to fall on a varnished or adhesive surface, they would not stand up on
edge, but would lie flat down, and when pressed open would represent
a continuous surface of white paper. So it was with the bronze powder
of commerce ; when applied to an adhesive surface, the small flat
fragments of leaf (for such they are) present a continuous bright surface,
and reflect light as from a polished metal plane. But the particles
of metal made from my machine, minute as they were, presented a
perfectly different appearance, and under a high magnifying power they
were found to be little curled-up pieces, one side being bright and the
other rough and corrugated, and destitute of any brilliancy; while on
THE FIRST SUCCESS IN MAKING BRONZE POWDER 59
being applied to an adhesive surface they arranged themselves, without
order, like grains of sand or other amorphous bodies, and reflected
scarcely any light to the eye. The reason of my failure was thus
rendered perfectly obvious.
This critical examination, and the evidence it afforded me of what
was really necessary to constitute bronze powder, began to excite my
imagination ; for to make a pound of brass in an hour, by machinery,
equal in value to an ounce of gold, was too seductive a problem to be
easily relinquished. Again the idea and the hope of its realisation took
possession of me. " Was this to be, after all," I asked myself, " the
one great success I had so long hoped for, which was to wipe away
all my other pursuits in life, and land me in the lap of luxury, if not
of absolute wealth?"
I studied the whole question over and over again, from every point
of view, and week after week I became more and more certain that
I was on the right track. At length I came to an absolute decision.
" Yes," I said, " I will throw myself into it again."
I then went systematically to work, and drew out the detailed plans
for the different machines that were necessary to test my idea thoroughly.
I purchased a four horse-power steam engine, and erected it in close
connection with my dwelling-house. m I made part of the machinery in
my own workshops, and personally erected the whole of it in a room
into which no one was ever allowed to enter but myself. At last,
after months of labour, the great day of trial once more arrived, and
I had to submit the raw material to the inexorable test. I watched
the operations with a beating heart, and saw the iron monster do its
appointed work, not to perfection, but so far well as to constitute an
actual commercial success. I felt that on the result of that hour's trial
hung the whole of my future life's history, and so it did, as the sequel
will clearly show.
I now became most anxious to have my views confirmed by some
of the importers of German bronze. With this object, I tried for a
week or so to improve the working of the machinery, and then produced
a very fair sample of my new material, which I put into the small ounce
packages common in the trade, and with it called on a Jewish importer.
60 HENRY BESSEMER
This worthy individual looked critically at my samples, and when I
requested him to purchase some he was very curious, asking me many
fishing questions, for his practised eye had at once shown him that the
powder differed slightly in appearance from the usual make of bronze.
He, however, made a distinct offer of twenty shillings per pound for
all I could manufacture.
Such an offer from a Jewish importer of bronze convinced me at
once that the sample I had shown him was worth much more than
the price he had named ; and this view was still further confirmed by a
long conversation, which terminated in an offer to give me £500 per
annum for the sole use of the machinery I had invented. This proposal
I could not for a moment entertain, for I could no longer doubt that
my new mode of producing bronze powder was destined to be a great
commercial success.
As I have already explained, I had become intimately acquainted
with Mr. Young, the inventor of the type-composing machine. I told
him all that I had achieved, and showed him some of the powder
I had produced. He was of opinion that I ought to build a large
works, and make bronze powder for "all the world." Then arose
the question of capital, and this he proposed to supply, and to
share with me the profits of the venture, an offer which I eventually
accepted ; but we had several knotty points to settle before a single
step could be taken. Up to this juncture the details of my invention
and the nature of the several machines used in the process were an
absolute secret, and I feared to patent these inventions : firstly, because
they might be modified or improved by others, but chiefly because
secret machinery could be erected abroad, and the article smuggled
into this country without fear of detection, because powder cannot be
identified as having been made by any special machinery. Thus, a patent
would have afforded no protection whatever to me. Then came the
difficult question of continued secrecy; there were powerful machines
of many tons in weight to be made ; some of them were necessarily very
complicated, and somebody must know for whom they were. Also the
people who tended the machine must know all about it ; and I had
still to find out how all the various alloys were made, and the way in
PREPARATIONS FOR MANUFACTURE OF BRONZE POWDER 61
which such varied colours as the trade required were produced. The
result of a review of all these difficulties was this : —
Firstly, we both agreed that if brass were still to be sold at a
higher price than silver, it would be impossible for us to maintain this
price if all the details of my system were shown and described in a
patent blue-book, which anyone could buy for sixpence. This fact
absolutely decided me not to patent the invention.
Secondly, how could we trust workpeople who could have a thousand
pounds or so given them at any time for an hour or two's talk with a
rival manufacturer ? This difficulty we proposed to meet by engaging,
at high salaries, my wife's three young brothers, on whom we felt we
could entirely rely ; so this point was satisfactorily arranged.*
Thirdly, how about making these massive machines ? What
engineers could we trust? — for any engineer must have such work done
in his workshops open to the eyes of all his men.
Fortunately, here I was enabled to step in. I could undertake
personally to make, not only all the general plans, but also each of the
working drawings, to a large scale, for each of the machines required ;
and when I had thus devised and settled every machine as a whole, I
undertook to dissect it and make separate drawings of each part,
accurately figured for dimensions, and to take these separate parts of the
several machines and get them made : some in Manchester, some in
Glasgow, some in Liverpool, and some in London, so that no engineer
could ever guess what these parts of machines were intended to be
used for. Of course, I was able to undertake the proper fitting
together of all these detached parts after they had arrived in London.
All this was plain sailing, but it imposed on me one great difficulty.
I proposed to do the work of seventy or eighty men, and I wanted this
carried out by my three relatives without much labour or trouble to any
of them. It simply meant this : I must design each class of machine
to be what is called a " self-acting machine " ; that is, a machine that
could take care of itself; and when a certain quantity of raw material
had been put in place it must deal with it without a skilled attendant, do
its appointed work with unerring certainty, and throw itself out of gear
* This important secret was kept inviolably for more than forty years
62 HENRY BESSEMER
when its task was accomplished, to prevent injury to itself. This
I also took upon myself to do, notwithstanding that one of the most
powerful machines in the series would sometimes stop the career of a
20 horse-power engine, and pull it up dead, while others were performing
noiselessly the most delicate operations conceivable.
Fourthly, there came the question of making the various alloys
necessary to give, by oxidation, the almost endless variety of tints required
in the trade. I had previously done a great deal in making alloys of
copper, tin, bismuth, and other metals, and this matter we both agreed
to leave for future development. My friend Young, who had acquired
great confidence in my inventive faculties, remarked, " Oh, you will be
certain to do it when the time comes." Relying thus with implicit faith
on me, he agreed to enter into this new manufacture.
It was, indeed, no light matter, and I felt the great responsibility
I was assuming. It is true I had been successful on a small scale in
overcoming one of the main difficulties in the new process, but there was
still much to invent, and much that at that period I necessarily knew
nothing about. There were, in fact, the hundred-and-one little secrets of
the trade which the ingenuity of many men and long practice had built
up and accumulated around the ancient art of bronze-powder making. All
of these were still kept absolutely secret by the German manufacturers,
whom I proposed to rival and beat in the open markets of the world
by a series of processes, absolutely new, and bearing not the faintest
resemblance to any of the methods then in use. In my process, the
power of steam, acting through delicate and complicated mechanism,
was intended to replace the skill and well-trained muscular efforts and
intelligent manipulation of the practised workman, and to imitate in
every detail the ordinary commercial article. Self-reliance, and the
power of readily discriminating between the first crude and imperfectly-
formed ideas that strike the mind, in contradistinction to the well-
considered theory on which any novel scheme really rests, allowed me
deliberately, and with full confidence, to enter on this new undertaking,
even though it entailed, to a large extent, the sacrifice of a small but
increasing business that had been laboriously built up during several
years of close application to it.
DESIGNING BRONZE POWDER MACHINERY 63
If not with a light heart, at least with a stolid and unflinching
resolution, I applied myself to the task thus deliberately self-imposed.
Firstly, I had to reconsider all my rough plans ; I had to arrange every
detail of the six different classes of machines necessary to prepare, to
manufacture, and to polish and colour the bronze ; all had to be
made automatic and self-controlling ; and when all these details
had been arranged from hand sketches and figured dimensions, the
labour of making the different working drawings of each machine
to an accurate scale, was begun. I had, of course, to make all
the necessary calculations of the strength requisite in the parts
subjected to strain ; of the best speed of working each machine
so as to secure the highest results ; then the size and proportions of
each of the six machines had to be estimated, so that each one could
do its part in the day's production, neither lagging behind nor doing
too much. This furnished me with laborious work at the drawing-
board for several months ; and when all was done, each of the machines
had to be dissected, and I had to commence making complete — nay,
even elaborate — drawings, in detail, of every different piece required in
in each of these varied machines, and to so divide the work between
several engineers resident in different towns, that each had certain shaped
pieces to make which he supposed were individual parts of one machine,
whereas they were separate sections of several different machines, all
drawn to the same scale, and sometimes represented on the same sheet
of drawings. Elaborate specifications were thus rendered necessary,
because neither master nor workman could use his judgment, as he would
have done in the execution of any machine for a known and well-
understood purpose, the full details of which are usually embodied in a
complete drawing of the whole.
After much personal labour and study, this part of the undertaking
was accomplished, and the making of all the machines was commenced.
Meanwhile, I sought for quiet, unobtrusive premises, with sufficient land
to build a factory and engine-house, and on which there was also a
dwelling-house for myself and family : for such premises must not be left
unguarded either by day or night. In the quiet suburb of St. Pancras
I found just what I wanted, viz., an old-fashioned, unostentatious, but
64 HENRY BESSEMER
comfortable house, lying some distance back from the high road, and
having a large garden in the rear. Such was old " Baxter House," the
scene of so many experiments, and the birthplace of several entirely new
manufactures.
The ground for the factory having been chosen, and a long lease
of the premises obtained, I had next to plan the necessary buildings.
One or two cardinal points were first determined. A substantial wall
was to separate the engine- and boiler-house from the factory proper,
into which the engine-driver could have no access or connection what-
ever, except in so far that the shafting from the 20 horse-power engine
passed through a stuffing-box in the wall of separation. Access to the
engine-house and coal -store was confined to a back entrance leading
into another street.
The factory proper was to have but one external door, opening
into a large hall, from which all the other rooms were separated by
locked doors ; there were no windows, except to this one outer room,
all light being obtained by means of double skylights, through which
no one could look ; and these were further secured by impregnable inside
sliding shutters. Adjoining the en trance -hall was a washing- and
dressing-room, as a change of clothes on going in and coming out
was imperative.
Then came other important provisions rendered necessary by the
fact that the machinery was massive and very heavy, and no labourers
or other workmen could be admitted to assist in putting it together
and erecting it in its destined place. Concrete foundations and iron
bed-plates had been put in wherever necessary, with bolts inserted therein
corresponding with bolt-holes in the machine framing then being made.
Heavy beams were fixed on the walls crossing over the several places
where the weighty machines were to be erected, each beam having stout
eye-bolts inserted in it for the purpose of attaching a block-and-tackle
for hoisting. In order to facilitate the erection of all this machinery
by myself and my three unpractised assistants, I had so divided the
large frame castings that no single piece would weigh over ten or fifteen
hundredweight.
All the smaller shafts and driving-drums were put in place, the
BRONZE POWDER MACHINERY 65
gas and water laid on, and Chubb's safety-locks were affixed to every
door before any of the machinery had arrived. The last workman had
already departed, and silence reigned supreme in the empty building,
into which, from that day forward, for probably twenty years, only
five persons ever passed. In such a case secrecy must be absolute
to be "effective, and although mere vague curiosity induced many persons
of my intimate acquaintance to ask to be allowed to just go in and have
a peep, I never admitted anyone. Even my own sons were rigidly
excluded until they were grown up. When mere lads, if they teased me
to let them in, I would sometimes say, " No, you will find much more
amusement at the theatres, and to-night you may go if you wish." I
need scarcely say that this was greatly preferred.
Meanwhile, two steam engines and all other requisite appliances
had been erected in the engine-house, where the heavy gearing was
also located ; this communicated with the factory proper by two lines
of 7-in. diameter shafting, which passed through the party wall.
A new phase in the undertaking was soon in active progress.
From day to day, at odd times, one of Pickford's vans would bring
detached portions of the machinery, carefully packed in large wooden
cases, which were delivered into the entrance of the factory by ordinary
labourers, and there left to be further dealt with by ourselves alone.
The work, as a whole, had been admirably executed, and we succeeded
in putting together the several parts sooner than I expected. It
was with no small degree of satisfaction that we found this laborious
part of the undertaking completed, and the machines ready for work.
But with the cessation of bodily labour, I entered on a period of deep
and almost painful anxiety, for I felt that my position in life for many
years to come was at that moment about to be determined. A few
days would show if all these elaborate contrivances were based on sound
mechanical principles, and whether the mass of novel machinery,
occupying several large rooms, would perform its allotted task and
carry forward, step by step, the successive changes necessary to convert
in a single day a hundredweight of solid brass into countless millions
of shining, delicate particles known as bronze powder; or whether, on
the contrary, several thousand pounds, a year's increasing mental strain,
66 HENRY BESSEMER
and much laborious physical exertion, had been cast away and thrown
to the winds, leaving nothing behind but professional discredit, crushed
hopes, and the inevitable regret that waits on failure of every kind.
I had, indeed, much reason for anxiety, for this was no simple
test of a modification of an old and well-known machine, but the trial
of a whole series of absolutely new mechanical inventions, each performing
entirely new processes, following on and dependent on each other, all
of which must succeed or the whole would prove a failure. But I may
truly say that my hopes of success and my confidence in the whole
scheme had never been shaken, although a full appreciation of the
importance of the issue about to be tried necessarily caused me to feel
anxious and excited. While standing alone in the silent factory, face
to face with the giant whom, like Frankenstein, I had created, cold and
motionless in all its grim reality, I knew that on the morrow I should,
as it were, breathe into its nostrils the breath of life, by simply turning
on the steam, when all those varied combinations of mechanism would
be instinct with motion, and essay the task of superseding human
labour and intelligence in the production of a material which, for
hundreds of years, both in China and Japan, as well as in Germany,
had been wholly dependent on human skill and intellect for its marvellous
delicacy and beauty.
Well, the time of trial came at last, and one by one the different
machines were tested. There were little hitches here and there, which
took some time to rectify, but gradually each machine was got to work,
and before the close of that eventful day absolute proof had been
obtained of the soundness and success of the whole scheme. It was an
immense relief from the severe mental strain of the few previous days,
such as those only can feel who have lived on hope for more than a
whole year, with a full knowledge that the time was approaching, day
by day, when all their cherished expectations were to be realised or
utterly destroyed.
The next thing of importance to the successful working of all this
machinery was to keep inviolate the secret of its character and mode
of action. Each different machine worked by itself in a room, the
door of which was secured by a Chubb's detector lock ; and, in addition
BRONZE POWDER MACHINERY 67
to this precaution, each machine was itself concealed in a complete case,
or covering, so that, without breaking open this case, no one could
see or understand either its internal structure or its mode of operation.
It has often been remarked that the unforeseen is always sure to
happen, and thus it was in reference to the intense and ceaseless noise
in No. 2 Room, where thirty pieces of solid brass were being simul-
taneously operated upon at a very high speed, each piece throwing off
from its respective surface some 2000 or 3000 fine needle-like filaments
per minute. These fell in a continuous shower, and became so felted and
interlaced that it was not safe to attempt to lift any portion of the
accumulated mass by the naked hand, for with the slightest pressure
the hand was pierced, and dozens of these fine pieces, three-eighths of
an inch in length, entered the skin, and were found sticking to the
fingers in every direction, like the spines on a prickly pear, or the thorns
on the stem of a rose. These needle-like pieces owed their form to the
intense vibration of the machine, and each one of the millions of
filaments, as it was forcibly severed from the parent mass, uttered
its shrill protest, and helped to swell the fearful chorus. Let those who
have, happily, never heard this machine in motion, imagine the screech
of a hundred discordant fiddles, accompanied by the piercing screams of
as many locomotives, all bottled up in a small room, their shrill sounds
echoing and reverberating from wall to wall and from floor to ceiling,
until the very atmosphere seemed thick with the ceaseless roar, and
the human voice at its highest pitch was wholly lost and inaudible.
This was a result I might reasonably have anticipated, knowing, as 1
did, what the machine had to do, but in reality it never crossed my
mind. Double doors covered with baize were found necessary to deaden
the sound, and prevent its penetrating into the main building, while
the machine itself was doomed thenceforward to work in absolute
solitude.
These little filaments of brass were mechanically fed in succession
into two differently constructed self-acting laminating machines consisting
of highly-polished chilled-iron rolls, 12 in. in diameter and 18 in. in
length, the brasses on the axes of which were pressed upon by massive
spiral springs, each of which required a force of three tons to compress
68 HENRY BESSEMER
it half an inch. This stream of filaments was conducted between the
rolls matted and felted together in inextricable confusion, and in this
state they had a strong tendency to unite and so weld themselves
together under pressure as to issue from the rolls with a smooth, con-
tinuous surface, resembling an ordinary sheet of solid brass. This would
soon have become too compact to separate and break up again, but
the tendency to unite was entirely overcome by putting about three
drops of olive oil to each pound of filaments, thus not only preventing
too strong an adhesion from taking place, but allowing all contiguous
surfaces to slide over each other, and become more or less polished.
The continuous passing and repassing through the rolls thus extended
the surfaces of the filaments, and made them gradually thinner and
thinner, until the whole charge under operation became soft and pliable,
and was finally reduced to a leafy, flaky powder of varying degrees of
fineness, the largest particles passing freely through a wire-gauze sieve
having 10,000 meshes to the square inch, so that no sifting operations
could possibly divide them into the ten different standard degrees of
fineness required by the trade.
The crude powder, after passing through each of these two laminating
machines, was polished in an apparatus, into which it was perpetually
poured from a height of five or six feet, thus falling heavily on to a
quantity of bronze which occupied the lower part of the receiver, but
which in its turn was also lifted up and allowed to fall many thousands
of times. When falling in large quantities this stream of metallic
powder behaved very much like a heavy fluid, falling with considerable
force, and rebounding in powerful jets ; and thus by the friction of its
own particles rushing among each other, their surfaces became highly
polished and much smoother to the touch.
The material so far manufactured was then taken to the sorting-
room, where its separation into different grades of fineness was
effected.
What a remarkable contrast this room presented to the noisy
cutting-room, for in this there was not a sound to attract the ear or
to disturb the thoughts ! Quietly and noiselessly the separation took
place ; just as the snowflakes silently fall and by a gentle breeze arrange
BRONZE POWDER MACHINERY 69
themselves in a beautifully-formed snow-drift, so this apparatus did its
appointed work, separating microscopic particles, inconceivably minute,
from those next them in size, and so on to the coarsest powder, which
was only used for inferior kinds of work.
As this mode of separating powder into various grades may be
useful for many other purposes, I will here give such a description of it
in detail as will make its action readily understood.
The arrangement consisted of a table about 40 ft. in length and
about 2 ft. 6 in. in width, covered with black varnished cloth, on
which the powder was slowly deposited ; a long mahogany box, or
tunnel, was inverted over the table, but was capable of being partially
lifted on hinges at one side, thus giving access for the removal of the
powder. At one end of the table a sheet-iron drum, or churn, was
supported on hollow axes or trunnions, both of which were left open.
The interior of the drum was provided with inclined shelves. Rotatory
motion was given to the drum by a belt passing round it ; the effect
of this slow rotation of the drum was to lift the powder, and allow it
again to fall in a thinly-divided shower on those shelves which occupied
the lower part of the drum. A gentle current of air was caused to enter
the outer end of the drum's axis, and, passing through the falling shower
of powder, it emerged through the opposite axis, and quietly flowed along
the tunnel already mentioned, carrying with it an almost imperceptible
cloud of fine particles, which were slowly and gradually deposited
upon the varnished cloth covering of the table. The largest and
heaviest deposited themselves quite near the entrance of the tunnel,
and others of smaller size fell farther away, the very finest reaching the
distant end of the tunnel, where there was a raised box, or cupboard,
in which were two cylindrical bags made of very closely-woven silk,
their lower ends open to the tunnel and their upper ends closed. A
blowing fan of ordinary construction was used to exhaust air from the
cupboard, causing the silk bags to become inflated, and the air in
the interior of the tunnel to pass through them ; this was effected
so gently through some 50 square-feet surface of silk as to detain in
the interior any minute particles of bronze which had not fallen on to
the table, while a very light current of air was steadily maintained, the
70 HENRY BESSEMER
force of which was accurately controlled by a large and very lightly-
balanced valve in connection with the cupboard.
It is difficult to imagine the beauty of this golden snowdrift
of 40 ft. in length, varying at every foot in appearance, and ranging
from pieces too coarse for use, and which required further lamination,
to the extremely minute particles arrested by the silk surfaces, and
which, between the fingers, felt like the dust of pure plumbago, or some
other wonderfully smooth lubricant. The contents of these silk bags
were called No. 2000, and have been sold as high as one hundred
shillings per pound. Pure copper powder so produced was supplied
by me for many years to Messrs. Elkington, of Birmingham, for
metallising the surfaces of elastic non-metallic moulds employed by
them in the production of works of art by the electro -deposition of
metals.
Thus far I have described the manufacture of raw uncoloured
bronze, in which state it was used for many of the paler shades. But
an almost endless variety of different colours may be produced by varying
degrees of oxidation, the colour being in part dependent on the nature
and quantity of the other metals with which copper is alloyed, and in part
on the length of time and on the degree of temperature to which the
powder is exposed, while in a heated state, to the action of the air.
One of the great difficulties in producing a beautiful uniform tint
in bronze arises from the fact that almost all tints, more or less perfect,
can be obtained by varying degrees of oxidation, even of pure copper ;
a slight oxidation gives it a pale red-gold colour, which soon becomes
richer and more golden, and passes on to citron, orange, and, in a short
time, to crimson, from which it changes rapidly into claret, purple,
green, pale-green, green-gold, and then still paler, until it is almost
white ; it then passes again to gold, and through all the series of colours,
but less perfect than the first time. Now, it will be readily understood
that every one of the countless millions of particles in 20 Ib. of bronze
powder should, as far as possible, receive precisely the same temperature
for the same length of time, and be equally exposed to the current of
air : then a beautiful uniform tint of colour will necessarily result. But
if some parts of the mass are made hotter than others, or are longer
BRONZE POWDER MACHINERY 71
exposed to heat or to a more perfect current of air, the powder may
consist of a mixture of almost every imaginable shade of colour, be
really of no standard colour at all, and thus be rendered worthless.
This delicate colouring operation was performed with unerring
certainty in a gun-metal revolving vessel, mounted on trunnions, some-
what similar to a steel converter, for the purpose of discharging its
contents rapidly at the right moment ; this vessel was heated by an
easily-controllable Bunsen burner of large size, and was provided with
a means of taking out a small sample every minute for examination
without interrupting its action. This important and most delicate and
difficult operation was thus performed mechanically, and the device was,
perhaps, one of the most perfect machines it has ever been my good
fortune to design.
Still there was one more tedious task to perform. I had to justify the
faith of my friend Young that " when the time comes you will be sure
to find out all the proper alloys." One of a range of small buildings
at Baxter House was fitted up for this purpose with a powerful air-
furnace, for actual commercial working ; and a smaller one for the
necessary series of experiments in the production of alloys that would,
when oxidised, produce the desired colours, but that must, nevertheless,
be tough and ductile. There was already known to metallurgists a series
of copper alloys passing under different names, and more or less
resembling gold in colour ; thus we had " Pinchbeck," " Mannheim
Gold," " Red Tomback," " Dutch Pan Metal," " Mosaic Gold," etc., the
nature of all of which had to be investigated. Then came the question
of the best source of pure copper as the base of all the alloys to be
made. I tried best English copper, red Japan copper, and Russian
charcoal copper, made into coin. I may say that I have, since then,
melted scores of barrels of Russian kopeks, on account of their purity.
Dutch pan metal is, as the admirers of some of our old Dutch paintings
may easily imagine, a beautiful gold-coloured brass, which I have used
extensively, and which owes its beauty to its purity and mode of
production. One of the ores of zinc, " Lapis Calaminares," is put into
the lower part of a large crucible ; small fragments of broken crucibles
are laid upon it, and on this is placed granulated or shot copper (pro-
OF 1 HF
UNIVERSITY I
72 HENRY BESSEMER
duced by pouring molten copper into water) ; the crucible is then
covered over, the zinc contained in the ore is volatilised by heat, and,
passing up through the stratum of broken pieces of crucible, is
absorbed by the copper, which becomes a beautiful gold-coloured brass.
Those impurities in the zinc ore which are not volatile remain at
the bottom, and do not contaminate the gold-coloured alloy, which
is afterwards melted in another crucible.
The production of a new tint of colour was the aim of the trade,
and, with this view, a whole series of alloys were made with copper as
the base. Alloys with bismuth, nickel, tungsten, molybdenum, tin,
cadmium, and silver, were tried, the latter in the proportion of three of
silver to seven of copper ; this made a most beautiful cream-coloured
bronze in its natural state, and a brilliant peacock purple when fully
oxidised.
One of the most successful novelties was a margarate of copper,
obtained by using animal fat in the oxidising process, producing mar-
garate acid, and making a superb green : large quantities of this bronze
found a ready sale amongst French clockmakers in Paris.
Some of the rare metals referred to were extremely difficult to
reduce from their ores or oxides ; but as they were not wanted in a
pure state, but merely for the purpose of alloying, I found it much
easier to reduce their refractory oxides with oxides of copper. In this
way the oxide of molybdenum was easily reduced in combination with
oxide of copper intimately blended with a black flux, consisting simply
of resin in a melted state mixed with charcoal powder. The mineral
wolfram readily yielded an alloy when mixed with fine granulated copper,
or with copper oxide, but alone it proved very refractory.
I was quite unable to make any white metal alloy hard enough to
be made into powder by my machinery. All the soft tin alloys welded
by pressure into a perfectly indivisible mass, whilst the harder alloys,
such as German silver, Chinese tuteneg, and other nickel compounds,
were not white enough to take the place of the so-called " silver
powder" produced in the old mode of manufacture by the further beating
of thin tin foil. I was much annoyed at being unable to execute orders
for "silver bronze," and had to make an exchange with the German
BRONZE POWDER MACHINERY 73
importers, giving them gold bronze for their cheaper white powder.
This changing " old lamps for new ones" annoyed me very much ; but
knowing that brass pins are whitened by a film of tin deposited on them
by boiling them in a bath of tartaric acid and tin shavings, I deter-
mined to try if this system could be employed to whiten the brass
powder, which we could make so easily and cheaply. There were two
great obstacles in the way which threatened to render the scheme
impossible, viz., the probability that these minute particles of brass
would, in the act of being coated with tin, become united and stick
together, and also that the tin deposit, being naturally dull, like "frosted
silver," would fail in being sufficiently bright.
However, after due consideration, I planned a machine which I
had reason to hope would overcome both these difficulties ; it consisted
of a brass churn with a steam-jacket, so as to enable it to boil any
water contained in its interior. Into this churn was put a strong
solution of carbonate of soda — not tartaric acid as usual ; about 20 Ib.
of bright brass powder was then put in, to which was added 12 Ib. of
small spherical shot, formed of pure tin by pouring molten tin into oil.
The churn was then put in action, so that the tin shot not only
provided the necessary metal for solution, but by their continuous motion,
as the churn revolved, counteracted any tendency of the bronze particles
to become matted together by the deposited tin ; while the friction
of all these rubbing surfaces in constant motion entirely prevented
the dull "frosted" deposit from taking place, but on the contrary gave
a beautiful polished surface to the bronze. This process was a great
success, and white bronze so produced was freely purchased by the
trade.
This apparatus suggested the deposition of real gold on the surface
of the bronze. Some few costly experiments were made with this object,
but were not successful. Probably at some future time a method
of carrying out this idea may be discovered, and a large and profitable
trade secured to the fortunate inventor.
While all these investigations were going on, I had taken offices
in London Wall, and commenced the actual sale of bronze to the
trade ; a traveller was engaged, and he sent in his first small order
L
74 HENRY BESSEMER
for two pounds of pale-gold bronze for the Coalbrookdale Iron Company
at eighty shillings per pound net.
The new bronze caused quite a stir in the trade. The locality
of its origin and its mode of manufacture were kept a profound secret.
Many consumers gladly purchased it on the favourable terms offered ;
while others could under no circumstances whatever be prevailed upon
to give it a trial, even long after our trade was well established. As
an example, I may mention one case in which my traveller made many
unsuccessful attempts to do business with a very large consumer of bronze
in the City, who used it in the manufacture of paper-hangings, and who
said that he obtained his bronze from a descendant of Baron Scheller,
an old German, who happened to be a large customer of ours, and
who, for more than two years, had purchased a particular quality
of our bronze, which we afterwards found that he supplied to this
manufacturer at twenty shillings per pound above the price we charged
to him. The old German died rather suddenly, and the paper manu-
facturer was informed that for years he had been using our bronze,
improved (in price only) by passing through the old German's hands ;
he looked very crestfallen at the discovery, but kept on using the same
quality, which, he told my traveller, no one in the trade but Scheller
could equal.
The sharp competition with the German importers was going on
pretty fiercely, when one day I was asked to receive a deputation from
the trade, who came to expostulate with me for "spoiling the business,
and ruining the trade and myself at the same time." I told them
that they were labouring under a great mistake : that if I could main-
tain existing prices, it would make my fortune. They asked in all
seriousness, " Can you really sell bronze at your present price without
absolute loss ? " I replied that I could do so, and that if they chose
to deal with me, and supply my article to the consumer instead of
importing it, I would allow them a discount of 25 per cent, on present
prices ; that I would withdraw my traveller ; and in future supply no
consumer below 'their retail prices. They took time to confer with
their brethren, and finally accepted my terms, and from that time I
became exclusively a wholesale manufacturer.
THE MANUFACTURE OP GOLD PAINT 75
I was anxious to find new outlets for the bronze, and saw clearly
that if I could use it as a " paint," it would answer for a great variety
of purposes where a loose powder could not be applied ; for instance,
it could be used for gilding the raised stucco patterns on the ceilings
of rooms, for temporary theatrical decorations, etc. ; but quick-
drying turpentine varnishes all destroyed the bronze, and turned it
black. After much trouble and study of the subject, I found that the
succinic acid in spirits of turpentine, and some other acids found in
resinous gums and in burnt oil, could be neutralised by mixing the
varnish with dry lime, and I devised a novel system of filtration, whereby
all the lime, after neutralising the acid, was perfectly removed. Thus,
my new " gold paint " was brought out, and those who knew how to
use it, and what substances it could be successfully used upon, were
delighted with it ; while the attempts of others were a complete fiasco,
and it was by them condemned as a failure, notwithstanding which as
many as 80,000 bottles of it have been sold in the course of a year.
Among its various uses, a very odd one was due to the 'cuteness of a
Birmingham manufacturer of " coffin furniture." Instead of stamping
in brass the variety of ornaments used on the sides of coffins, he
stamped them in the cheaper metal zinc, and made them beautiful with
gold paint ; they lasted much longer than was necessary for the purpose,
and only turned black after some time.
On one occasion, when giving an order for varnish at the factory
of Messrs. Hayward and Sons, they asked if I would like to go
through the works ; and as I always take an interest in any manufacture
that I am unacquainted with, I accepted their kind offer, and passed a,
very interesting hour or two. Everything was shown to me and lucidly
explained ; but there was one thing which seemed to stand out from
all the rest, which, I thought, was a wasteful and unnecessary source
of expense, and so I expressed myself to Mr. Hayward at the time.
It is only another of the many proofs I have had of the very different
impressions which the same facts make on differently constituted
minds ; here was an important fact, presented to me for the first time,
but which my friend Mr. Hayward, during forty years of practical
experience, had had every day before him, but had never seen, at least from
76 HENRY BESSEMER
my point of view. I said to him : "Why do you not do so-and-so,
and save this great cost ? " He was much struck with the idea ; and
when we returned to the offices to partake of a biscuit and a glass
of sherry, I said : " If you will give me a sheet of paper, I will draw
you a sketch of a simple apparatus which, I doubt not, will have the
effect I have described." I made the sketch, which my friend received
in a very kindly spirit, albeit with a full share of doubt as to the
possibility of its effecting so great a desideratum by such simple means.
His son, Mr. Sharp Hayward, whose more recent chemical studies gave
him an advantage in forming an opinion, unbiassed by long routine
practice, said : " I will see this tried as soon as possible "; and so the
matter passed, and was soon quite forgotten by me. Some two or
three months later, however, when I was sitting at breakfast at
Baxter House, I saw a horse and cart stop at my front garden gate,
and the driver bring a letter up to the door. It was from my friend
the varnish manufacturer ; he told me briefly that they had tried the
method I suggested to him on the occasion of my visit to his works ;
it was, he said, a perfect success, and that I should greatly add to
the obligation conferred if, in speaking of the circumstance at any
future time, I omitted to mention the nature of the improvement I had
suggested. The letter went on to say that one of his sons was a wine-
grower in Madeira, and, having had a splendid vintage, he had sent
his father a pipe of Madeira as a present ; " and," said my friend Mr.
Hayward, "it at once struck me that it was a fortunate opportunity,
accidentally placed in my way, of acknowledging my indebtedness to
you ; will you, therefore, oblige me by accepting it as a souvenir of
your visit to our varnish manufactory, which has been of so much
advantage to me." Of course, I accepted with great pleasure this
most welcome gift. I had the wine bottled, and in due time
it turned out to be of excellent quality, and I may safely say that
I have never drank of wine which gave me so much pleasure as this
did ; it was treasured up, and always reserved for special occasions,
and I believe that at this time of writing there are still some few
bottles remaining, safely stowed away in my cellar. I shall have
occasion to refer again to this incident later on.
" CHARLTON HOUSE n 77
The bronze business was now progressing most satisfactorily. I
had given up many of my former employments, and felt that I might
indulge in some luxuries from which I had hitherto carefully
abstained. I thought that a brougham would be very useful to me,
and, at the same time, a source of much convenience and pleasure to
my wife and children ; but I had no suitable place for it at Baxter
House. I imagined that I needed a meadow for a horse, but it is
most probable that it was really for myself that I felt the need of
" pastures new "; for the instinct of the village boy was evidently in
the ascendant, and I sighed for the large kitchen garden, and the
poultry-yard, and other rural delights, the very thoughts of which had
long slumbered and been forgotten. The result of all these aspirations
was the taking on, a fourteen years' lease, of a house, the grounds of
which abutted on the beautifully-wooded domain of Lady Burdett Coutts,
at Highgate ; and here I built a large conservatory, kept my cows
and Shetland ponies, played at cricket or quoits on summer evenings,
and could sometimes, in my quiet walks round my own meadows,
almost fancy myself at my dear old birthplace, Charlton, and myself
again a village boy. I had given the name " Charlton House"
to my residence at Highgate, and while living there I used to
go down to Baxter House every morning to business, which, as far
as the bronze powder was concerned, was conducted almost entirely
without my assistance; so that I had ample time to devote to the many
new and interesting subjects that seemed for ever to present themselves
to my mind and demand investigation.
I had a good light drawing-office fitted up at Baxter House, and
was always at work there on some novel invention, for which patents
were being taken out ; in some cases experiments were made on the
premises, and all sorts of machinery and furnaces were erected to put the
ideas to the test of practice. So much did the work at the drawing-board
increase, that on one occasion, when much pressed, I applied to my
friend, Mr. Bunning, the City Architect, for the loan of an assistant
draughtsman to finish some patent drawings. " Well," he said, " I think
I can let you have a pupil of mine who is just out of his time ; he
is a clever architect, an expert at the drawing-board, and is a gentle-
78 HENRY BESSEMER
manly young fellow, in whom you can place implicit confidence." He
then called the young man into the office to see me, and this was my
first introduction to my friend and partner, and afterwards my brother-
in-law, Mr. Robert Longsdon. We soon arranged terms, and he came
to Baxter House to assist me for a while with my drawings ; we worked
side by side in the same room for many months, during which time I
gained something in architectural taste and knowledge, and he gained
from me, and from his daily occupation, a further insight into engineering.
It is not surprising, under these circumstances, that a real and solid
friendship should spring up between us ; after a time I proposed that
we should take more convenient offices in the City, and do something
jointly in the way of architecture and engineering, while I was still to
devote myself chiefly to my inventions.
We fixed on No. 4, Queen Street Place, for our City offices, and
it was from there that so many of my patented inventions were dated.
I had now, for the most part, discontinued my labours at Baxter House,
except for the erection of experimental machinery or furnaces. On one
of these occasions, while busily engaged there, our local policeman called
in to see me on a private matter that had exercised his mind very much
for the previous two days. He told me that he thought my house was
going to be robbed, for it had been watched from early morning until
late at night by a person stationed at one of the windows of a public-
house that commanded a view of the front door of Baxter House. He
said that the man was of gentlemanly appearance, but he did not think
he was a member of the "swell mob"; and, in fact, it was to him quite
a mystery. I asked, " Do you think he is a German ? " " Probably so,"
he said. " At any rate he is a foreigner." I commended the officer for
his vigilance, and giving him a small gratuity, I told him to let me
know if anything further occurred.
I at once formed the opinion that the person referred to was
watching to see some of the numerous workpeople, who, he might
naturally suppose, were employed in my bronze factory, and of whom
he might try to obtain information as to my secret process. Now, it
so happened that, with the exception of my engine-driver, there were
no operatives employed, but only my three relatives, who never left the
A GERMAN SPY 79
office all at one time, and when they did leave might well be taken for
office clerks, who would know nothing of the manufacture ; and so the
foreigner watched in vain for an opportunity of bribing some of my
imaginary workmen.
I was very desirous of probing this mystery, however, for which
purpose I called into my office my engine-driver, a steady, honest
Scotchman, who had long been in my employ. I told him what the
police officer had communicated to me, and arranged that he should go
just as he was, with his shirt -sleeves tucked up (the very beau-ideal of a
British workman), over to the public-house, leaving by my front door,
so as to be observed by the man on the watch, and take something to
drink at the bar. " If," said I, " the stranger comes down and asks
questions, say you don't know, but will enquire and let him know ; if
he offers you anything, accept it, and he will then believe that he can
trust you." No sooner had my engineer entered the public-house
than the stranger came downstairs and asked him : " Do you work at
the bronze-powder factory opposite ? " "Yes," was the reply. " Why
I ask you," said the stranger, " is this : I have invented a machine
for making ' hooks and eyes/ and I want some clever engineering firm
to make me these machines ; I have been told that you have beautiful
machinery over the way, and I should like to give an order for my
machines to so eminent an engineer ; do you know who made all the
machinery at your works ? " "I don't know," said the wary Scotchman,
" but I can enquire." "Well, "said the stranger," meet me here when
you leave work to-night, and if you can let me know who made your
machinery, I shall reward you handsomely." All this was told me
on my engine-driver's return from the public-house, and I was determined
to have an interview with the stranger. I told my engineer to meet
him as arranged, and simply to tell him that he had ascertained that
the whole of the machinery at the bronze factory was planned by a
Mr. Henry, who resided at No. 4, North Street, New Road, and that
he would probably be there to-morrow at 11 A.M. This was my
brother's address, to which I went before the hour named, telling
my brother's servant that I expected a gentleman to call at 11 o'clock
to ask if Mr. Henry was at home ; that she was to say yes, and ask
80 HENRY BESSEMER
him into the dining-room, where I would await his arrival. Punctual
to the hour the stranger came. I offered him a chair, and awaited
his communication. " Have I the pleasure," he said, " of seeing Mr.
Henry, the engineer who designed all the machinery at the bronze
factory at St. Pancras ?" " Yes," I replied, " I designed the whole of it."
" Ah," said my visitor, " I am so glad thus to make your acquaintance ;
for this purpose I have come over from Bavaria, and wish you to
construct a duplicate of it for me." " Well," I replied," this is not
possible, for I have quite given up mechanical engineering, and am so
deeply engaged with some new inventions that I could not even undertake
to furnish you with plans or drawings of the machinery." " But," said
the stranger, " I shall pay you anything you demand in reason ; so it
may answer your purpose to lay aside other things for a time." He
pressed me very hard, and I did not know how to get rid of him. I
knew exactly what his object was in watching my premises, and was
satisfied. " Well," he said, " at least you can give me some idea of the
nature of the process, and I shall pay you any fees you like to name."
I replied : "I cannot accept a fee for any information I may give you,
nor would it be fair on my part to furnish you with detailed plans
of the machinery I have constructed for another manufacturer ; but
as you have come such a long distance, I may just tell you that to
make cheap bronze powder, you need not go further than making your
alloy in what you call ' long metal '; you will not require any parchment
books to beat in, and you will avoid the use of gold-beater's skins, and
all the expensive labour of beating it into thin leaves. At the Baxter
House factory neither parchment nor gold-beater's skins are ever used ; and
you will be surprised to hear that I have no secret to tell you. The
principle on which they work is so simple that a child could understand
it in a moment ; you know, of course, what ordinary millstones, used
to grind flour, are like. Well, suppose you take two circular discs,
say, 2 ft. in diameter ; divide their surface into eight compartments
by radial lines, and cut small parallel sloping grooves, diagonally arranged
in each compartment : then you have a pair of what may be called ' steel
millstones,' which may be driven by usual wheel-gearing ; cut up your
thin sheets of long metal, with a pair of shears, into pieces about 2 in.
A GERMAN SPY 81
square, which a boy can feed into a round hole in the centre of
the upper millstone, into which a thick stream of soap and water
is constantly running. You cannot fail to understand the principle
involved, and you will be not a little astonished to see the result of this
simple operation. As far as this information is concerned, you are perfectly
welcome to it, and I must now close the interview." My visitor was
delighted, and profuse in his compliments and thanks. I have often
wondered whether, on his return to Bavaria, he tried to put in practice
this impossible mode of making bronze powder ; if he did, the dis-
appointment he would experience would be only a fitting punishment
for his meanness in trying to bribe those who were in possession of my
secret.
Before long my bronze powder was fully recognised in the trade,
and found its way into every State in Europe and America ; it had,
in fact, become the one staple manufacture I had so long and so
earnestly sought for, and which I hoped would some day replace and
render unnecessary the constantly-recurring small additions to the business
I had so laboriously built up. The bronze powder business, however, no
longer required my personal attention, and was well managed by those
I had chosen as the guardians of a secret, which was long and honourably
kept. The large profits derived from it not only furnished me with the
means of obtaining all reasonable pleasures and social enjoyments, but,
what was even a greater boon in my particular case, they provided the
funds demanded by the ceaseless activity of my inventive faculties, with-
out my ever having to call in the assistance of the capitalist to help
me through the heavy costs of patenting and experimenting on my too
numerous inventions. The importance of this steady supply of the
sinews of war may be easily imagined from the fact that I have obtained
no less than 110 separate patents, the mere stamp duties and annuities
on which have gone far to absorb £10,000, to say nothing of legal fees,
and the costly labour of writing long specifications, coupled with the
work of making the necessary drawings required to illustrate and define
the precise nature of these varied inventions. Only about a dozen
of these inventions are referred to in this hasty ramble through fields of
thought and labour ; the whole, if thoroughly described and gone into
M
82 HENRY BESSEMER
on their merits, would utterly weary, and wear out the patience of, my
most indulgent reader.
While referring to patents for inventions, I cannot refrain from
pointing to this particular invention of bronze powder as an example
that may advantageously be borne in mind by those short-sighted
persons who object to grants of letters-patent. There can be no doubt
of the fact that the security offered by the patent law to persons who
expend large sums of money and valuable time in pursuing novel
inventions, results in many new and important improvements in our
manufactures, which otherwise it would be sheer madness for men to
waste their energy and their money in attempting. But in this particular
case the conditions were most unfavourable for patenting, owing to the
fact that the article produced was only a powder, and could not be
identified as having been made by any particular form of mechanism.
Therefore it could not be adequately protected by patent ; moreover, by
my machinery, the cost of production, if only paid for at the ordinary
rates of wages, did not exceed one-thirtieth of the selling price of the
article. This fact alone offered an irresistible temptation to others to
evade the inventor's claims, and so rendered the patent law a most
inadequate protection. On the other hand, the great value of a small
bulk of the material made it possible to carry on the manufacture in
secret, and this method of manufacture was rendered the more feasible
by making each different class of machine self-acting, and thereby dis-
pensing entirely with a host of skilled manipulators. It may therefore
be fairly considered, so far as this particular article was concerned, that
there were, in effect, no patent laws in existence.
Now let us see what the public has had to pay for not being able
to give this security to the inventor. To illustrate this point, I may
repeat the simple fact that the first order for bronze powder obtained
by my traveller was for two pounds of pale-gold, at eighty shillings
per pound net, for the Coalbrookdale Iron Company. I may further
state that, in consequence of the necessity for strict secrecy, I had
made arrangements with three young men (my wife's brothers), to whom
salaries were paid far beyond the cost of mere manual labour (of which,
indeed, but little was required). My friend Mr. Young desired to occupy
THE MANUFACTURE OP BRONZE POWDER 83
the position of sleeping partner only, and not be troubled with any
details of the manufacture ; so I entered into a contract with him to
pay all salaries, find all raw materials, pay rent, engine power, and bring
the whole produce of the manufactory into stock, in one-ounce packages,
ready for delivery, at a cost, for all qualities, of five shillings and sixpence
per pound ; after which he and I shared equally all profits of the sale.
It is rather a curious coincidence that the one ounce bottles of gold
paint were labelled five shillings and sixpence each, off which the retailer
was allowed a liberal discount.
Had the invention been patented, it would have become public
property in fourteen years from the date of the patent, after which
period the public would have been able to buy bronze powder at its
present market price, viz., from two shillings and threepence to two
shillings and ninepence per pound. But this important secret was kept
for about thirty-five years, and the public had to pay excessively high
prices for twenty-one years longer than they would have done had
the invention become public property in fourteen years, as it would
have been if patented. Even this does not represent all the disadvantage
resulting from secret manufactures. While every detail of production was
a profound secret, there were no improvements made by the outside
public in any one of the machines employed during the whole thirty-five
years ; whereas during the fourteen years, if the invention had been
patented and published, there would, in all probability, have been
many improved machines invented, and many novel features applied
to totally different manufactures.
I have lingered long over this subject of bronze powder, because it
is one which has had great influence on my career ; it was taken up at
a period when my energy and my endurance, and my faith in my own
powers, were at their highest ; and as I look on all the incidents
surrounding it, through the lapse of time and the many changes of the
fifty years since it was undertaken, I wonder how I had the courage
to attack a subject so complicated and so difficult, and one on which
there were no data to assist me. There were not even the details
of former failures to hold up the finger of warning, or point out a
possible path to pursue, for no one had yet ventured to try and replace
84 HENRY BESSEMER
the delicate manipulation which experts had made their own, both in
Japan and China, where texts or prayers printed with bronze were
offered up at the shrine of Confucius two thousand years before I had
ever seen a particle of bronze powder.
I cannot conclude this imperfect account of the bronze powder
manufacture without a tribute to those on whose scrupulous integrity
hung the whole value of this invention from day to day through all
those long years. The eldest brother of my wife had previously been
connected with the watch manufacture in London, while the next to
him in age had not yet commenced his career ; and I could offer a
position sufficiently remunerative to induce both of them to assist in
carrying on the bronze manufacture. The younger brother, Mr. W. D.
Allen, had been with me as a pupil for a year or two ; finding him a
bright, intelligent lad, when he was about to leave school, I prevailed
upon his father to let me have charge of him, and impart, as far as I
was able, some knowledge of engineering. Thus, living in the same house
with me, he grew up more like one of my own sons than a brother-in-
law. In due time he also took up his position in the bronze works,
and kept my secret with the same silent caution as his elder brothers
had done. He also assisted me in my early steel experiments at Baxter
House, and, later on, when I determined to build a steel works at
Sheffield, the great confidence I felt in his judgment and integrity
induced me to offer him a partnership. He became the managing
partner of Messrs. Bessemer and Co., of Sheffield, and after four-
teen years of the most successful management, I and each of the
other partners retired from the business, leaving Mr. Allen in sole
possession of the works, which he purchased at a sum mutually agreed
upon.
Many of my readers will be more or less acquainted with Mr. W.
D. Allen, whose intimate knowledge of every detail of the Bessemer
process enabled him to pay large dividends to the present Limited
Company, even in bad times. Thus my brother-in-law's position in life
was assured ; his brother John had died several years previously, and
there only remained his brother Richard to carry on the business at
Baxter House.
THE MANUFACTURE OP BRONZE POWDER 85
In closing these details of the bronze powder manufacture, I may
say that, later on, the handsome royalties paid by my steel licencees
rendered the bronze powder business no longer necessary to me as a
source of income ; and I had then the extreme satisfaction of presenting
the works to my brother-in-law, Richard Allen, who had, with so much
caution, successfully kept, for more than thirty years, a secret for
which, he perfectly well knew, some thousands of pounds would have
been given him at any moment.
CHAPTEK VI
IMPROVEMENTS IN SUGAR MANUFACTURE
TN the early part of the year 1849, I had formed an intimate
-*- acquaintance with a Mr. Cromartie, a Jamaica sugar-planter, and
at many of our friendly meetings we had discussed the question
of the sugar manufacture as then carried on in the West Indian
Islands. The more I heard of the state of this important industry, the
more astonished I became on finding out how rude, how unmechanical,
and how unscientific were many of the processes then employed, not only
in extracting the saccharine juices of the cane, but also in its after-
treatment. By a curious coincidence, at this very period the imperfection
of the Colonial sugar manufacture had attracted the attention of the
Society of Arts, and his Royal Highness Prince Albert had taken a
very special interest in this subject, and generously offered a gold medal
to be awarded to the person who should, during the ensuing year, effect
the greatest improvement in the mode of expressing the saccharine
juice of the sugar cane. I was much interested on hearing this, and
applied myself to the problem with great zest, for I heard that the
contest was to be an unusually sharp one. I was informed that the
manufacturers of Colonial sugar machinery looked on it as a question
that would decide which firm was in future to do the bulk of the
Colonial engineering work, and that powerful vested interests were
supposed to be at stake. This rendered it the more necessary that
I should make every effort to gain such a knowledge of the subject
as would enable me to devise a machine capable of extracting, as
completely as possible, the whole of the juice from the cane. I, therefore,
in the first place, obtained from Madeira a bundle of sugar canes, and
I may say that up to that time I had never seen a cane. Those I
had ordered to be sent to London arrived fresh and full of juice, as
SUGAR MANUFACTURE
87
I had directed that their ends should be dipped in melted pitch, so as
to prevent decay, and the escape of any juice from them.
These canes were from Ij in. to If in. in diameter, having dividing
knots at from 5 in. to 7 in. apart, throughout their length. The cane
consists of an outer tubular part of hard fibrous wood, thinly coated
with very hard pure silica ; the interior of the thin wooden tube is filled
with a soft pithy matter, almost like a sponge, saturated with juice,
of which the ripe mature cane contains about 88 to 90 per cent, of its
FIG. 17. SUGAR-CANE PASSING BETWEEN ROLLS
whole weight. I put short lengths of these canes to many tests in
different ways, and especially noted their great elasticity ; a 6 -in. length,
suddenly pressed between two flat surfaces, would lie in a complete
pool of juice, and if the pressure were quickly released, the flattened
elastic tube would again expand and as quickly reabsorb a very large
portion of the fluid with which it was in contact. Here, I saw at a
glance, was the weak point in the roller-mill, in which the cane quickly
enters between a pair of rolls, and is for the moment collapsed. But
as it emerges from them it again expands by its elasticity, drawing
into the expanding spongy mass a large portion of the juice, which is
88 HENRY BESSEMER
rapidly flowing in contact with it, over the lower roll of the mill. This will
be readily understood by reference to the engraving, Fig. 17, page 87,
showing in section a pair of iron rolls A, A, between which a cane B is
passing in the direction shown by arrows. It will be observed that
at the central part the cane is crushed very thin ; but as it emerges,
it, in part, recovers its former dimensions, and in doing so absorbs a
very large percentage of the juice previously expressed.
These and other observations, carefully made and noted at the
time, forced on my mind the conviction that no form of roller-mill
could, from the inherent nature of its action, give satisfactory results;
and that a slower and longer continued pressure on the cane must
be resorted to, if the greater part of this valuable fluid was to be
extracted.
By means of the hydraulic press, 86 per cent, of juice could be
obtained ; but this system was far too slow, and entailed so much
labour as to render it impossible to deal with the enormous mass of canes
grown on a moderate-sized plantation. Following, however, the general
idea of the press, I designed an entirely novel system of extracting juice
from canes, the main feature of which was the cutting of the cane into
lengths of about 6 in., thus leaving both ends of these short pieces open
for the escape of the juice, instead of operating in the usual way upon
canes of 4 ft. to 6 ft. in length, having numerous transverse knots or
partitions, which effectually prevented any escape of the juice endwise.
The two convex surfaces of a pair of rolls of 2 ft. in diameter, pressed on
less than 6 in. of cane, at any moment, and if they revolved as slowly
as five revolutions per minute, the 6 in. of cane passing between them
commenced and finished the period of pressure in just one second. In the
cane press about to be described, every one of these open-ended 6 in.
lengths would be subjected to intense pressure for a period of two and
a-half minutes ; in practice, it has been found that the juice was vigor-
ously given out for the first minute, and then gradually declined ; finally
ceasing to yield one drop more of juice for about half a minute before
it was discharged from the open end of the press tube.
In order that this new system of continuous pressure might be fairly
tested, I erected a complete press and steam engine combined, at my
SUGAR MANUFACTURE 89
experimental premises at Baxter House. I also imported a large quantity
of canes from Madeira and from Demerara, for the purpose of studying
their structure, and making experiments with them, under varying
conditions of pressure and time. The quantity of juice which this small
apparatus was found capable of expressing exceeded 600 gallons per
hour. The juice was much more free from pithy fragments than that
which was obtained from the roller-mill, while the quantity of colouring
matter and chlorophyl extracted from the knots was much smaller, because
in the press these hard knots sank into the softer surrounding parts,
while between the rolls they got far more pressure than the softer parts
of the cane, because of their greater solidity. But the most important
result, which was fully established, was the high percentage of juice
obtained.
In our first experiment, made immediately after the arrival of the
canes, the quantity of juice obtained exceeded 80 per cent. ; in another
experimental trial, when the canes had been four months cut, 73f per
cent, was expressed ; and, later on, in a public experiment, when the
canes had suffered from drying, 65 \ per cent, was expressed. In
reference to the far smaller quantity of juice obtained in practice by
the old system of rolling-mills, I may quote from the Seventh Report
of the Parliamentary Committee on Sugar and Coffee Planting, where,
at page 259, will be found a memorandum dated " Colonial Laboratory,
Georgetown, 3rd February, 1848," from Dr. John Shier, Agricultural
Chemist, who — speaking on Sugar Mills — says : —
From numerous trials on various estates, I am satisfied that the average yield does
not exceed 45 per cent. ; the first of all improvements then seems to be to obtain a
larger percentage of juice from the cane.
It is a curious fact that throughout this competition no one but
myself came forward with any plans to do away with the roller-mill.
There were plenty of improvements in this class of machine ; two
rollers and three rollers, new gearing, and combined engines and mills.
In one case a magnificent mill had been patented. It was a combined
engine and mill, weighing no less than forty tons — no light matter to pass
over half-made Colonial roads — and it was designed by Messrs. Robinson
and Russell, who were large sugar-mill manufacturers in London.
N
90 HENRY BESSEMER
The extreme lightness of my cane press formed a strong, and from
a Colonial point of view, a most important, contrast to this. The press
was put to work, and publicly exhibited to dozens of persons who
were owners of sugar plantations in our various sugar-growing Colonies,
and great expectations were formed by them. They saw the canes
weighed and operated upon, then the squeezed mass again weighed, the
reduction in weight clearly showing the quantity or percentage of juice
obtained by the press, which was admittedly at least 20 per cent, more
than the average produced by the old roller-mills then universally
employed. The juice obtained was very rich in quality, in consequence
of a considerable evaporation from the canes which had gone on during
the three or four months since they were first cut. As a matter of
curiosity, I manufactured from the juice obtained about half a hundred-
weight of crystallised sugar of very good quality, which I presume was
the first sugar ever produced direct from the sugar-cane in London,
and was much prized as a matter of interest by some of my friends
for that reason.
Without going into the minutiae of detail, it may be interesting
to give a short description of the cane press, which is here illustrated
by engravings copied from drawings of the press, as erected at my
experimental works, Baxter House.
The first engraving, Fig. 18, on Plate VIII, shows a side eleva-
tion of the press, and the steam-engine with which it was combined, on
one large bed-plate. The second engraving, Fig. 19, on page 91, shows
a vertical section through one of the gun-metal perforated pressing
tubes ; the interior of these was of rectangular form in cross-section,
being 6 in. in height by 3J in. wide.
In the centre of each of these tubes there was a massive plunger
fitting accurately. A square steel bar passed through the two plungers,
and also through slots made in the sides of the tubes for that purpose,
the outer ends of these bars being rounded and fitted into the ends
of two massive connecting-rods, which were actuated by a pair of short-
throw cranks formed one on each side of the central crank of the
steam-engine. This arrangement is best seen in Fig. 20, page 91, which
is a plan of the cane press and engine.
PLATE VIII.
w
PQ
X
-C5
SUGAR MANUFACTURE
91
92 HENRY BESSEMER
From the upper surface of each of the pressing-tubes, two tall
circular hoppers stood vertically, and were attached at their upper ends
to a stage or floor on which the canes were delivered, and where two
attendants were stationed, whose business it was to continually drop canes
into these tubular hoppers. When the several parts of the apparatus
were in the position shown in Fig. 19, page 91, the plunger had cut
a 6 -in. length off the lower ends of the canes in the left-hand hopper,
and had pushed them against the compressed mass of canes occupying
that end of the pressing tube, the result being that this mass was
moved a little way further along, the fluid parts escaping from the
numerous perforations in the tube.
While this had been going on the canes in the right-hand hopper
had fallen down into the pressing tube, and the return stroke of the
plunger would then cut off a 6-in. length from these canes, and force them
up against the mass of canes occupying the right-hand end of the press
tube, moving the mass of flattened canes a small distance forward, and
discharging a portion of them from the open end of the tube. In this
way every rotation of the crank cut off portions of the canes in each
of the hoppers, and carried them forward, thus keeping the tubes always
filled with a mass of compressed canes, which were jammed so tightly in
the tubes as to offer an immense resistance to the plunger, governed by
the length of the tube. The two cranks which actuated the plungers were
at right angles to the crank operated on by the steam power ; hence,
when the engine was exerting its greatest power, the cranks actuating
the plungers were passing their dead points and thus exerted an enormous
force on the mass of canes, which moved forward but a very small
distance at each stroke.
With the engine running at only 60 strokes per minute, each plunger
cut off two 6-in. lengths from each cane in the hoppers; and as there
were four hoppers with two canes in each, 4 ft. of cane were operated
upon at each revolution, or at 60 strokes per minute only, some 240 ft.
of cane were cut and pressed per minute. It was found that the canes
thus passing along the tubes were forced out of the open ends of the
latter adhering together, and looking like a polished square bar of wood ;
the juice of the cane passing through the numerous perforations and
SUGAR MANUFACTURE 93
falling into the square cistern formed beneath them by the massive bed-
plate, was conveyed away by a pipe to the evaporating pans.
The committee appointed to judge of the various plans submitted
in competition for the gold medal offered by his Royal Highness, Prince
Albert, came in force to Baxter House, and witnessed the cane press
in operation. Although the committee did not openly express their
views to me, I could not doubt that their convictions were entirely in
my favour, a natural result of the incontrovertible facts I had placed before
them. In due course I received a notice that the prize so much coveted was
about to be awarded to me, an entire outsider, wholly unknown to any
of the sugar-mill manufacturers of this country.
How often it has occurred to me, and how often have I expressed
the opinion that, in this particular competition — as in many other previous
cases — I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the
problem under consideration, inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived
from long-established practice to control and bias my mind, and did not
suffer from the too-general belief that whatever is, is right. Hence I
could, without check or restraint, look the question steadily in the face,
weigh without prejudice, or preconceived notions, all the pros and cons, and
strike out fearlessly in an absolutely new direction if thought desirable.
Indeed, the first bundle of canes I ever saw had not arrived from Madeira a
week before I had settled in my own mind certain fundamental principles,
which I believed must govern all attempts to get practically the whole
juice from the cane ; but of course, there were many circumstances that
rendered it necessary to modify first principles, having reference to the
cost of the machine, its easy transit across country, freedom from repairs in
isolated situations, etc., etc.
In due course I had to attend a meeting at the Society of Arts,
where I was much surprised to find the large hall crowded with spectators.
At one side of the room was a raised dais, on which his Royal Highness,
Prince Albert, was seated at a small table, and at his side was the
Chairman of the Committee of Mechanical Experts, who had reported
to the Prince the result of their deliberations. In front of the platform
occupied by the Prince Consort there was a long avenue covered with
crimson cloth, and skirted on each side by rows of seats, occupied by
94 HENRY BESSEMER
ladies, who added to their personal charms all that the milliner's art could
accomplish to give grace and eclat to the occasion. It was, I found,
my role to brave all the dangers of this double battery of youth and beauty ;
and, like the good St. Anthony, I had to keep my eyes fixed upon the
crimson cloth, for I did not dare to look. If anything could add to
the satisfaction of the moment, it was the presence on this occasion
of the Chairman of the Committee of Experts, who was about to read
his Report, for this gentleman was no other than that talented and
well-known engineer, Mr. John Scott Russell, than whom no one in
all Great Britain was more able to do justice to the subject reported
on. His firm of Robinson and Russell were extensive manufacturers
of Colonial Sugar Machinery, but they had refrained from competing
on this occasion, thus allowing Mr. Scott Russell to add another to
the many proofs of the high code of honour so conspicuous in the
whole body of Civil Engineers in this country, by giving publicly
unqualified testimony to the merits of what was, in fact, the scheme of
a rival manufacturer. The honourable distinction received from such a
source, while it was most gratifying to myself, was more than reflected
upon the speaker.
Among many other things, Mr. Scott Russell, in addressing the
Society and reading his report, said, " the new cane press of Mr.
Bessemer has the merit of introducing a principle at once new and of
great beauty into the process, while reducing the weight and cumbrous-
ness of the machinery ; much has been done by Mr. Bessemer towards
removing the main obstacle to improvements in the working machinery
of the Colonies in the Tropics, viz., the difficulty of transport." Mr.
Scott Russell further pointed out that : " When these facts of facility
of transport, simplicity of foundation, and other advantages come to
be considered in reference to cost, it will at once be perceived that
notwithstanding the great advantages it offers in respect of quality
and quantity of juice, certainty and uniformity of action, and freedom
from accident by wear and tear, the cane press, when placed in working
condition upon an estate, will have cost less than the most ill-constructed
mill and engine to be obtained from the cheapest and most inferior
makers."
SUGAR MANUFACTURE 95
At the conclusion of Mr. Scott Russell's address there was a round
of applause, and this was followed by the rising of his Royal Highness
Prince Albert, who complimented me in the kindest manner on the
success of my invention — an invention which I had taken such unusual
steps to prove, by bringing, as it were, the Colonies to us, and by resting
my claims to recognition on actually accomplished facts. His Royal
Highness then placed in my hands a beautiful Gold Medal. In briefly
expressing my thanks, I said that whatever advantages might in the
future result from this invention, they would be entirely due to the
encouragement held out by his Royal Highness ; and amid the warmest
recognition from the assembled spectators, I beat a retreat with the
prize I had received.
A HOLIDAY IN GERMANY
T HAD been working pretty hard up to the time of the trials of the
-*- cane press, and felt that I was entitled to a little relaxation. One
of my German friends, who had ceased to import bronze, was about to
visit his native town, and pressed me to join him in a pleasure excursion
up the Rhine ; my wife preferred taking the children and governess to
some quiet English town, and so I set off with my friend, stopping first
at Cologne, which, with its quaint old buildings and magnificent Cathedral,
afforded us much pleasure for our first week's holiday. After this, we
went up the Rhine as far as Diisseldorf, where we arrived on the
day of St. Ursula, the patron Saint of Diisseldorf. The streets were all
alive with spectators viewing the long religious processions to be seen
issuing from the various churches ; the large white caps of the lady
processionists formed a strong contrast with their simple black dresses ;
then came numerous bands of children, carrying flowers and various
emblems, the clergy heading each procession, and carrying coloured
wax candles of several feet in height, all of which was both novel and
interesting to an untravelled Englishman like myself, but which has
been so often seen by many of my readers that I will not " repeat the
oft-told tale." After a short stay here we pursued our journey up the
Rhine, passing many well-known points of interest that skirt that
beautiful river, and eventually landed at Biebrich, whence we pursued
our journey to Frankfort, with which town I was very much pleased.
I have still a distinct remembrance of my visit while there to Beth-
mann's Museum, to see the celebrated statue of Ariadne gracefully seated
on a tiger, the room in which it is shown being provided with crimson
curtains, through which a rich glow of light falls on to the cold white
marble, producing a unique and charming effect.
A POLICE COURT ADVENTURE 97
From Frankfort we journeyed on to Ntiremburg, where we took
up our abode at Bayrischer Hof. We determined to see all we could,
in a week, of this charming, quaint old town. A few days later, my
friend told me he wished to go over to Ftirth, some miles distant.
This little town is the principal seat of the German bronze manufacture,
and my friend, having some connection there, we went together to
Ftirth, where he called on a manufacturer with whom he had done business
in former years. We spent a very pleasant day with this gentleman's
family ; the weather was delightful, and we were able to sit under the
trees in the open square until a late hour in the evening, enjoying not
a few glasses of their light beer, and returning at night to Nliremburg,
to renew our search for amusement among its quaint old streets and
public buildings. On the second day after our visit to Fiirth, on our
arrival at the Hotel, the landlord told us there was something wrong,
and that two police - officers were waiting our return, and had papers
for our arrest. We were, of course, greatly astonished, but had no
doubt that it was some huge mistake ; however, it was not so, and we
found that the order was to arrest an Englishman of the name of
Bessemer. After a little discussion, the landlord very kindly suggested
that we should remain in charge of one of the officers at the Hotel,
while he and the other went to the police-office, where he became bail
for our appearance before the magistrate at eleven on the following
morning ; so fortunately we were allowed to pass a quiet night at the
Hotel.
Next day, after some little bustle and annoyance, I found myself in
court, face to face with my accuser and the magistrate, who fortunately
could speak enough of my own language to make himself perfectly well
understood. He told me that I was charged with what was a very
grave offence in Bavaria, viz. : attempting by bribery to induce a workman
in the employment of a bronze manufacturer at Ftirth to betray the secrets
of his employer, and go over to England to assist in establishing a
manufactory on the model of that of his employer. It was added that
I had offered the man 2,000 thalers (about £200). This was the main
feature of the charge which was read over to me in German, and then in
English by the magistrate, who demanded to know what I had to say
o
98 HENRY BESSEMER
in my defence. I then explained, at some length, the fact that I had
many years previously discovered a system of making bronze powder by
machinery, and that, with three attendants, I could manufacture daily as
much bronze powder as eighty men could produce by the system then in
use at Furth ; that I had lowered the price of the article 30 or 40 per
cent ; and that the people of Furth had, no doubt, lost a large part of
their trade, a circumstance likely to cause much irritation to the workmen
engaged in this manufacture. I said that the idea of my wishing to
establish the old mode of manufacture in England, and to learn any
secrets connected with it, was simply ridiculous. I further stated that I
had come there purely for pleasure and recreation; and the landlord of
the Hotel where I was staying would be able to tell them that, in the
absence of my German friend, I was wholly unable to ask for a single
article of food in the German language. " If you, sir," I said " will
ask my accuser what I offered him, and what was said on both sides
before finally settling to give him 2,000 thalers for his services, you will
readily convince yourself of the absolute falsehood of the charge, which
could only have been made in pure spite or envy." A long talk in
German between the magistrate and my accuser ended in the magistrate
saying that I was dismissed, and found not guilty of the charge laid
against me ; " but," added the magistrate, " you must leave by post-
wagon this afternoon." I expressed my astonishment of this treatment,
telling him that I wished to stay in Niiremburg for several more
days, and I intimated that I should at once ask the protection of
our Minister at Munich. "It is for your own protection that I wish
you to go," said the magistrate ; ''if you stay here you will be stoned."
" Surely," said I, " after such an abominable charge has been brought
against me, I cannot sheer off in so cowardly a manner, and must look
to you for protection during my stay here." "Well, if you wish, you
can have the protection of two officers wherever you go." I thanked
him, and accepted the escort he had offered. This was rather good
fun at first, but it soon began to be very irksome. We were stared
at by all the visitors at the hotel. We had to pay for the admission
of these men at all the places of amusement we visited, etc. ; so we
hurried our explorations of this very interesting old town, and on the
HOME AGAIN 99
third morning after my arrest we commenced our return journey. Our
guards appear to have had strict orders ; they went on the coach with
us all the way until we passed the frontier, and found ourselves in
Prussia, and not until then did we get rid of their really unnecessary
services. I have never found out the facts, but I have always strongly
suspected that this charge was got up against me to pay off the little
trick on the German spy who wanted to get at the secrets of my
manufacture by his pretended invention of a machine for making hooks
and eyes. However, " All's well that ends well ;" and I was glad to
return home from a very enjoyable holiday, invigorated in health,
and quite ready to set to work again on whatever might come first
on the tapis.
CHAPTER VIII
IMPROVEMENTS IN GLASS MANUFACTURE
TT) ETURNED once more to dear old Baxter House, I came face to
J-l; face with the debris of former mechanical investigations piled up
here and there in some of the outbuildings, where quantities of old glass
pots, and the ruins of a pair of large furnaces, lay scattered among heaps
of wheels and pulleys on long shafts, and fragments of old iron framing.
Each single piece of this wild mass brought back to memory the
particular part it had played in one of those fierce contests with the
mechanical powers, in which it may have come off victoriously, or,
through want of foresight of the guiding mind, have been ignominiously
beaten, to remain a mute witness to the shortcomings of so many plausible
theories. Few men have made more mistakes than I have ; perhaps
there are few men who have so boldly grappled with absolutely novel
problems about which no published data existed to guide and modify
the first ideas whence all elaborate mechanical structures naturally
spring, just as a plant does from its seed. There were many remains in
this old storehouse which reminded me of investigations, interesting
enough in themselves, but which I must leave wholly unmentioned if I
am ever to arrive in this imperfect history at that part of my life's
most energetic labours in which my colleagues of the Iron and Steel
Institute are more immediately interested. So I must hasten on, and,
in mercy to them, leave unsaid so much that I should have to tell if
the limits of my little history, and the kind patience of my readers,
permitted me to inflict it on them. The ventilation of mines by my
combined steam fan, the centrifugal pumps which formed so interesting
an exhibit in the International Exhibition of 1851 ; the compression of
pure bituminous coal rendered plastic by superheated steam, and pressed
into rectangular polished blocks by a continuous feeding and continuous
OPTICAL GLASS 101
discharge from a machine similar to the cane press : these and several
other minor inventions must be passed over.
But there is one subject of deep interest that I desire to save
from absolute oblivion, since its record may at some future time set
some active and ingenious mind to work on the lines briefly indicated,
and thus add another triumph to the many lately achieved in the
domain of optical science.
For some years previous to the period of which I am writing, I
was deeply interested in the question of " burning glasses," such as those
of Buifon, Parker, and others ; my aim being to construct an instrument
of sufficient power to act on several ounces, instead of several grains, of
the material, which was to be operated upon in crucibles, into which
the focus of the lens was directed. In following up this idea, my
attention was naturally turned to the enormous difficulty of producing
perfectly homogeneous discs of optical glass of large diameters. Fraun-
hofer's magnificent lenses of small size had for many years attracted
universal admiration, and learned societies were intent on further
investigation of the subject. Thus it was that Faraday commenced
an enquiry which only ended in failure.
Fraunhofer's system of manufacture was at that time a profound
secret, and the small discs of glass which he sold at fabulous prices
were the envy of all other optical glass makers. Faraday, whose
scientific knowledge and attainments pointed him out as the most likely
scientist to succeed in this new field of enquiry, was, I doubt not, led
absolutely astray by the appearance of Fraunhofer's small discs ; had
Faraday never seen one of them, and been left to his own resources,
he would most probably have succeeded.
The small discs produced by Fraunhofer, four or five inches in
diameter and from half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness, showed
what really appeared to be incontrovertible evidence that they were
made in small open flat dishes, of the form shown in Fig. 21, page 102.
These little cakes of glass, a, had a flat shining upper surface,
evidently the natural, or fire, polish, as it is called, and were rounded at
the top edges as shown at 6, the periphery of the flat cake and its
lower surface having the unmistakeable impress of the shallow fireclay
102 HENRY BESSEMER
dish shown in section at c. These apparently irresistible proofs that the
glass was made in small quantities, and was very fusible and very fluid,
no doubt deceived Faraday, and so misdirected his experiments as to
lead to failure ; all of which became self-evident when the mode of
producing these little cakes was known. Glass made in large pots and
at the highest attainable temperature is only semi-fluid, and is found to
be of different densities in the upper and lower portions of the mass,
owing to the varying specific gravities of its constituents. A partial
admixture slowly going on in consequence of unequal expansion by heat
in so bad a conductor as glass, and the motion induced by air bubbles
slowly rising to the surface, have the effect of introducing veins, or striae,
consisting of streaks of more or less dense portions carried upwards by
the rising air bubbles, running throughout the general mass, and entirely
spoiling it for optical purposes. Now Fraunhofer, knowing no means
FIG. 21. SECTION OP FIRECLAY SAUCER AND GLASS Disc
of preventing the formation of these veins or striae, proceeded on this
simple but laborious mode of counteracting these defects. He made a
large potful of glass as perfect as he could by simple fusion ; he allowed
it to get cold in the pot ; he then sawed the mass horizontally into
slices, polished their surfaces, and thus examined their internal structure ;
and wherever there was a line or streak of more or less dense glass, the
defective part was applied to a glass-grinder's wheel and cut away, not
as a deep narrow notch but by a wide shallow indent ; the surface was
again polished for re-examination, and this process was repeated until
no more veins, or striae, were visible. The mutilated and indented disc
of glass, sometimes cut nearly half-way through, was then put into one
of the shallow fireclay dishes already described, gently heated at first,
and finally made sufficiently soft to sink down and acquire the form and
dimensions of the dish, the impress of whose surface it bore, while its
upper surface assumed the polished appearance of ordinary molten glass.
EXPERIMENTS WITH VISCID FLUIDS 103
What I desired to achieve was the production, at a small cost, of
large and massive discs or lenses, which could not be produced by Fraun-
hofer's system. Among the several plans I proposed, I will describe
only two, each of which attacked the problem from an entirely different
standpoint. First, I may mention that I made a series of laboratory
experiments with viscid transparent fluids, contained in glass vessels of
various forms and under varied conditions. Venice turpentine was first
tried, but very viscid castor oil was the nearest to glass in its indications
of movement within itself. Small grains of broken red sealing-wax, by
their greater specific gravity, showed well the tendency of the oxide of
lead (used in flint glass) to subside ; and how, by rotating this vessel with
one small fragment of sealing-wax, its movement was restrained within
a circle the diameter of which was equal to the subsidence of the particle
during a semi-rotation of the vessel containing the oil. The effect of
the gentle rotation or rolling of the vessel was also experimented on in
various ways. A small portion of the viscid oil was poured out, and
a very minute quantity of blue powder ground up in it, just enough to
give a faint blue colour. This blue oil was then poured back again into
the nearly globular-shaped glass vessel, which must be considered as the
glass pot ; a little movement of the vessel produced streaks of blue colour
like veins in marble, dispersed throughout the general mass of viscid fluid.
But by continuing to roll the glass globe slowly for about two or three
hours, not the slightest trace of veins or streaks of blue remained visible,
while a very slight tint of blue pervaded the whole mass of oil, which was
now perfectly homogeneous. It will be observed that the motion so given
to the whole mass did not divide it, as the insertion of a stirrer would
have done. I also demonstrated the fact that stirring from the surface
by a rod was wholly impossible without the introduction of air in large
quantities. So extraordinary is this fact that I cannot refrain from
putting it on record. Take a glass jar or vessel, say ten inches deep
and two inches in diameter, open at the top and closed at the bottom, as
shown in Figs. 22 and 23, on page 104. Nearly fill it with clear, but
viscid, castor oil, carefully removing all traces of air from the fluid by
exhaustion under the glass bell of a common air-pump ; place the jar
on a table, take a polished metal, or, preferably, a glass, rod about the
104
HENRY BESSEMER
size of a blaoklead pencil, and having a smooth, rounded end, wipe it, and
very slowly and steadily lower it some six inches into the oil, as shown
in Fig. 22 ; then as slowly and carefully withdraw it, occupying quite a
minute in doing so. There will remain no trace that anything has
entered the oil. Now place the jar again under the bell of the air-pump,
take a few strokes with it, and there will appear a line of ill- defined
mist, standing vertically upwards about six inches in height in the centre
of the jar ; at each stroke of the pump it becomes more visible, and
enlarges in diameter. It soon assumes the appearance of innumerable
little globes, like the hard roe of a herring, as shown at Fig. 23. A little
FIG. 22 FIG. 23
EXPERIMENT SHOWING Am CARRIED INTO A VISCID FLUID BY A STIRRER
more exhaustion, and these still further expand and rush upwards by the
thousand, until at last all the air adhering to, and taken down by, the
glass rod has been removed. What you may do, and what you may not
do, with molten glass was thus beautifully illustrated by some of these
preliminary experiments with viscid fluids. You may move the glass
about ; you may rotate these viscid fluids in a closed vessel ; and you
may even pour them, provided the last part of your stream does not fall
on the poured-out mass.
To return to actual glass, the subject divides itself into two main
systems of procedure, viz., you may make glass by the fusion of pure
silica, lime, and potash, or other alkali, with or without the addition of a
considerable quantity of oxide of lead, which is used where great density
PLATE IX.
FIG. 24. BESSEMER'S FURNACE FOR "THE MANUFACTURE OF OPTICAL GLASS
FURNACE FOR MAKING OPTICAL GLASS 105
and refractive power are required. Then it becomes more desirable
that an intimate mixture of the materials should take place, and through-
out the twelve to twenty hours required for fusion, no subsidence of the
heavy portions of the mixture, or flotation of the lighter ones, should
be suffered to take place, or a homogeneous mass will not be obtained.
It is manifestly easy to remove the heavy, sweet particles from the lower
part of a cup of tea by one or two gentle movements of a spoon, and
so get the whole cup of fluid equally sweet, but we have been warned
by our oil experiment that the fluid glass must not be stirred by a
rod or we introduce air ; and if we wait long enough for the air slowly
to find its way again to the surface, we inevitably have an interval
in which the difference in specific gravity of the several materials will
assert itself, and we get subsidence, lose the homogeneity of the mass,
and all our stirring will have been in vain. The outcome of these
and other observed conditions was the proposal to employ oscillating,
semi-rotating, or continuous slow-rotating melting crucibles, the latter
being preferred. The crucibles and the proper kind of furnace for this
purpose may be largely varied ; one of the simple forms is given in
Fig. 24, Plate IX. ; its leading features are representative of all the others.
The furnace there shown consists of a cylindrical casing of iron, A, lined
with firebrick, B ; it is divided into two chambers, the lower one, c, being
provided with firebars on which the fuel rests ; while the upper chamber,
D, is cylindrical in form with a curved roof, having an opening at J formed
in a circular piece of moulded firebrick j*, which is removed when
putting in the rotating crucible H. Above the opening, j, is a suspended
hood, E, which communicates with a tall chimney ; the lower part of
the chamber, D, is conical in form, having a small central opening, F,
and four larger cylindrical openings, G, surrounding it, each of which
communicates with the fire chamber, c, and allows the flame to ascend
and play up and around the crucible, H. This crucible is conical in
form both above and below its largest diameter, and terminates in a
raised neck or mouth at H* ; the furnace, A, is suspended on axes,
occupying the position indicated by the letter M ; these axes are
fitted to a strong iron ring or hoop, N, which surrounds the furnace,
and is itself supported on the axes, P, which rest on iron frames, o.
106 HENRY BESSEMER
The axes, p, are placed at right angles to the axes, M, so as to allow the
crucible to roll or gyrate on its axis, its upper and lower ends moving in
a circular path. It will be observed that the crucible, H, rests on one
of its sides on the conical floor of the chamber, D, and is kept in position
by its lower spherical end, M, moving in the cylindrical opening, E. Now
if the furnace be moved quietly on its axis, the crucible gravitating to
the lowest inclined side of the conical surface on which it rests, will
roll round on its own axis so long as the furnace is kept in motion.
This motion of the furnace may be easily effected by means of a short-
throw half-crank on a vertical axis passing upward through the floor
in a line through the centre of the furnace, the crank-pin having a
spherical end fitting into the cylindrical socket projecting downwards
from the underside of the ashpit. The motion of the furnace should
be very slow, so as to give about one revolution of the crucible in five
or ten minutes, and thus allow a constant movement of the whole of
the material to take place without dividing or breaking the continuity
of the mass, preventing any subsidence of the heavier particles, and
securing the perfect homogeneity of the whole. When the fusion and
mixing is judged to be complete, the crucible can be pushed with a rod
into an upright position, and, by drawing the fire, cooled as rapidly as
possible by the current of air flowing through the furnace.
Homogenous optical glass, free from those long " wreaths " or
lines of varying density, so common in ordinary glass, was also proposed to
be made in the following manner. A large potful of glass of the required
composition must be allowed to get cold, and then broken up, the central
portions only being selected for use. These pieces are to be crushed,
all the glass being reduced to absolute powder, and separated by sifting ;
all pieces exceeding the size of a grain of rice should be rejected. The
very small and nearly equally-sized fragments that remain are then to
be carefully washed in distilled water and put into a lenticular-shaped
crucible, the exterior surface of which should be glazed, so as to render
it impervious and air-tight. The crucible having been put into a suitable
furnace and gradually heated, a small platinum pipe communicating with
the upper part of the crucible is also connected with an exhaust pump,
so as to remove every particle of air from the crucible and from between
MIXING MATERIALS FOB GLASS MAKING 107
the granules of glass while these still retain their granular condition.
As soon as the glass becomes fluid, it forms a homogenous mass, the
law of diffusion equalising any minute differences in composition of
continuous grains, while wholly avoiding those long "wreaths" or streaks
so fatal in large masses of glass. On the strength of these crude notions a
number of various-shaped clay crucibles were ordered to be made, with
a view to carry on an elaborate series of experiments on the lines indicated ;
but as these crucibles required at least three months to dry, I had
ample time to pursue some other interesting investigations relative to
the production of glass for ordinary commercial purposes.
In going over a glass-works some years previously, I had noticed
what I, at the moment, thought was a great oversight in the mode of
proceeding. The materials employed, viz., sand, lime, and soda in
ascertained quantities, were laid in heaps upon the paved floor of the
glasshouse, and a labourer proceeded to shovel them into one large
heap, turning over the powdered materials, and mixing them together ;
a certain quantity of oxide of manganese was added during the general
mixing operation, for the purpose of neutralising the green colour given
to glass by the small amount of oxide of iron contained in the sand.
The materials were then thrown into the large glass pots, which were
already red-hot inside the furnace. What appeared to me to be wanting
in this rough-and-ready operation was a far more intimate blending of
these dry materials. A grain of sand lying by itself is infusible at
the highest temperature attainable in a glass pot, and the same may
be said of a small lump of lime ; but both are soluble in alkali, if it
be within their reach. These dry powders do not make excursions in
a glass pot and look about for each other, and if they lie separated the
time required for the whole to pass into a state of solution will greatly
depend on their mutual contact. In such matters I always reason by
analogy, and look for confirmation of my views to other manufactures
or processes with which I may happen to have become more or
less acquainted. I may here remark that I have always adopted a
different reading of the old proverb " A little knowledge is a dangerous
thing " ; this may indeed be true, if your knowledge is equally small
on all subjects ; but I have found a little knowledge on a great many
108 HENRY BESSEMER
different things of infinite service to me. From my early youth I had
a strong desire to know something of any and all the varied manufac-
tures to which I have been able to gain access, and I have always felt
a sort of annoyance whenever any subject connected with manufacture
was mooted of which I knew absolutely nothing. The result of this
feeling, acting for a great many years on a powerful memory, has been
that I have really come to know this dangerous little of a very great
many industrial processes. I have been led into this long digression
because I meant to illustrate my observations on the extreme slowness
of the fusion of glass by an analogy in the manufacture of gunpowder.
I have shown how impossible it is for the dry powdered materials employed
in the formation of glass to chemically react upon each other when
they are lying far apart. Now, if we take the three substances — charcoal,
nitre, and sulphur, of which gunpowder is composed, and break them
into small fragments, then shake them loosely together, and put a
pound or two of this mixture on a stone floor and apply a match, the
nitre will fizzle a little briskly ; the sulphur will burn fitfully or go out,
and the charcoal will last several minutes before it is consumed. If, instead
of this crude and imperfect mixture, we take the trouble to grind these
matters under edge-stones into a fine paste with water, and then dry
and granulate it, we have still the precise chemical elements to deal with
as we set fire to on the stone floor ; but they now exist in such close
and intimate contact as to instantly act upon each other, and a ton or
two of these otherwise slow-burning materials will be converted into gas
in a fraction of a second. The inference I drew from this analogy
was simple enough, viz. : grind together the materials required to form
glass, and when the heat of the furnace arrives at the point at which
decomposition takes place, the whole will pass into the state of fluid
glass much more quickly, and will yield a more truly homogenous glass
than is obtained in the usual manner.
I was at this time engaged in constructing a large reverberatory
furnace for the fusion of glass on the open hearth, and I may forestall
what I have to say respecting this mode of founding glass, by stating
that when I employed a mixture of raw material merely shovelled into
the bath as practised in ordinary glass-making, it took from ten to
OPEN HEARTH GLASS FURNACE 109
twelve hours to fuse half a ton of sand and lime in my new furnace ;
but when I took precisely the same quantity and quality of materials
which had been reduced to a uniform powder, as fine as flour, by grind-
ing the mixed materials under edge stones, my glass, instead of requiring
ten or twelve hours for fusion, became beautifully fluid in four and
a-half to five hours. When I first tried this fine ground material in my
furnace, I patiently watched the whole process hour after hour ; the
inert mass of dry white powder lay quietly under the rushing current
of flame passing over it, without showing any symptom of fusion. At last
I sought relief for my over-fatigued eyes by half an hour's turn up and
down the yard ; and on my return into the glass-house, I was astonished
to hear a curious sound issuing from the furnace, closely resembling the
noise given out by a frying-pan when cooking fish ; on the application
of my eye to the peep-hole of the furnace, I saw that the level of the
glass had risen an inch or two, and that a rapid boiling was going on,
caused by the disengagement of gas resulting from the rapid reaction
of soda on the silicic acid. I scarcely need say how greatly I was pleased
at witnessing in a first experiment so important a result, and so distinct
an example of the value of a little of this so-called " dangerous
knowledge."
Up to this period the fusion of glass in large crucibles was universal,
and the reverberatory furnace which I had erected at Baxter House
for this purpose was the first in which glass was made on an open
hearth, and the parent of all those bottle furnaces in which the fusion
of glass is carried on in open tanks. It was here also that the hollow
box roof was first used in reverberatory furnaces — a form of roof after-
wards employed by me so economically in the reverberatory melting
furnaces used in the early days of the Bessemer steel manufacture. The
immense economy, in time, consumption of fuel, and cost of large melting-
pots, resulting from the fusion of glass on the open hearth of a
reverberatory furnace was accompanied by one great disadvantage, viz.,
the tendency of molten matter to fall from the roof of the furnace into the
bath, and thus spoil the glass. It was found that whenever the underside
of the furnace roof was exposed to an excessively high temperature, the
alkaline vapours from the bath beneath caused a fusion of the brickwork,
110 HENRY BESSEMER.
^^ ,
and tears, with their long tails, would fall slowly from above and discolour
the glass in the bath beneath. It was mainly to counteract this
injurious action that I invented the thin box roof which entirely cured
this defect, while the durability of the furnace arch was at least four
to one as compared to the ordinary solid form. How well I still
remember the trouble and anxiety these tears from the roof caused me,
and how I watched through the eye-holes of the furnace the effects
of the alkaline vapours on the hollow box roof when it was first under
trial. I looked ceaselessly into the fierce glare of the furnace, with
but a piece of thick glass between my eye and the bright molten
mass, only eighteen or twenty inches distant. When watching by the
hour at a time to see if a single tear was formed on the roof, the eye
accommodated itself to the intense light, and all within that glorious
mass of incandescent matter could be seen in its minutest details. I
remember one peculiar circumstance that stood out from all the rest ;
while one of the hollow firebricks of the roof was in a condition of
plastic clay, the brickmaker had taken hold of it, and a hollow caused
by his thumb was beautifully delineated on the underside of this par-
ticular brick; it happened to be opposite the eye-hole, and was an
excellent mark whereby any change in the state of the roof could, from
time to time, be observed. This must have been as far back as 1847, but
that thumb-mark is as indelibly impressed on my memory as it was on
the plastic clay. How many hours in succession I have watched that mark
through the fierce heat and blinding light of the incandescent furnace
I cannot now take upon myself to say, but my whole heart and mind
were so absorbed in the investigation that I never gave a thought to
the fearful risk I ran of destroying my sight. Now, when I recall
these facts vividly to memory, I can realise the folly I was guilty of,
and can, in all humility, thank Heaven that I am not at this moment a
blind old man.
It is now just forty-nine years since I succeeded in fusing the
materials used in the manufacture of glass on the open hearth of a
reverberatory furnace, in about one-third the time and with one-third the
fuel required for its fusion in the large and expensive glass pots then
in use. But there was still one great desideratum : the glass fused in
PLATE X.
FIG. 25. BESSEMER'S FURNACE FOR THE PRODUCTION OF SHEET GLASS
FIG. 26. BESSEMER'S METHOD OF ROLLING SHEET GLASS
CONTINUOUS SHEET GLASS FURNACE 111
pots was usually blown into long round-ended cylinders or muffs, the
ends of which had to be opened while the glass was still hot and plastic —
an operation requiring great skill and dexterity on the part of the glass-
blower. These open-ended cylinders, when cold, were slit from end to end
by a diamond, and again heated until sufficiently soft to be spread out
flat on the smooth stone bed of a furnace specially constructed for that
purpose ; after which they had to be ground and polished, if made into
what is known as patent plate.
Now, what I proposed to do, instead of this slow, laborious, and
expensive series of operations, was simply to allow the semi-fluid molten
glass to escape by an opening extending along the whole length of the
bath, and about 1^ in. in width, and to flow gently between a pair of
cold iron rollers, so as to determine its breadth and thickness at a
single operation. I aimed at converting the whole contents of the
furnace into one continuous sheet of glass in ten or fifteen minutes,
wholly without skilled manipulation of any kind, or the employment
of the other furnaces, which are necessary for opening and spreading
the blown cylinders before referred to. It will be obvious that the
continuous sheet as it passed from the rolls might be cut into any
desired lengths, and thus very much larger sheet glass could be made
than it was possible to obtain by blowing it into cylinders.
Having thus foreshadowed the design I had in view, I will briefly
explain the nature of the apparatus which I erected at Baxter House
to test the practicability of the scheme ; and for this purpose I give
the engravings, Figs. 25 and 26, Plate X, by way of illustration.
Fig. 25 is a cross-section taken through the centre of the bath of the
reverberatory furnace, looking towards the fire-bridge A, over which the
flame passes. This flame is deflected downward on to the molten glass B,
occupying the hearth of the furnace c, which is a sort of rectangular
tank, having all along one side a slot or opening D, against which an
iron bar E is fixed, so as to close the slot and prevent the escape of
the semi-fluid glass. The arched roof, p, of the furnace is formed of
hollow boxes of firebrick, each box having a round opening in each
of four of its sides, while the upper side is quite open and the lower
one closed, and forms the underside of the furnace roof.
112 HENRY BESSEMER
In the front of the furnace is a cast-iron door frame D, lined with
firebrick. It extends the whole length of the tank in which the glass
is melted, and it is removed from its position when necessary, by
slings from a jib-crane attached to hooks H, which project from each
end of the frame. The flame, after passing over the glass materials
in the bath, travels downwards to an underground flue connected to a
tall chimney-shaft. There is also a narrow passage i, running downward
into the same underground flue, and extending upwards, as shown at i*,
so as to admit a current of flame, as indicated by arrows in front of
the opening D, and round the curved underlip c* of the cistern c, in
order to keep all the front part of the cistern in a highly-heated state.
In front of the furnace a rolling machine is fitted to a suitable slide,
so that it may be removed from the furnace a short distance, as shown
in Fig. 25, which is a side elevation of the apparatus. It consists of a
pair of smooth cast-iron hollow rollers M and N, into which a current
of cold water is allowed to flow through the pipes P and Q, and from
which the water escapes by similar pipes at the other end of the
rollers. A telescopic pipe R slides in and out of a fixed pipe s, and
thus keeps up an uninterrupted communication with the water supply.
The rollers are brought nearer together, or further apart, by means of
screws T in the usual manner, and thus regulate the thickness of the
sheet of glass.
Fig. 26 represents in section the furnace, from which the large
fire-door has been removed ; the rolling machine has also been moved
along its slide, until its lower roller N is in almost close contact with
the lip c* of the melting cistern ; this movement is effected by turning
the handle u, which actuates the wheel v, and the rack w, and moves
the whole rolling apparatus into position. When this has been done,
the rollers are thrown into gear with a shaft, not shown in the drawings,
and are caused to revolve at the desired speed. As soon as the
machine has been thrown into gear the iron bar E is withdrawn, when
a slowly-moving, white-hot, semi-fluid mass creeps out of the long slot,
and coming into contact with the lower revolving roll N, is moved by
it into the space between the rolls, and is compressed into a thin con-
tinuous sheet from an eighth to a quarter of an inch in thickness, as
CONTINUOUS SHEET GLASS FURNACE 113
desired ; a projecting V-shaped rib on the upper roller M, will cut
the glass into lengths equal to its circumference. The sheet of
glass thus severed from the general mass will rapidly slide down
the smooth curved surface x of the machine, and deposit itself on the
flat stone bed at the foot of the incline, from which it may be transferred
into a suitable annealing oven. It will be understood that, as soon as
the bath is empty, the rolling machine will be run back on its slide
to the position shown in Fig. 25. The bar E and the door G will
then be replaced, the bath charged with a fresh supply of raw material,
and the process be repeated as soon as the glass is in the proper
condition.
From this general description of the process, and the simple
mechanism employed, it will be seen that a large quantity of glass
could be produced with a very small plant. Thus, suppose that the
glass materials are melted in five hours and that the time of casting
is, say, fifteen minutes, a cast would easily be made every six hours,
or four times per day. A bath only 4 ft. by 3 ft. in area, and 12 in.
deep, when making strong horticultural glass ^th in. thick, would yield
theoretically 5,760 ft. per day (say 5,000), equal to, at least, 400 blown
cylinders 4 ft. long by 1 ft. in diameter.
I was quietly pursuing my experiments with the apparatus described,
when I was unexpectedly called upon by an eminent glass-manufacturer.
He said that he had heard that I was doing something novel in the
production of sheet glass, and if my patent was secured, he should much
like to know what was the nature of the invention. I told him my
patent was secure, and that I should be happy to give him a general
outline of the scheme. He was greatly interested, and the shadows of
the evening had imperceptibly fallen upon us in my little private room
before my visitor rose to depart. He was very desirous to see the
experimental apparatus ; and knowing that my guest, Mr. Lucas Chance,
was at the head of the largest glass-works in the kingdom, and worthy
of all confidence, I acquiesced in his strongly-expressed desire, and said
if he would call again the next day at noon, I would have a charge
of glass ready to roll into sheet in his presence.
The following morning, all was got in readiness for a cast. Mr. Chance
114 HENRY BESSEMER
critically examined the rolling apparatus, and looked into the furnace from
time to time, just as a man would who thoroughly knew what he was
about ; and when I said we had better now get to work, there were
myself, Mr. W. D. Allen, my eldest son Henry, a carpenter, and my
engine-driver present in the small room in which the furnace and machine
had been erected. As soon as the bar retaining the charge was removed,
and the tenacious semi-fluid glass touched the lower roll, the thick round
edge of the slowly-moving mass became engaged in the narrow space, where
the second roll took hold of it, and the bright continuous sheet descended
the inclined surface, darkening as it cooled slightly. I had intentionally
omitted the cutter in the roll so as to make a continuous sheet ; this
had to be pulled away, for my little room was not half long enough to
accommodate it. The heat suddenly thrown off from so large a white-hot
surface threatened our garments if we stood too near, and unfortunately
some oily cotton waste took fire, causing a momentary panic. Mr. Chance
called out, "Cease the operation; cease the operation!" We were all
in a perspiration, and the long adhesive sheet of glass, 70 ft. long by 2j ft.
wide, was gathered up before the door. The heat was very great, and
throwing the rolls out of gear, we all beat a hasty retreat. However,
as far as the rapid formation of thin sheet-glass was concerned, there
could be no doubt whatever, and I and my visitor sat down quietly to
cool ourselves, and think over what had taken place. Notwithstanding
the mistake of not putting in the cutter, and making the glass into small
sheets, I had the satisfaction of knowing that I had just made a sheet of
glass more than three times the length of the longest piece that had ever
been produced, and that Mr. Chance had seen, for the first time in his
life, a continuous sheet of glass flowing from a machine, wholly without any
skilled manipulation. " Well," said Mr. Chance, " you have gone a good
way, but you have much further to go yet before you touch the real
point — the commercial point. Now it has struck me that we have so
many appliances, and so many skilled employes in all departments, that
perfecting such a novel process must be more easy and less expensive to
us than it can be to you. After all, should it not become so perfect as
to be a commercial success, or should some other way be found of effecting
the same result, you might have all your labour in vain ; but I freely
SALE OF CONTINUOUS SHEET GLASS PATENT 115
admit that you have done enough to constitute an actual value as the
invention now stands. Just think it over, and determine whether you
will sell me your invention as it stands and make at once a profit on what
you have done, or whether you will spend more labour and money with
the chance of much greater remuneration, if you succeed commercially,
and no one else supersedes you ? I am going down to Birmingham
this evening by the 9 P.M. train. Dine with me at seven o'clock at the
Euston Hotel, and tell me, yes or no, whether you are disposed to sell
your invention in its present state." With this he took his leave, and
I had still three hours to reflect over a most unlooked-for proposition.
It was very exciting, and I talked the matter over with Mrs. Bessemer,
and the general consensus of opinion was : " Realise, by all means, if you
can get an adequate amount, but don't give it away." This decision, however,
was a long way off a positive fixed sum, to which a " yes" or " no" was to be
uttered by both sides. Time slipped on, and when the clock struck seven
I found myself in a snug private room at the Euston Hotel. We had
a nice little dinner, and, when the table was cleared, my host said : " Well,
have you decided ?" I said that I had thought the matter over, and
felt that any sum must now be a sacrifice, but that I was prepared to sell
on one condition, viz., there was to be no discussion of price. I would
name what I had fixed on ; would he give me a simple yes or no ? To this
he agreed, and then I said, " The sum I have fixed on is six thousand
pounds." " Well," said Mr. Chance, " I will give you that sum for
your patent ; I shall not go down to Birmingham to-night, and to-
morrow at 11 A.M., if you will call at Messrs. Hooper and Co.'s, my
solicitors, in Sackville Street, we can settle the whole matter there
and then." We met as arranged, a short agreement was drawn up,
Mr. Chance handed me a cheque for £1,000 with a short-dated bill for
£5,000, and we parted very good friends, mutually pleased with our
bargain. As a fitting tribute to the memory of Mr. Chance's able solicitor,
Mr. Hooper, I may mention that I found him so shrewd and careful
of his client, and so just withal, that I from that day gave his firm all my
legal business as far as patents were concerned.
At this period I was deeply interested, from a scientific point
of view, in the plate-glass manufacture. I was, and ever shall be, a
116 HENRY BESSEMER
great admirer of plate glass, which I hold to be one of the most
beautiful and most marvellous productions of all our varied manufactures ;
and I must confess that, at the present day, I am disgusted with that
idiotic fashion which rejects this splendid production for the small lead
panes of a greenish bubbly glass, which, with difficulty is now made bad
enough to imitate the early and most imperfect state of the glass
manufacture ; and which the bad taste — or rather the absence of taste —
of the present generation admires and " tries to live up to."
It need not, therefore, be a matter of surprise that I felt a
strong desire to cheapen and facilitate the production of plate glass,
a manufacture which, in my enthusiasm, I attacked at all points,
beginning with the preparation, sorting, cleansing and blending of the
raw materials employed, followed by the novel device of a circular
reverberatory furnace, in which the founding pots were arranged in a
large circular chamber surmounted by a flatly-curved dome. There were
also similar furnaces designed for refining the glass, having a crane
revolving with the reverberatory dome of the furnace. The crane was,
in fact, a veritable automaton, that would remove the one small cover,
which, as the dome revolved, gave access in turn to a dozen large
glass pots placed in a circle. The three arms or grips of the crane
descended vertically into the furnace, and brought up the huge crucible,
and when emptied, replaced it in three or four minutes, within half an
inch of the exact spot whence it had been lifted. The casting table
and all the annealing ovens were arranged in a circle, all accessible
from a circular railway laid down in the great casting hall. I may
also mention that every detail of the grinding and polishing machinery
had undergone an entire change, rendering these operations more rapid
and more accurate.
I feel, however, that I dare not trouble my readers by entering
into further details. Suffice it to say that a revolution in the appliances
and mode of working pervaded the whole manufacture, to properly
describe which would fill an illustrated volume. Various portions of the
scheme were practically tested ; I built a circular furnace for six large
pots and erected the automatic crane before referred to, which, like a living
thing, dived for a minute or two into the raging heat, and brought forth
PLATE XI.
PROJECT FOR GLASS WORKS IN LONDON 117
noiselessly the pot of molten glass (as easily as the human hand could
take a tumbler of water off the table), and returned it empty to the
same spot.
I was well satisfied with the whole scheme, and wished a few
friends to join me in the erection of a plate-glass works in London.
My partner, Mr. Robert Longsdon, with his usual architectural skill
and good taste, designed the necessary buildings for a complete works,
embodying all the novel modes of conducting each department of the
manufacture. On Plate XI., in Figs. 27 and 28, illustrations, showing
an elevation and section of his design are given, just to save the whole
project from oblivion. I have, at this moment, no sort of doubt that, had
I convinced others of one-fourth of the improvements embodied in this
new scheme, there would have been no difficulty in finding privately a
few friends who would have joined their capital to mine, and the works
would have been started. But it is difficult to impress one's ideas on
others, and I desired to have the personal and entire conviction of its
value on the part of all those I asked to join me in the enterprise ;
without this I was resolved not to move further in the matter, and
failing to obtain it, the whole scheme was abandoned.
There is one point in connection with patented inventions upon
which I have always felt strongly. I have maintained that the public
derive a great advantage by useful inventions being patented, because
the invention so secured is valuable property, and the owner is necessarily
desirous of turning that property to the greatest advantage ; he either
himself manufactures the patented article, or he grants licenses to others
to do so. In either case the public reap the advantage of being able
to purchase a better or a cheaper article than was before known to
them, due to the inventor's perseverance in forcing his property upon
the market. But if a novel article or manufacture is simply proposed
by a writer, and published in the technical press or in newspapers,
as a rule (almost without a single exception) no manufacturer will go
to the trouble and expense of trying to work out the proposed invention.
He says to himself: "I shall not risk the expense necessary to develop
this new idea, for it may entirely fail ; or even if I succeed, its development
will cost me much more than it will cost other manufacturers, who
HENRY BESSEMER
will immediately avail themselves of it if I succeed; no, let some one
else try it ; " and so the invention is lost to the world in consequence
of having been given away. This loss to the public is equally the case
with patents that are not taken up ; and one of the simplest and most
effective inventions which I ever made may be here cited as an
example, as it formed part of the novel system of plate-glass manufacture
just referred to. When a sheet of plate glass some 10 ft. or 12 ft.
long and 6 ft. or 7 ft. wide has been ground perfectly flat on both sides,
it is still dull and grey, and has to be polished. For this purpose it is
usual to fix it firmly on to a large stone polishing table, so that the
powerful alternate pushing and pulling of the polishing rubbers over
its surface may not break or displace the sheet. To do this a large
quantity of plaster-of-Paris is mixed with water, and spread as quickly
as possible over the surface of a stone table much larger than a billiard
table. Then the sheet of glass is dexterously laid upon the semi-fluid
plaster, and carefully bedded by expert workmen so as to be well
supported at all parts of its extensive surface ; the superfluous plaster
lying beyond the edges of the plate of glass is then scraped away. The
polishing machine must remain idle until the plaster is sufficiently firm
and hard to retain the glass safely in place. Care must also be taken
to thoroughly remove all smears of plaster around the edges and any
splashes on the surface, for the plaster is always more or less gritty,
and one or two particles of sharp grit will play havoc with the polished
surface, scratching it terribly. Let us suppose that one side of the
great glass sheet has been polished. It is then necessary to unbed
it, and this requires much skill. A man at each corner inserts a thin
blade of steel and gently prises the sheet up ; he must not spring it
much, or the corner will snap off, and considerably diminish the size
of the sheet when squared up. With much risk and trouble, the plate
of glass is eventually released, and lifted off the stone bed ; then the
workmen proceed to chip off the hard plaster which firmly adheres
to the table. This makes a great mess all round the polishing machine
by the flying about of chips of plaster. The stone table having been
chipped all over, and scraped quite clean, a fresh lot of plaster is again
mixed up, dexterously spread, and the sheet of glass, with its unpolished
PNEUMATIC GLASS POLISHING TABLE 119
surface uppermost, is again bedded on the table, and all superfluous
surrounding plaster carefully cleared away. Again the powerful polishing
machine remains inactive, until the sheet of glass is firmly stuck to the
bed, and, after polishing, the same dangerous process of springing the
glass loose from the table has to be repeated. After its removal, the
bed has to be chipped all over, and the hard coating of the plaster-of-
Paris removed, for the reception of another plate.
Such is the laborious, dirty, and risky process to which every
sheet of plate glass is subjected in the ordinary course of its manu-
facture. Now let us see what was the simple mode which I patented
of holding down a sheet of plate glass securely during the polishing
process. I employed (see Figs. 29 to 32, page 120) a cast-iron ribbed
plate of the size of the polishing stone table, on the upper side of
which a large slab of slate (such as is used for billiard tables) was
supported and bedded on the ribs of the iron plate. This surface
was then ground flat, in the same manner as plate glass, the
space beneath the slate and between the iron ribs forming a shallow
box. A number of round holes of about a quarter of an inch in
diameter were made through the slab of slate all over its surface, at a
distance of 4 in. or 5 in. apart, so that air could enter the iron box
freely from all parts of its surface ; a pipe of 1 in. in diameter led to
a steam jet or other exhauster, so that air could be withdrawn from
the box or let into it by a small hand-tap, as desired. This, then, was
the whole apparatus which constituted the invention ; it was extremely
inexpensive, and once made, almost indestructible.
This device took the place of the stone table under the ordinary
polishing machine. Its operation may be described as follows : — The
sheet of glass to be polished is gently slid upon the table, and covers
all the small holes in the slate bed; and if then the small tap which
connects the underside of the slate table with the steam jet or other
exhaust apparatus is turned on, a partial vacuum is formed beneath the
sheet of glass, and it becomes in an instant immovably fixed and adherent
to the slate bed on which it rests. There is no plaster employed, and
consequently none of the mess or labour attending its mixture and chipping
off; there is no delay in the use of the polishing machine while the plaster
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PNEUMATIC GLASS POLISHING TABLE 121
is becoming hard, or when it is being cleared away. The plate of glass
is an absolute fixture in less than a quarter of a minute after the
exhaust is turned on ; and it is as rapidly released by reversing the tap
and readmitting the air to the box. The plate is then turned over,
and the tap being opened to the exhaust, it instantly becomes re-fixed
to the slate surface ; there is no cost of plaster, there is no labour, and no
risk of snapping off the corner of the plate to release it. Take a moderate-
sized plate of 6 ft. by 10 ft. (60 square feet), and take a very low
exhaust, say, 2 Ib. per square inch, equal to 288 Ib. per foot or
17,280 Ib. of atmospheric pressure, holding it immovably fixed. Every
schoolboy who has seen how powerfully the glass bell of an air-pump
is held in place by atmospheric pressure, must understand this simple,
effective, cleanly, inexpensive, safe and rapid way of holding down a
plate of glass.
This invention, which formed one item of the many improve-
ments in the plate - glass manufacture which I did not carry out,
has been available for the free and unrestricted use of the public
for nearly fifty years, and yet no plate-glass works in this, or any
other, country has taken advantage of it. The simple fact is that
an invention must be nursed and tended as a mother nurses her baby,
or it inevitably perishes. Nor is this almost incredible indifference to
their interest the result of the invention being unknown to the public ;
for I exhibited a polishing table so constructed, among many other
things, in the International Exhibition of 1851, where it became one
of the most attractive of my exhibits. I well remember that on one
occasion I was requested to be present two hours prior to the opening
of the Exhibition to the public, and had the honour of showing and
explaining the device to Her Most Gracious Majesty, who was on that
occasion accompanied by His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales and
other distinguished persons.
The slate table was about 4 ft. by 3 ft., and I used a plate of
polished glass a little less than a square yard, weighing about 36 Ib.
The firm way in which it was held was most easily demonstrated by
placing one side of the plate about four or five inches on the edge of
the slate bed, and allowing the remainder to project Not only did
B
122 HENRY BESSEMER
the atmospheric pressure sustain the plate overhanging in this way, but
no one could lift it up or force it down. I was also able to illustrate
a fact but little known, viz., that a plate of perfectly flat ground glass
lying in absolute contact with a true plane surface cannot be smashed
by a blow from a wooden mallet with a curved face. I have struck
my yard-square sheet of glass at the Exhibition, when held down by
atmospheric pressure, dozens of times before the public, as hard as I
could strike it with a wooden mallet, and never broke a single sheet
in doing so. If it lay hollow and not in absolute contact with the
table, a child could fracture it in a dozen places, but when in contact
all over its surface, no amount of force less than that at which glass
crushes to powder will crack a properly supported sheet. From what I
have said I think I have shown that, however self-evident an invention
may be, or however advantageous it might be to a manufacturer, if it
is public property he will not touch it.
I have already so far trespassed on the patience of my readers
in reference to the manufacture of glass that I must bring these remarks
to a close. But there is just one little point that I may be excused
for mentioning ; it has reference to the silvering of glass, which every-
one knows was effected by the amalgamation with mercury of a large
sheet of thin tinfoil, the amalgam adhering to the surface and remaining
on the side next the glass, a beautifully-polished and highly-reflecting
surface. But it had a bluish or leaden hue that was most unfavourable
to the fair sex, and spoiled the best complexion. I thought much over this
defect, and at last succeeded in greatly improving the whiteness of the
reflection. This I effected by the use of pure silver powder. The sheet
of tinfoil was employed as before, and amalgamated with mercury, the
greater part of which was drained off the surface of the foil, and then
pure silver in the form of an impalpable powder (known as silver-bronze
powder), was freely dusted all over the amalgamated surface. The fine
silver particles became rapidly amalgamated or dissolved by the mercury,
and when the sheet of glass was slid on and pressure applied, an amalgam
of pure silver coated the glass, greatly improving the brilliancy and
colour of the mirror. This method seemed likely to have a great future,
but before it got into use, a process suggested by Liebig some years
SILVERING GLASS MIRRORS 123
before was developed and applied in a practical form by Professor Henry
Draper. By this method of working, which he used for the silvering
of glass mirrors for reflecting telescopes, Professor Draper entirely
dispensed with the tinfoil and mercury process, and deposited pure
silver direct on to the glass from its solution. This was a far more
perfect mode than my own of putting pure silver on to the glass, and
quite put an end to my process. At the present day all glass mirrors
are silvered by one or the other of several modified forms of Leibig's
admirable invention.
CHAPTER IX
THE EXHIBITION OF 1851
, A BOUT this period everyone was interested in the forthcoming Inter-
-*•"*- national Exhibition of 1851. I had applied for space to exhibit
the process of separating molasses from crystallized sugar by my combined
steam and centrifugal apparatus ; this formed a very attractive display.
The crystallised sugar, with its adhesive coating of brown treacle, was
spun round in the wire cage at a speed of 1,800 revolutions per minute ;
and on throwing a bowlful of cold water into the machine, in thirty seconds
the dark sticky mass was like a snowdrift, with its sparkling crystals
compactly spread round the revolving basket. Crowds of people would
stand round the machine, and seemed never tired of witnessing its
operations.
I took a deep interest in the development of the International
Exhibition, and as an exhibitor I used to pass long mornings in the
building very frequently, prior to its public opening in May, 1851.
On one of these occasions I chanced to meet my esteemed old friend,
the late Mr. Bryan Donkin, F.R.S., and he went with me to see
how my exhibits were being fixed up. Seeing my centrifugal machine, he
said : " Why do you not show that old scheme of yours for raising large
volumes of water by centrifugal force?" "Oh," I replied, " I had almost
forgotten it." He said, " Everybody is fond of looking at a cascade,
and a large body of water such as you can lift would make one of the
most interesting exhibits in the mechanical department." Thus encouraged,
I next day sat down to my drawing-board, and schemed a combined-engine
and centrifugal pump, which I afterwards exhibited. There was very
little time to make all new patterns and large loam castings ; indeed, it
seemed almost impossible to do so. But I posted my drawings to Messrs.
George Forester and Co., Engineers, of Liverpool, who had previously
THE EXHIBITION OF 1851 125
executed some important orders for machinery for me. My instructions
were : " If you can make the combined steam engine and centrifugal pump
in thirty-two days from the receipt of this, and undertake to deliver
it at the Exhibition building on the thirty-third day, set to work at once
and make it ; but if you cannot undertake to do so, do not touch it at
all, as I must hold you responsible. I know it is a most arduous task,
but if you execute so important an order in so short a period it will do
you much credit, and I will put on the side of the machine a conspicuous
brass plate, giving the full address of your firm as makers, with the date
of order and date of delivery engraved thereon." The result was that
the whole apparatus was admirably finished and delivered one day before
the prescribed limit. Some months later Messrs. Forester and Co. executed
for me two combined engines and pumps, each of which, when set
temporarily at work in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, was found to discharge
109 tons of water per minute at a height of 7 ft. above the source
of supply. These pumps were afterwards erected for the drainage of some
sugar estates in Demerara, which lay 5 ft. below high-water mark in the
tidal river into which they were drained, and each of them lifted a
small rivulet 10 ft. wide by 18 in. deep, flowing at a speed of three
miles an hour.
To my no small surprise, I found that I did not stand alone in
the Exhibition as the inventor of centrifugal pumps, for there were two
others, one by Mr. Appold, and another by Messrs. Gwynne, from the
United States ; each of these was doubtless a separate and distinct
invention.
Notwithstanding my frequent visits to the Exhibition to superintend
the erection of my exhibits, the place remained as fresh and as full of
interest as though I had never been inside those magic walls of glass.
How vividly still my mind retains the impression of the opening day;
what a glorious May morning, the crowning day of expectation to so
many thousands ! We were warned that unless we started from home
very early, we should never reach the building by 11 A.M. I lived then
on the road to Highgate, only two miles off. My wife and my eldest
sister left home with me in a brougham at 8 A.M. Even at that early
hour the streets were thronged ; all London was astir, and as we slowly
126 HENRY BESSEMER
neared the Park the streets were densely crowded ; everyone in holiday
attire, all looking joyous and brimming over with eager expectations.
Very soon our quiet trot had dwindled to a walking pace, and as we
entered the Park by the Marble Arch, our progress ceased in an
absolute stop, followed by a little move preparatory to another long
stop. We had got into the Park by 9 A.M., and there were yet two
hours, but we had begun even then to fear we might not reach the
building in time. There was no intentional obstruction, and the police
did all they could under impossible conditions; we were hemmed in on
all sides by carriages and pedestrians, and were almost immovable. An
hour's intermittent motion had brought us from the Marble Arch to the
Piccadilly entrance, from which rolled another avalanche of almost
hopelessly struggling humanity. Yet all was good-humour and high
expectation ; tickets were flourished from innumerable carriage windows,
and fair ladies in their sweetest and most persuasive tones, asked aid of
the police, who were powerless to help them. Another half-hour from the
Piccadilly entrance brought us in full sight of the fairy palace, which
sparkled in the sun, but was as yet a few hundred yards distant. But
we were in an almost solid mass of carriages, horses, policemen, and
pedestrians. A look at my watch showed me that there was no hope
for us if we kept our seats in the brougham. We were within fifty
yards of the building, and we agreed to get out and chance struggling
up to the door on foot. Hundreds of ladies in their satin shoes descended
from their carriages to the gravel, and with their beautiful dresess pulled
tightly round them, trusted to their feet. In charge of my two ladies
I showed my tickets and got, at last, passed on to the doors, which
we entered ten minutes before the appointed time, and just three hours
after we had started. We hurried to our places, and could now breathe
more freely ; the air was full of perfume from the sweet flowers that
filled all vacant places, and added a lustre to the gorgeous scene. When
the formal processions had gone round the building, there came the
one great treat of the opening day, never to be forgotten by those who
heard it. The sister of my old friend Alfred Novello, Miss Clara
Novello, sang the National Anthem, and by a supreme effort, her full
melodious voice filled the whole space with a glorious volume of sound
CONSULTATIONS WITH INVENTORS 127
that could not fail to inspire the deepest feeling of loyalty. And as
her voice rose and fell to the cadences of the beautiful Anthem, the
thousands of faces of those present showed at a glance how all were
moved by feelings of deep emotion and loyalty to Her Most Gracious
Majesty, and to Prince Albert, whose cherished dream of the Inter-
national Exhibition was thus so happily realised.
Returning again to the quiet daily routine, life at that period found
me pretty regular in my attendance at the office in Queen Street
Place, where I often spent a few hours with some client, who had
sought advice in reference to an invention, possibly more or less
crude and impracticable, or, it may be, of great value if only a little
more mechanical knowledge had been expended on its details. Such
investigations were sometimes very interesting ; and I well remember
several inventions which were brought before me at that time, and which
have since taken their place among the important mechanical improve-
ments of the present century ; while many others that were essentially
bad and wholly impracticable were fought for by their luckless inventors
with a tenacity worthy of a better cause. It was just this class of
inventors that one could not convince of the false notions under which
they laboured ; if a man knew so little of mechanical laws as to suppose
that by some tricky arrangement of levers which he had devised he
could make the descent of 20 Ib. lift up 40 Ib. to the same height, it
took a vast deal of labour to convince him of his error; and he paid
consultation fees with the inward belief still clinging to him that,
somehow or other he was right, only he could not make me see things
in the proper light. But generally I found it possible to bring home
to the most prejudiced minds such unpleasant facts, and I have in many
cases received the most frank and friendly acknowledgments from men
who would have spent hundreds of pounds in search of the impossible
had not an hour's discussion shown the fallacy of their convictions.
During the years 1852 and 1853, I was very busy with inventions
of my own, for I find that in those two years I took out no less than
twelve patents, that is, on an average, one every two months. These
being mechanical inventions relating to manufactures, there arose, in
each case, much studying of details, and many original drawings had
128 HENRY BESSEMER
to be made in addition to the specifications to be written and claims
to be settled. Some of these were followed up with results that were
highly satisfactory ; but it was my misfortune that inventions sprung
up in my mind without being sought, and as soon as a new idea
presented itself there was no peace for me until the first crude notions
were shaped and moulded into a tangible form, and this again criticised
and improved upon. Then came experimental research, or in many
cases the invention was patented as a mere theoretical deduction
because it had to make room for the next : whereas each invention,
to be made a commercial success, required to be carefully and forcibly
brought under the notice of the particular trade to which it referred.
In regard to one of these patents of 1853 I will just say a word
or two, as a mere record of a first proposal to stop a railway train
by the simultaneous application of a brake on every carriage wheel
of the train. I fully appreciated the advantages of this simultaneous
action on every wheel, because by such means a train of twenty or
thirty carriages could be stopped just as quickly and as easily as a
single carriage, since each vehicle was subjected to the same retarding
action ; but it was necessary that this should be effected, as far as possible,
without any complicated mechanical arrangements likely to get out
of order in practice. My invention, which I call the hydrostatic brake,
was one of extreme simplicity. Under ordinary circumstances the appli-
cation of hydraulic power means packed pistons, water-tight stuffing-boxes,
inlet and outlet valves, etc., all of which mechanical appliances were,
in my plan, entirely dispensed with, and a rectangular cell of vulcanite
rubber was used for transmission of the pressure.
The arrangement was as follows : — A rectangular iron box was held
by bolts passing through flanges at each end, by means of which it was
secured to the underside of the carriage frame. The interior of the box
was 7J in. long by 4 in. broad and 8 in. deep, and there was fitted inside
it a block of wood, not unlike one of the blocks used in street paving,
and having a curved lower surface fitting the tyre of the carriage wheel.
This block projected downwards from the mouth of the box, and left a
space of Ij in. between it and the upper closed side. Into this space was
fitted a hollow rectangular chamber or box of vulcanised rubber, capable
CONTINUOUS BRAKES FOR RAILWAYS 129
of expanding and contracting ; it was attached to the wood-block on its
lower surface and to the box on its upper side. There was a small pipe
which connected the chamber with a continuous pipe leading to the
locomotive, where the driver could turn water pressure on or off instantly
whenever necessary. Each of the rubber chambers contracted by external
atmospheric pressure if connected to the exhaust, and lifted the wood-
block from off the wheel ; but the instant that pressure was applied,
each of the chambers expanded, and pressing on its wood-block forced
it in contact with the wheel and retarded the motion. Thus if the wood
block were 7J in. by 4 in., it presented a surface of 30 square inches,
and every 10 Ib. to the inch pressure on its surface was equal to 300 Ib.
on the wheel. The main leading pipe was always charged with water,
which is non-elastic, and was permanently in communication with each
of the chambers. If half a pint of water was exhausted from each
chamber, the block was raised more than half an inch from the wheel,
and relieved the pressure. Modifications of this simple brake have been
made ; but it came before its time, and was not accepted by the railway
companies. I am pleased to have lived long enough to see continuous
brakes universally adopted, for by them vast numbers of persons have
been saved from injury or death.
CHAPTER X
EAKLY GUNNERY EXPERIMENTS
A T the time when the Crimean War broke out, the attention of
-£A- many persons was directed to the state of our armaments, and
I, like others, fully shared the interest which was excited. The question
of elongated projectiles had been previously considered, but we were quite
unprepared at that time with rifled ordnance. In thinking over this
subject, it occurred to me that it would be possible to give rotation to
a projectile, when fired from a smooth-bore gun, by allowing a portion
of the powder gas to escape through longitudinal passages formed in
the interior, or on the outer surface, of the projectile. If such passages
terminated in the direction of a tangent to the circumference of the
projectile, the tangential emission of powder gas (under enormous
pressure) would act as in a turbine, and produce a rapid rotatory
motion of the projectile. It may at first sight appear that such a
method would be attended with great loss of power, but it must be
remembered that in any system of rifled ordnance enormous energy is
required to revolve a heavy projectile, to say nothing of the power
lost by the friction of the studs in the rifled grooves.
It was under the impression that my invention would enable all
existing smooth-bore guns to be at once utilised for discharging elongated
shells and solid projectiles, and would at the same time solve a problem
of great national importance, that I applied for and obtained a patent
on the 24th November, 1854. It will be evident that this system of
giving rotation to elongated projectiles might, in some cases, have
rendered it desirable to hoop, or otherwise strengthen, existing guns,
or to construct new guns of greater strength than those then in general
use. But the main question was: Can rotation be given efficiently
without the manifold disadvantages of rifling ? As a matter of fact, I
EARLY GUNNERY EXPERIMENTS
131
submitted my plans to the War Office, and, after some considerable
delay, I was informed that the invention was not of a nature to be
used, or experimented upon, by the War Department. Our War
Department had at that time no artillery that could throw an elongated
projectile; yet with that ever-ready tendency of our military authorities
to pooh-pooh every proposition of the civil engineer, my scheme was
set aside, and so simple and inexpensive an experiment as the manufac-
ture of half a dozen cast-iron elongated projectiles was refused. Nothing
more than this was required, as they had plenty of cast-iron guns in
FIG. 33. SECTION OP EXPERIMENTAL MORTAR
store, and all other needful appliances. I, however, was determined to
ascertain for myself whether I was right or wrong in my belief that
rotation could be effected simply by the emission of a portion of the
gases in the manner described, and for this purpose I made a simple
cast-iron gun of 5j--in. bore, and of short length. As I had no butt
to fire into, I thought it best to use the gun as a mortar, and discharge
it into the air at an angle of 45 deg. of elevation ; by using small charges
I ensured the projectiles falling in my own grounds near Highgate, where
I was then living. The gun was a simple bored cylinder, cast all in one
piece with the framing, which, with its wide base-plate B,* served for
a carriage, as shown in the section in Fig. 33. The projectiles weighed
132 HENRY BESSEMER
60 lb. each, and were turned and truly fitted to the bore of the gun ;
the form of projectile employed is given at D, which is an elevation
showing by dots one of its longitudinal passages with the tangential
aperture at d* With this simple apparatus I commenced my trials,
using extremely small charges of powder, which I gradually increased
until the projectile reached an estimated altitude of 200 ft., and fell
to earth well within my own grounds. In order to clearly see that
the projectile revolved during flight, I bored on its opposite sides
two holes, f in. in diameter and 2 in. in depth, in a radial direction,
as shown in section at e e. These holes were tightly rammed with
damp meal powder, and on firing the gun (as I used no wad) the powder
became ignited and fizzed away like a squib. Standing beside the
gun I saw the shot soaring, with its flat end presented to me, and by
its rapid rotation the two squibs formed a sort of revolving Catherine-
wheel, which burned until after the shot had fallen to earth, thus proving
beyond all controversy that the projectile both rotated and went end-on
during its whole flight. But still I was no nearer my object, and might
for ever have remained as I was, but for an accidental circumstance
which I will relate.
Some few months after these preliminary experiments were ' made,
I happened to be one of a house party, staying with Lord James Hay
at the residence of his married daughter, Madame Gudin, in the Rue
Balzac, Paris. Our host gave a farewell dinner to General Hamlin,
and a number of other French officers, who were going to the Crimea.
Among the guests present on that occasion was Prince Napoleon, to
whom I was introduced by my host as the inventor of a new system
of firing elongated projectiles from smooth-bore guns. I happened to have
with me a tiny pocket model, made in mahogany, of one of these new
projectiles, which, in order that it might be more easily understood,
had the passages for the escape of gas formed in its exterior surface,
instead of in the interior, as will be seen from the annexed engraving,
Fig. 34, representing in full size this little model projectile, which
I made more than forty years ago, and which is still in my posses-
sion. Its action was very prettily shown in this way : an upright glass
tube of Ij in. internal diameter (accurately fitting the shot) had its lower
EARLY GUNNERY EXPERIMENTS
133
end stopped up so that it resembled the barrel of a gun. If the model
shot were put into the upper end of this glass tube, when held in a vertical
position, it could not sink down to the bottom without displacing the air
contained in the tube. This air necessarily found an escape through
the external passages ; and by the force induced by the escape of air
in the direction of a tangent to the circumference, a slow and steady
rotation of the little mahogany projectile was observed, as it gradually
sank down to the lower end of the glass tube. Prince Napoleon was
very much pleased with the idea, and said that he was sure that his
FIG. 34. MODEL OP BESSEMER'S REVOLVING SHOT .
cousin, the Emperor, would take great interest in my invention, and
that he would get an appointment for me to show it to him. A few
days later, I received a note from Colonel Belleville requesting my
attendance on the following morning at the Tuileries, where I had a most
interesting interview with the Emperor, who gave me carte blanche
to go to Vincennes, and there order to be made everything that was
necessary to fairly test my invention. I, however, found that it was
much more difficult to get what I wanted made at Vincennes than
it would have been at my own works in London, where other matters
required my attention. I consequently sought another interview with
134 HENRY BESSEMER
the Emperor, when I explained this fact to him, and asked permission
to make the projectiles in London, and bring them over. No objection
was raised to this proposal, and as I was about to take my leave the
Emperor said : " In this case you will be put to some expense ; I will
have that seen to."
A few days after my return to London, I received a letter from
the Due de Bassano, enclosing an autograph letter from the Emperor,
addressed to Messrs. Baring Bros., Bankers, London, giving me credit
for "costs of manufacturing projectiles," but without naming any sum.
Whatever private instructions there may have been given as a limit
to the amount of credit, none were visible to me ; and I could not help
forcibly contrasting this delicate and generous treatment by the Emperor
with the curt refusal of our own military authorities to give my invention
a trial at home.
In a few weeks, the projectiles necessary for the experiments
were all made under my own eye, and packed ready for transport.
There were 24-lb. and 30-lb. elongated shots of 4.75 in. in diameter,
fitting the 12 -pounder smooth-bore French guns, gauges for which had
been sent to me in order to ensure accuracy in size. I had been
provided with a special permit to pass the Customs House at Calais,
notwithstanding which, my passport was rigidly examined, and I was
looked at and questioned by all sorts of officials before I was allowed
to proceed on my journey.
I, as specially directed, went straight on to Vincennes on the
following morning, and was met by Commandant Minie* (the inventor
of the rifle which bears that name), who had received instructions to
superintend the experiments and report thereon to the Emperor.
In the large open plain known as the Polygon, at Vincennes, a
series of thin wooden targets had been set up, one behind the other
at about 100 metres apart. My projectiles were fired point-blank at
these targets, and generally passed through five or six of them before
reaching the ground, making round holes in each, and showing that
all the shots went end-on. In order to enable- us to measure the
amount of rotation of the shots, I had given them a thin hard coating
ot black Japan varnish, which was partly scratched off and scored in
EXPERIMENTS AT VINCENNES WITH ROTATING PROJECTILES 135
lines when passing through the thin planks. There were a few inches of
snow on the ground at the time these experiments were made, and we
could observe the projectiles ricocheting away to the left as a result
of their continued rotation after striking the ground, and sending up
the snow in little jets, thus indicating where they were to be found.
On recovery, the spiral lines scored on the japanned surface in its
passage through the target gave every facility for ascertaining the
angle, and consequently the amount of rotation. It was thus ascertained
that -from one and a-half to two and a-quarter rotations had taken
place in the length of the gun, or a greater amount of twist than was
usually given at Woolwich to projectiles of that calibre. Evidence was
thus afforded that the dogmatic way in which the invention had been
ignored by our military authorities was in no way justified. Whatever
the real merits or demerits of my invention may have been, it was at
least shown that, at a time when we had no established rifled system,
this early attempt at a solution of the difficulty had sufficient merit to
render it worthy of a trial.
By the time the experiments were concluded the winter sun had
almost disappeared, and both weary and cold, the several officers, who
took part in the day's trials, and myself walked back to the grim old
fortress of Vincennes, and after threading our way along the cold stone
passages, we found ourselves in the officers' quarters. A bright blazing
fire of logs on the low hearth looked so inviting that we all instinctively
gathered round it, and under the happy influence of a steaming cup of
good mulled claret, there was much noisy talking and gesticulation.
During one of our more quiet intervals, Commandant Minie remarked
that it was quite true that the shot revolved with sufficient rapidity,
and went point forward through the targets ; and that, he said, was
very satisfactory as far as it went. But he entirely mistrusted their
present guns, and he did not consider it safe in practice to fire a
30-lb. shot from a 12-pounder cast-iron gun. The real question, he said,
was ; Could any guns be made to stand such heavy projectiles ? This
simple observation was the spark which has kindled one of the greatest
industrial revolutions that the present century has to record, for it
instantly forced on my attention the real difficulty of the situation,
136 HENRY BESSEMER
viz. : How were we to make a gun that would be strong enough
to throw with safety these heavy elongated projectiles ? I well
remember how, on my lonely journey back to Paris that cold
December night, I inwardly resolved, if possible, to complete the work
so satisfactorily begun, by producing a superior description of cast-iron
that would stand the heavy strains which the increased weight of
the projectiles rendered necessary. At that moment I had no idea
whatever in which way I could attack this new and important problem,
but the mere fact that there was something to discover, something of
great importance to achieve, was sufficient to spur me on. It was
indeed to me like the first cry of the hounds in the hunting field, or
the last uncertain miles of the chase to the eager sportsman. It was
a clear run that I had before me — a fortune and a name to win — and
only so much time and labour lost if I failed in the attempt. When,
a few days later, I personally reported to the Emperor the results of
the trials at Vincennes, I told His Majesty that I had made up
my mind to study the whole question of metals suitable for the
construction of guns, a proposal which he encouraged by many kind
expressions, and a desire that I should communicate to him the result
of my labours.
My knowledge of iron metallurgy was at that time very limited,
and consisted only of such facts as an engineer must necessarily observe
in the foundry or smith's shop ; but this was in one sense an advantage
to me, for I had nothing to unlearn. My mind was open and free to
receive any new impressions, without having to struggle against the
bias which a lifelong practice of routine operations cannot fail more or
less to create.
A little reflection, assisted by a good deal of practical knowledge
of the properties of copper and its several alloys, made me reject all
these from the first, and look to the metal iron, or some of its combinations,
as the only material suitable for heavy ordnance. At that time nearly
all our guns were simply unwrought masses of cast iron, and it was
consequently to the improvement of cast iron that I first directed my
attention.
The experiments at Vincennes took place on or about the 22nd
MATERIAL FOR THE CONSTRUCTION OF GUNS 137
December, 1854, and before the close of that year I found myself once
more at Baxter House, busy with plans for the production of an
improved metal for the manufacture of guns, which improvement in
the quality of the iron I proposed to effect by the fusion of steel in a
bath of molten pig-iron in a reverberatory furnace. I soon determined
on the form of furnace, and applied for a patent for my " Improvements
in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel," which was dated as early as
January 10th, 1855 — that is, within three weeks after the experiments
in the Polygon at Vincennes.
CHAPTER XI
THE GENESIS OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS
TT will, perhaps, assist the non-technical reader to understand what
-•- follows if I explain, in a few words, the forms in which iron and
steel existed at the time when I commenced the experiments which
resulted in the creation of the Bessemer process. At that date there
was no steel suitable for structural purposes. Ships, bridges, railway
rails, tyres and axles were constructed of wrought iron, while the use of
steel was confined to cutlery, tools, springs, and the smaller parts of
machinery. This steel was manufactured by heating bars of Swedish
wrought iron for a period of some six weeks in contact with charcoal,
during which period a part of the carbon was transferred to the iron. The
bars were then broken into small pieces, and melted in crucibles holding
not more than 60 Ib. each. The process was long and costly, and the
maximum size of ingot which could be produced was determined by the
number of crucibles a given works could deal with simultaneously. Such
steel when rolled into bars was sold at £50 to £60 a ton. The wrought
iron bars from which the steel was made were manufactured from pig-iron,
as was all wrought iron, by the process known as "puddling." Naturally,
such a process was costly ; puddling demands great strength and endurance
on the part of the workmen, combined with much skill.
Practically, all objects in iron, except such as were simply castings,
were at that time made from wrought iron manufactured by puddling.
The object I set before myself was to produce a metal having characteristics
comparable with those of wrought iron or steel, and yet capable of being
run into a mould or ingot in a fluid condition. I was aware that
Fairbairn and others had sought to improve cast iron by the fusion
of some malleable scrap, along with the pig iron, in the cupola furnace.
This fusion of scrap-iron, intermixed with a mass of coke, was found
THE GENESIS OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS 139
to convert the malleable iron into white cast iron, which was at
the same time much contaminated with sulphur. Therefore, to a
great extent, this system had failed in its object. In my experi-
ments I avoided the difficulties inseparable from Fairbairn's method,
by employing a reverberatory furnace in which the pig-iron was fused.
Into the bath so formed I put broken-up bars of blister-steel, made
from Swedish or other charcoal - iron, its fusion taking place without
its being further carburised by contact with the solid fuel, or con-
taminated by the absorption of sulphur. The high temperature
necessary for the fusion of a large proportion of steel in the bath
was obtained by constructing the fire-grate much wider than the
bath, by contracting the width of the furnace considerably at the
bridge, and also by continuing to taper slightly the furnace all the
way from the fore-bridge to the downcast flue, which was connected
with a tall chimney-shaft. Many alterations and modifications of this
furnace were made from time to time, but it was found that the large
volume of flame sweeping over the open hearth of the furnace was
mixed with a considerable quantity of combustible gas. To consume
this gas a hollow fire-bridge was employed, having numerous perforations
made in the clay lumps of which it was composed, and so arranged
as to allow jets of hot atmospheric air to mingle with these combustible
gases, and produce an intense heat close down to the surface of the
bath. It was also found that this admission of hot air all along the back
of the fire-bridge produced a decarbonising action on the bath ; hence
the state of carburation of the metal might be altered by regulating
the admission of air. This passage of air through the hollow fire-
bridge served also to keep down the temperature of the latter and
render it more durable.
4 Some of the samples of metal which I produced were, when
annealed, of an extremely fine grain, and of great strength. At this
stage of my experiments I cast a small model gun, which in the lathe
gave shavings slightly curled, and closely resembling the turnings from
a steel ingot ; the metal, when polished, also looked white and close-
grained like steel. I was so well pleased with this little model gun
that I took it over to Paris, obtained an audience with, and showed
140 HENRY BESSEMER
it to, the Emperor, who had encouraged this attempt to improve the
iron employed in founding heavy ordnance. His Majesty, who had
desired me to report progress, accepted this experimental gun, remarking
that some day it might have an historical interest. It was in
recognition of this circumstance that His Majesty, later on, intimated,
through Colonel Belleville, his desire to confer on me the decoration
of the Legion of Honour, provided I could obtain permission to wear
it, a privilege which our Ambassador twice refused. His Majesty
also sanctioned the erection of my furnace at the Government Cannon
Foundry at Ruelle, near Angouleme, to which place I went with
proper introductions for the purpose of arranging all the necessary
details. I also sent over from England several thousand special fire-
bricks, etc., for the erection of the furnaces.
But, on resuming my further researches, after my return to London,
an incident occurred which suddenly put a stop to the intended works
at the Ruelle gun -foundry, and in fact altered all my future plans
and investigations.
The furnace, as then arranged, is shown in vertical section in Fig. 35,
and in horizontal section, on the line passing above the fire-bridge, in
Fig. 36, Plate XII., the bath being empty and showing the tapping-
hole, and the way in which the furnace narrows at the fire-bridge.
Fig. 37, on the same Plate, is also a horizontal section, taken on a
line passing through the openings in the perforated hollow fire-bridge,
and clearly shows how the jets of air were directed so as to produce
an intense ignition of the combustible gases, mingled with, and passing
over with, the large volume of flame from the overcharged fire-grate.
The small scale on which this experimental furnace was built
(a capacity of 3 cwt. only) was much against my obtaining the
high temperature necessary to melt a large proportion of steel in a
pig-iron bath. I was, of course, fully aware that a furnace of sufficient
capacity to cast a 5 -ton or a 10-ton gun would acquire a much higher
temperature than was possible in my small furnace. I knew also that
forced draught, obtained by closing in the ashpit and forcing air into
it, would still further increase the temperature. That this forced
draught was in my mind at the time is shown by the fact that I took
EXPERIMENTS WITH OPEN-HEARTH FURNACES 141
out a patent for the manufacture of cast steel, dated October 17th, 1855 ;
that is, about two months after the casting of the model gun, in which
specification I fully described the forcing of air by a fan into the closed
ashpits of the furnaces employed in the manufacture of cast steel. It
has since often occurred to me that, with these additional resources still
untried, I did not act wisely in so suddenly abandoning these open-
hearth experiments, in favour of an entirely different system, suggested
to my mind by the incident to be presently referred to. But with
my impulsive nature, and intense desire to follow up every new
problem that presented itself, I at once threw myself unreservedly
into this new study, which seemed to open the way to the rapid
production of bars, rails, and plates of malleable metal direct from the
blast-furnace.
Before dismissing this subject, it may be interesting, even at this
distant period, to speculate on what would have been the natural
outcome of my open-hearth furnace experiments, had I not been so
suddenly diverted from their further pursuit.
Such a furnance, with forced draught and a capacity of 10 tons,
would undoubtedly have melted malleable iron or steel in a bath of pig
iron, and have decarburised the latter to the desired extent ; for I had, in
fact, already fused steel, in a bath of pig iron, on the open hearth of
this small reverberatory furnace; and as far back as January, 1855,
I had claimed in my patent, " The fusion of steel in a bath of melted pig
or cast iron in a reverberatory furnace, as herein described"
This was about ten years prior to the patent taken out by M. Emile
Martin, and now generally known as the " Siemens-Martin process." This
latter patent was obtained in England in the name of A. Brooman, the
patent agent of Emile Martin, and is dated August 18th, 1865, or more
than ten years after my patent of January 10th, 1855. M. Emile Martin
in his patent says : " The manufacture is effected upon the principle of
fusion of iron or natural steel in a bath of cast iron, maintained at a white
heat in a reverberatory furnace, such as Siemens gas furnace"
I, however, desire to say that I make no claim to the prior invention
of the Siemens-Martin process, nor do I assume that my patent of 1855
furnished any information which either of these gentlemen had availed
142 HENRY BESSEMER
themselves of, although my patent for melting steel in a bath of cast
iron on the hearth of a reverberatory furnace had been granted, and
the specification published, some nine years prior to M. Martin's application
for his patent. But seeing how many years I was in advance of M. Martin,
I feel perfectly justified in saying that the fusion of steel in a bath of pig
iron on the open hearth of a reverberatory furnace, which I had patented
and accomplished ten years prior to the Siemens-Martin patent, was,
to use a favourite expression of Mr. Gladstone, " approaching within
measurable distance " of that successful process known as the open-hearth
manufacture of mild steel.
On my return from the Ruelle gun-foundry I resumed my experiments
with the open-hearth furnace, when the remarkable incident, mentioned
above, occurred in this way. Some pieces of pig iron on one side of the
bath attracted my attention by remaining unmelted in the great heat
of the furnace, and I turned on a little more air through the fire-bridge
with the intention of increasing the combustion. On again opening the
furnace door, after an interval of half an hour, these two pieces of pig
still remained unfused. I then took an iron bar, with the intention of
pushing them into the bath, when I discovered that they were merely thin
shells of decarburised iron, as represented at A, Fig. 37, Plate XII., showing
that atmospheric air alone was capable of wholly decarburising grey pig
iron, and converting it into malleable iron without puddling or any other
manipulation. Thus a new direction was given to my thoughts, and
after due deliberation I became convinced that if air could be brought
into contact with a sufficiently extensive surface of molten crude iron,
it would rapidly convert it into malleable iron. This, like all new problems,
had a special interest for me, and I became impatient to test it by a
laboratory experiment. Without loss of time I had some fire-clay crucibles
made with dome-shaped perforated covers, and also with some fire-clay blow-
pipes, which I joined on to a 3 ft. length of 1-in. gas-pipe, the opposite end
of which was attached by a piece of rubber tubing to a fixed blast-pipe.
This elastic connection permitted of the blow-pipe being easily introduced
into and withdrawn from the crucible, as shown at Fig. 38, Plate XIII.,
which represents a vertical section of an air furnace containing a crucible
that, in this case, forms the " converter." About 10 Ib. of molten grey
PLATE XII.
FIG. 35. VERTICAL SECTION OF FURNACE FOR MAKING MALLEABLE IRON
FIG. 36. HORIZONTAL SECTION OF FURNACE FOR MAKING MALLEABLE IRON
FIG. 37. HORIZONTAL SECTION OF FURNACE FOR MAKING MALLEABLE IRON
OF THE
MIVERSITY
"'
I'LATE XIII.
FIG. 38. SECTION OF CRUCIBLE
WITH BLOW-PIPE
FIG. 39. SECTION OF VERTICAL CONVERTER
FIG. 41. FIG. 40.
FIGS. 40 AND 41. SECTIONS OF VERTICAL CONVERTER WITH UPPER CHAMBER
EARLY EXPERIMENTS ON THE BESSEMER PROCESS 143
pig iron half filled the crucible, and thirty minutes' blowing was found
to convert 10 Ib. of grey pig into soft malleable iron. Here at least
one great fact was demonstrated, viz., the absolute decarburisation
of molten crude iron without any manipulation, but not without fuel, for
had not a very high temperature been kept up in the air furnace all the
the time this quiet blowing for thirty minutes was going on, it would
have resulted in the solidification of the metal in the crucible long before
complete decarburisation had been effected. Hence arose the all-important
question : can sufficient internal heat be produced by the introduction
of atmospheric air to retain the fluidity of the metal until it is wholly
decarburised in a vessel not externally heated ? This I determined to try
without delay, and I fitted up a larger blast-cylinder in connection with
a 20 horse-power engine which I had daily at work. I also erected
an ordinary founder's cupola, capable of melting half a ton of pig iron.
Then came the question of the best form and size for the experimental
" converter." I had very little data to guide me in this, as the crucible
converter was hidden from view in the furnace during the blow. I found,
however, that slag was produced during the process, and escaped through
the holes to the lid. Owing to this, I determined on constructing a very
simple form of cylindrical converter, about 4 ft. in height in the interior,
which was sufficiently tall and capacious, as I believed, to prevent anything
but a few sparks and heated gases from escaping through a central hole
made in the flat top of the vessel for that purpose, as shown in the vertical
section at Fig. 39, Plate XIII. The converter had six horizontal
tuyeres arranged around the lower part of it ; these were connected by six
adjustable branch pipes, deriving their supply of air from an annular
rectangular chamber, extending around the converter, as shown.
All being thus arranged, and a blast of 10 or 15 Ib. pressure turned
on, about 7 cwt. of molten pig iron was run into the hopper provided
on one side of the converter for that purpose. All went on quietly
for about ten minutes ; sparks such as are commonly seen when tapping
a cupola, accompanied by hot gases, ascended through the opening on
the top of the converter, just as I supposed would be the case. But
soon after a rapid change took place ; in fact, the silicon had been
quietly consumed, and the oxygen, next uniting with the carbon, sent
144 HENRY BESSEMER
up an ever-increasing stream of sparks and a voluminous white flame.
Then followed a succession of mild explosions, throwing molten slags
and splashes of metal high up into the air, the apparatus becoming a
veritable volcano in a state of active eruption. No one could approach
the converter to turn off the blast, and some low, flat, zinc-covered roofs,
close at hand were in danger of being set on fire by the shower of
red-hot matter falling on them. All this was a revelation to me, as I
O '
had in no way anticipated such violent results. However, in ten minutes
more the eruption had ceased, the flame died down, and the process
was complete. On tapping the converter into a shallow pan or
ladle, and forming the metal into an ingot, it was found to be wholly
decarburised malleable iron.
Such were the conditions under which the first charge of pig iron
was converted in a vessel neither internally nor externally heated by
fire.
I, however, desired to convert a second charge of pig iron which
had been put into the cupola ; and in order to prevent this dangerous
projection upwards of sparks and molten slags, a temporary expedient
was resorted to, which, however, failed in its object.
I procured one of those circular, chequered cast-iron plates so much
used in the London pavements to allow coals to be put into the cellars
below the pavement. This plate, which was about a foot in diameter,
was suspended by a chain at a distance of about 18 in. above the
central opening in the top of the converter, as shown in Fig. 39,
Plate XIII.
This, as a mere temporary device, was deemed sufficient to allow
the conversion of another 7 cwt. charge to be effected, without any
danger of setting fire to the premises. The converting operation went
on quietly as before, but when the eruption commenced, I saw the
suspended plate get rapidly red-hot, and in a few minutes more it
melted and fell away, leaving the chain dangling over the opening, and
allowing the slags and splashes of metal to shoot upwards as before.
Thus it happened that the first converter that I constructed was at
once condemned as commercially impracticable, owing to this vertical
eruption of cinder, and for this reason only.
EARLY EXPERIMENTS ON THE BESSEMER PROCESS 145
All attempts to lessen the violence of the process by the reduc-
tion of the number of tuyeres, or by lessening their diameter, or
by diminishing the pressure of the blast, only resulted in a reduc-
tion of the necessary temperature, and in preventing the conversion
of the molten pig into malleable iron. In one case the trial of a
diminished area of tuyere openings resulted in nearly the whole
charge of metal, after more than an hour's blowing, being converted
into a solid mass of brittle white iron, similar to ordinary refiner's
plate metal. Indeed, I may say the result of all my early investigations
proved to me, beyond the possibility of a doubt, a fact which has since
been confirmed in every Bessemer steel works throughout Europe and
America, viz. : that rapidity of action, ending in a violent eruption, is
an absolutely necessary condition of success. Not only must the
converted metal acquire an enormously high temperature, so that it
may not be chilled when pouring it out of the converter, or wrhen a
relatively large quantity of much cooler metal be added to deoxidise
it, but it must not chill and form a shell in the ladle during the
comparatively long time required for casting the ingots. Hence, to carry
out the Bessemer process successfully, a temperature must be obtained
very considerably above the mere melting temperature of malleable
iron ; and in order to secure this it is necessary to drive powerful
streams of air into the metal, so as to divide it into innumerable tiny
globules diffused throughout the whole body of iron under treatment
which, for the time being, may be likened to a fluid sponge with the
active combustion of carbon with oxygen going on in every one of its
myriads of ever-changing cavities.
It has been found that the union of carbon and oxygen takes place
so rapidly at this high temperature as to produce a series of mild explosions.
In the large converters in common use, a space some 8 ft. or 10 ft. in height
above the normal level of the metal is provided, in which this violent
action expends itself unseen, and is only partially recognised by a small
quantity of slags leaping out of the mouth of the converter.
With these facts before us, it must be self evident that all attempts
to produce malleable iron in a plain cylindrical vessel that has no top to
it, and in which the metal normally rises to within 6 in. of the open
146 HENRY BESSEMER
mouth, must utterly fail from two causes : first, because heat would
fly off so freely that the temperature of molten malleable iron could never
be reached ; and secondly, because nearly all the metal contained in such
a shallow, open-topped vessel would have leaped out of it, and have been
scattered in all directions on the occurrence of the explosive eruption,
without which no charge of molten pig iron has, or can be, converted
into fluid malleable iron by a blast of air.
I had no sooner condemned my first cylindrical converter than
I commenced to remedy its defects. The most obvious and ready way
of doing this would have been simply to make an opening on one side
of it near the top, and thus allow the escape of the ejected matter to take
place horizontally, directing it against a wall, or allowing it to fall into
a pit. But I desired to prevent this discharge of metal splashes as
much as possible. Hence I determined on constructing a new converter
with an upper chamber, having an arched roof and a conical sloping floor.
This converter is represented in Figs. 40 and 41, on Plate XIII., the last-
named view being a horizontal section through the tuyeres. When a
converter is so constructed, the ejected fluid, that would otherwise pass
vertically upwards into the air, is thrown against the arched roof, and
any metal that may be emitted falls again on the sloping floor of the
upper chamber, and returns to the lower one. The flame and a portion
of the slags find their way out of the two square lateral openings provided
for that purpose. This upper chamber also served as a receptacle for
heating up any metal intended to recarburise, or alloy with, the steel
in course of being converted. The sectional plan, Fig. 41, shows six
well-burned fire-clay or plumbago tuyere pipes fitted to openings
left in the lining for that purpose. Their outer ends were made conical
to facilitate the ramming in of loam around them, which effectually held
them in position, and at the same time admitted of their easy removal
when worn out ; a jointed piece of iron tube, with a catch to hold it in
place, conveyed the blast to each tuyere.
Another view, Fig. 42, Plate XIV., of this converter, taken at
right angles to Fig. 40, shows on one side the hopper by which the
molten iron was run into it by a movable spout direct from the cupola.
This view also shows the tapping-hole open, and the spout which
PLATE XIV.
FIG. 42. SECTION OF CONVERTER, LADLE, AND HYDRAULIC INGOT MOULD
EARLY FORMS OF BESSEMER CONVERTERS 147
conducted the converted metal into a movable shallow pan or receiver,
supported by a long handle (not shown). A fire-brick plug attached to
a long handle was fitted to a fire-brick ring or opening in the bottom
of the pan, and prevented any debris from the tapping-hole being carried
into the mould. As this apparatus was intended to exhibit the process,
it was essential that an easy way should be provided for getting away
the ingots and quickly repeating the operation. This casting apparatus,
constructed precisely as represented in Fig. 42, was erected at my Bronze
Manufactory in London, about two months prior to my reading the
"Cheltenham" paper, in August, 1856, to which I shall refer later. The
mould was 10 in. square, and about 3 ft. in length inside ; it was made
in two pieces planed quite parallel, and then permanently bolted together.
The base was a massive square flange, resting on four dwarf columns,
which stood on the square upper flange of an hydraulic cylinder; bolts
passed through these dwarf columns, and through the square flanges,
thus uniting the ingot mould and hydraulic cylinder. To the latter a ram
or plunger was fitted, having a movable square head, , which accurately
fitted the mould, and formed a movable bottom to it. Both the ram
and the external surface of the mould were kept cool by a water-jacket,
provided with supply and waste pipes. Matters being thus arranged,
the converted metal was allowed to fall in a vertical stream from the
receiver on to the head of the ram. The receiver was then removed,
and as soon as the steel was solidified, water under pressure was turned
on to the hydraulic cylinder, when a beautiful ingot, 10 in. square, and
weighing about 7 cwt., steadily rose and stood on end ready for removal,
the head of the ram rising one or two inches above the top of the mould.
There are, no doubt, many persons still living who witnessed this
combined converting and casting apparatus in successful operation.
Two 10-in. square ingots, made with this apparatus, were sent to
the Dowlais Iron Works in Wales, and, without hammering, were rolled
into two flat-footed rails on the 6th September, 1856 ; that is, twenty-four
days after the reading of the "Cheltenham" paper. They were rolled
under the personal superintendence of Mr. Edward Williams, Past President
of the Iron and Steel Institute. Two pieces of these rails are still
kept at the Institute in a large glass case containing many other
148 HENRY BESSEMER
examples of the early working of my process in London and in
Sheffield.
Before concluding this brief sketch of the earliest forms of apparatus
designed by me to facilitate or improve the process, I must revert
to the difficulties inseparable from a fixed converter. In this form of
apparatus much heat is dissipated by the blowing which takes place
during the running in of the metal, and by the continuation of the
blast after the metal is converted, and during the whole time of its
discharge, which is a period of uncertain length. There is also the
difficulty of stopping the process if anything goes wrong with the blast
engine, or if a tuyere gives way. I searched diligently for a remedy
for these and other grave defects, which at that time appeared impossible
to remove, until the happy idea occurred to me of mounting the converter
on axes, so as to be able to keep the tuyeres above the metal until
the charge of molten iron was run in, thus permitting the blowing
of the whole charge to be commenced at one and the same time, and
admitting also of the cessation of blowing during the discharge. This
movement of the converter permitted a stoppage of the process to take
place at any time for the removal of a damaged tuyere if necessary, and
afforded great facilities for working.
The special form of the movable converter was also a matter of great
importance, and there were several requirements to provide for. First,
in order to make the heavy lining secure when turned upside down,
a more or less arched shape in all directions was necessary. A long
oval form seemed best adapted to the purpose, as it allowed some eight
or nine feet in height for the metal to throw itself about in without leaving
the converter. Then the large mouth or outlet pointing to one side was
desirable, so that the sparks could be discharged away from the casting pit.
After much study, I arrived at the form shown at A, Fig. 43, Plate XV.,
which is an external elevation ; B is a vertical section showing the position
in which the vessel is retained during the running-in of the metal ; c shows
it during the blow, and D the position it assumes when the converted
metal is poured into a loamed-up casting ladle. This ladle is shown at
E and F : it is provided with a discharge valve at the bottom, so that
it can be moved from mould to mould by closing the valve during such
PLATE XV
O
O
•*H
6
EARLY FORMS OP BESSEMER PLANT 149
movement, and then permit a vertical stream to descend into the mould
perfectly free from any mixture of slags. The advantage of this mode
of filling the moulds will be understood when it is borne in mind that they
are necessarily narrow upright vessels. It is well known that a stream
of molten metal, poured from the lip of a ladle, will describe a parabolic
curve in its descent, tending to strike the further side of the mould before
reaching the bottom. The surface of the cast-iron mould so struck is
instantly melted by the incandescent stream of steel, and the ingot and
the mould thus become united, causing great inconvenience. Nor is it
easy, in pouring the steel from the lip of the open ladle, to prevent some
of the fluid slag floating on its surface from flowing over with the steel
and spoiling the ingot. All of these difficulties are avoided by the ladle
fitted with a bottom valve discharging a vertical stream down the centre
of the mould, the quantity and flow being regulated with great facility
by the hand-lever on the side of the ladle. At G and H, Fig. 43, are
shown the bottom of the converter and the form of tuyeres.
jjVIany other mechanical contrivances were necessary to perfect the
process, such, for instance, as my patent blast engine, with its noiseless
self-acting valves ; the hydraulic crane carrying the pouring ladle over
every mould in the semi-circular casting pit, and designed to rise and
fall in accordance with the movement of the converter when filling the
ladle for casting ; the direct-acting ingot cranes, which clear the pit and
refill it with another set of moulds rapidly, and with very little manual
labour ; the elevated " valve-stand," from which safe position a single
workman can overlook the whole converting apparatus, and control all
their movements, govern the blast, and work the hydraulic cranes, etc!
The mode of transmitting semi-rotating motion to the converter was
another important problem which I had to solve. I was of opinion that
ordinary shafting and straps were inapplicable to this fiery monster.
Five or ten tons of fluid metal had to be lifted in one direction, this
load diminishing until the fluid running to the opposite end of the
converter tended to reverse the driving gear. If anything went wrong,
or slipped, the converter might swing itself round and discharge the
incandescent metal on to the floor or among the workpeople. These
considerations led me to adopt the hydraulic apparatus now universally
150
HENRY BESSEMER
employed for governing the motions of the converter : for, with this
simple and reliable means, a lad at a safe distance can start or stop it
instantly, can alter its speed and motion, and control the pouring of a
10-ton charge with ease and certainty.
The first movable converter was erected at my steel works at Sheffield,
and was moved by hand-gearing, because at that early date I had not
FIG. 47 INGOT CRANE; BESSEMER PLANT AT SHEFFIELD
invented the hydraulic apparatus just described. This early converting
plant did good work at Sheffield, and was constructed precisely as repre-
sented in Fig. 44, Plate XVI., which shows also the first modification of
the hydraulic casting crane, and its ladle with valve, afterwards elaborated
by me and rendered suitable for casting heavy charges of steel. The
development of this earliest form of plant is shown in Figs. 45 and 46,
Plates XVII. and XVIII., and Fig. 47, annexed. The early experi-
ments at Baxter House were so far successful, as to justify myself
PLATE XVI.
PLATE XVII
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PLATE XVIII
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ERSITY
THE BESSEMER STEEL WORKS, SHEFFIELD 151
and some of my friends in entering into partnership, and erecting in the
town of Sheffield, a steel works which still remains in active operation
under the style of "Henry Bessemer and Company, Limited." These
works were established both for commercial purposes, and also to serve
as a pioneer works or school, where the process was for several years
exhibited to any iron or steel manufacturers who desired to take a license
to work under my patents. All of these were allowed, either personally
or by their managers, to see their own iron converted prior to their
taking a licence.
CHAPTER XII
THE BESSEMER PROCESS
~T WELL remember how anxiously I awaited the blowing of the first
7-cwt. charge of pig iron. I had engaged an ironfounder's furnace-
attendant to manage the cupola and the melting of the charge. When
his metal was nearly all melted, he came to me, and said hurriedly :
" Where be going to put the metal, maister ?" I said : " I want you to
run it by a gutter into that little furnace," pointing to the converter,
"from which you have just raked out all the fuel, and then I shall
blow cold air through it to make it hot." The man looked at me in a
way in which surprise and pity for my ignorance seemed curiously
blended, as he said : "It will soon be all of a lump." Notwithstanding
this prediction, the metal was run in, and I awaited with much impatience
the result. The first element attacked by the atmospheric oxygen is
the silicon, generally present in pig iron to the extent of Ij to 2 per
cent. ; it is the white metallic substance of which flint is the acid silicate.
Its combustion furnishes a great deal of heat ; but it is very undemon-
strative, a few sparks and hot gases only indicating the fact that some-
thing is going quietly on. But after an interval of ten or twelve minutes,
when the carbon contained in grey pig iron to the extent of about 3 per
cent, is seized on by the oxygen, a voluminous white flame is produced,
which rushes out of the openings provided for its escape from the upper
chamber, and brilliantly illuminates the whole space around. This
chamber proved a perfect cure for the rush of slags and metal from
the upper central opening of the first converter. I watched with some
anxiety for the expected cessation of the flame as the carbon gradually
burnt out. It took place almost suddenly, and thus indicated the entire
decarburisation of the metal. The furnace was then tapped, when out
rushed a limpid stream of incandescent malleable iron, almost too brilliant
THE BESSEMER PROCESS 153
for the eye to rest upon ; it was allowed to flow vertically into the parallel
undivided ingot mould. Then came the question, would the ingot shrink
enough, and the cold iron mould expand enough, to allow the ingot to
be pushed out? An interval of eight or ten minutes was allowed, and
then, on the application of hydraulic force to the ram, the ingot rose
entirely out of the mould, and stood there ready for removal.
This is all very simple now that it has been accomplished, and
many of my readers may, from their intimate knowledge of this subject,
have felt impatient at its mere recital. But it is, nevertheless, impossible
for me to convey to them any adequate idea of what were my feelings
when I saw this incandescent mass rise slowly from the mould : the first
large prism of cast malleable iron that the eye of man had ever rested
on. This was no mere laboratory experiment. In one compact mass
we had as much metal as could be produced by two puddlers and their
two assistants, working arduously for hours with an expenditure of much
fuel. We had obtained a pure, homogeneous 10-in. ingot as the result
of thirty minutes' blowing, wholly unaccompanied by skilled labour or
the employment of fuel ; while the outcome of the puddlers' labour would
have been ten or a dozen impure, shapeless puddle-balls, saturated with
scoria and other impurities, and withal so feebly coherent, as to be
utterly incapable of being rendered, by any known means, as cohesive as
the metal that had risen from the mould. No wonder, then, that I
gazed with delight on the first-born of the many thousands of the
square ingots that now come into existence every day. (indeed, at the
date I am writing (1897), the world's present production of Bessemer
steel, if cast into ingots 10 in. square and 30 in. in length, weighing
7 cwt. each, would make over 90,000 such ingots in every working day
of the yearj
I had now incontrovertible evidence of the all-important fact that
molten pig iron could, without the employment of any combustible matter,
except that which it contained, be raised in the space of half an hour
to a temperature previously unknown in the manufacturing arts, while
it was simultaneously deprived of its carbon and silicon, wholly
without skilled manipulation. What all this meant, what a perfect
revolution it threatened in every iron-making district in the world, was
154 HENRY BESSEMER
fully grasped by the mind as I gazed motionless on that glowing ingot,
the mere contemplation of which almost overwhelmed me for the time,
notwithstanding that I had for weeks looked forward to that moment
with a full knowledge that it meant an immense success, or a crushing
failure of all my hopes and aspirations. I soon, however, felt a strong
desire to test the quality of the metal, but I had no appliances to
hammer or roll such a formidable mass ; indeed, we had no means at hand
even to move it. But I saw that there was one proof possible to which
I could subject the ingot where it stood, and calling for an ordinary
carpenter's axe, I dealt it three severe blows on the sharp angle of the
FIG. 48. MALLEABLE IRON INGOT
prism. The cutting edge of the axe penetrated far into the soft metal,
bulging the piece forward but not separating it, as shown in the sketch,
Fig. 48. Had it been cast iron those angle-pieces would have been
scattered all over the place in red-hot fragments, but their standing firm
and undetachable assured me that the metal was malleable.
Notwithstanding the strong views I entertained of the value of
my invention, I desired to obtain the unbiassed opinion of some eminent
engineer, who might possibly take a very different view from my own.
I did not wish to live in a fool's paradise, and was most anxious to
know how my ideas would be received by others. I knew Mr. George
Rennie very well by reputation, and I invited him to a private view
THE CHELTENHAM MEETING OF THE BRITISH ASSOCIATION 155
of the process, as carried on in the upright converter. He kindly con-
sented to give me his opinion, came to Baxter House and saw the
process, with the result that he took a very deep interest in it. While
discussing the subject, after the blow, he said : " This is such an important
invention that you ought not to keep the secret another day." "Well,"
I said, "it is not yet quite a commercial success, and I think I had
better perfect it before allowing it to be seen." " Oh," he said, " all
the little details requisite will come naturally to the ironmaster ; your
great principle is an unquestioned success ; no fuel, no manipulation, no
puddle-balls, no piling and welding ; huge masses of any shape made in
a few minutes." This truly great engineer was fairly taken by surprise,
and his enthusiasm was as great and as genuine as it could have been
had he himself been the inventor. All at once he said : " The British
Association meets next week at Cheltenham, and I advise you strongly
to read a paper on that occasion. I am President this year of the
Mechanical Section. I wish I had known of this invention earlier. All
our papers are now arranged for the meeting, and yours would be at
the bottom of the long list, and it might simply be taken as read and
would not be heard at all. But so important is this new process to all
engineers that, if you will write a paper, I will take upon myself the
responsibility of putting it first on the list." I could not withstand
so handsome an offer from so distinguished a source. I told him that
I much doubted my ability to write a paper in any way worthy of
being read before the British Association, as I had never written or
read a paper before any learned society. "Do not fear that," he said.
" If you will only put on paper just such a clear and simple account
of your process as you have given verbally to me, you will have nothing
to fear." Soon after this he took his departure, with many words of
encouragement, and I was left face to face with a task that I had not
bargained for. I, however, at once set to work, and, having completed
my paper in a few days, I left London on Tuesday, the 12th August,
1856, for Cheltenham.
On the following morning, while finishing my breakfast at the hotel,
I was sitting next to Mr. Clay, the manager of the Mersey Forge, at
Liverpool, to whom I was well known, when a gentleman who turned
OF THF
UNIVERSITY
156 HENRY BESSEMER
out to be Mr. Budd, a well-known Welsh ironmaker, canie up to the
breakfast-table, and, seating himself opposite my friend, said to him ;
" Clay, I want you to come with me into one of the Sections this
morning, for we shall have some good fun." The reply was : "I am
sorry that I am specially engaged this morning, or I would have done
so with pleasure." " Oh, you must come, Clay," said Mr. Budd.
"Do you know, that there is actually a fellow come down from
London to read a paper on the manufacture of malleable iron without
fuel? Ha, ha, ha!" " Oh," said Mr. Clay, "that's just where this
gentleman and I are going." " Come along, then," said Mr. Budd, and
we all rose from the table and proceeded towards the rooms occupied
by the Mechanical Section. It was getting rather late, the room was
well filled, and I, dropping the arm of my friend, ascended the raised
platform and was cordially received by the President. Soon after,
when the general bustle had subsided, Mr. George Rennie stood up,
and in a few appropriate words explained that, at the eleventh hour,
he had become acquainted with the fact that a most important discovery
had been made in the manufacture of iron and steel, and he had con-
sidered it desirable that a paper describing the invention should be read
at that meeting. As the papers for that section had already been
arranged, he had ventured on a step which he hoped would be excused
by all those gentlemen who had favoured them by preparing papers
for that occasion. He considered that the paper about to be read
was too important to be put at the tail end of the list, and, as the
only alternative, he had ventured to put it at the head. He had great
pleasure in introducing to the meeting the inventor, Mr. Henry Bessemer,
who would now read his Paper on " The Manufacture of Iron Without
Fuel."
The audience received me very kindly, and I had the honour of
reading my paper, of which a verbatim copy is here given.
The manufacture of iron in this country has attained such an important position
that any improvement in this branch of our national industry cannot fail to be a source of
general interest, and will, I trust, be sufficient excuse for the present brief, and, I fear,
imperfect paper. I may mention that for the last two years my attention has been almost
exclusively directed to the manufacture of malleable iron and steel, in which, however, I
had made but little progress until within the last eight or nine months. The constant
THE CHELTENHAM PAPER, 1856 157
pulling down and rebuilding of furnaces, and the toil of daily experiments with large
charges of iron, had already begun to exhaust my stock of patience ; but the numerous
observations I had made during this very unpromising period all tended to confirm an
entirely new view of the subject which, at that time, forced itself upon my attention, viz.,
that I could produce a much more intense heat without any furnace or fuel than could be
obtained by either of the modifications I had used, and consequently that I should not only
avoid the injurious action of mineral fuel on the iron under operation, but I should at the
same time avoid also the expense of fuel. Some preliminary trials were made on from
10 Ib. to 20 Ib. of iron, and although the process was fraught with considerable difficulty, it
exhibited such unmistakable signs of success as to induce me at once to put up an
apparatus capable of converting about 7 cwt. of crude pig iron into malleable iron in thirty
minutes. With such masses of metal to operate on, the difficulties which beset the small
laboratory experiments of 10 Ib. entirely disappeared. On this new field of inquiry I set
out with the assumption that crude iron contains about 5 per cent, of carbon; that carbon
cannot exist at a white heat in the presence of oxygen without uniting therewith and
producing combustion ; that such combustion would proceed with a rapidity dependent on
the amount of surface of carbon exposed ; and, lastly, that the temperature which the
metal would acquire would be also dependent on the rapidity with which the oxygen and
carbon were made to combine ; and consequently that it was only necessary to bring together
the oxygen and carbon in such a manner that a vast surface should be exposed to their
mutual action, in order to produce a temperature hitherto unattainable in our largest
furnaces. With a view of testing practically this theory, I constructed a cylindrical vessel
3 ft. in diameter, and 5 ft. in height, somewhat like an ordinary cupola furnace. The
interior of this vessel is lined with firebricks, and at about 2 in. from the bottom of it,
I insert five tuyere pipes, the nozzles of which are formed of well-burned fireclay, the
orifice of each tuyere being about f in. in diameter ; they are so put into the brick
lining (from the outer side) as to admit of their removal and renewal in a few minutes
when they are worn out. At one side of the vessel, about half-way up from the bottom,
there is a hole made for running in the crude metal, and on the opposite side
there is a tap-hole stopped with loam, by means of which the iron is run out at the
end of the process. In practice this converting vessel may be made of any convenient
size, but I prefer that it should not hold less than one, or more than five, tons of
fluid iron at each charge. The vessel should be placed so near to the discharge hole
of the blast furnace as to allow the iron to flow along a gutter into it; a small
blast cylinder will be required capable of compressing air to about 8 Ib. or 10 Ib.
to the square inch. A communication having been made between it and the tuyeres
before named, the converting vessel will be in a condition to commence work ; it will,
however, on the occasion of its being used after re-lining with firebricks, be necessary to
make a fire in the interior with a few bucketfuls of coke, so as to dry the brickwork and
heat up the vessel for the first operation, after which the fire is to be all carefully raked
out at the tapping hole, which is again to be made good with loam. The vessel will then
be in readiness to commence work, and may be so continued without any use of fuel until
the brick lining in the course of time becomes worn away and a new lining is required.
I have before mentoned that the tuyeres are situated close to the bottom of the vessel ;
158 HENRY BESSEMER
the fluid metal will therefore rise some 18 in. or 2 ft. above them. It is therefore
necessary, in order to prevent the metal from entering the tuyere holes, to turn on the blast
before allowing the fluid crude iron to run into the vessel from the blast furnace. This
having been done, and the fluid iron run in, a rapid boiling-up of the metal will be heard
going on within the vessel, the metal being tossed violently about and dashed from side to
side, shaking the vessel by the force with which it moves. From the throat of the
converting vessel flame will then immediately issue, accompanied by a few bright sparks.
This state of things will continue for about fifteen or twenty minutes, during which time
the oxygen in the atmospheric air combines with the carbon contained in the iron, producing
carbonic acid gas and at the same time evolving a powerful heat. Now as this heat is generated
in the interior of, and is diffused in innumerable fiery bubbles throughout, the whole fluid
mass, the metal absorbs the greater part of it, and its temperature becomes immensely increased,
and by the expiration of the fifteen or twenty minutes before-named, that part of the
carbon which appears mechanically mixed and diffused through the crude iron has been
entirely consumed. The temperature, however, is so high that the chemically-combined
carbon now begins to separate from the metal, as is at once indicated by an immense
increase in the volume of flame rushing out of the throat of the vessel. The metal in the
vessel now rises several inches above its natural level, and a light frothy slag makes its
appearance, and is thrown out in large foam-like masses. This violent eruption of cinder
generally lasts about five or six minutes, when all further appearance of it ceases, a steady
and powerful flame replacing the shower of sparks and cinder which always accompanies
the boil. The rapid union of carbon and oxygen, which thus takes place, adds still further
to the temperature of the metal, while the diminished quantity of carbon present allows a
part of the oxygen to combine with the iron, which undergoes combustion and is converted
into an oxide. At the excessive temperature that the metal has now acquired, the oxide
as soon as formed undergoes fusion, and forms a powerful solvent of those earthy bases
that are associated with the iron. The violent ebullition which is going on mixes most
intimately the scoria and the metal, every part of which is thus brought in contact with
the fluid oxide, which will thus wash and cleanse the metal most thoroughly from the silica
and other earthy bases which are combined with the crude iron, while the sulphur and
other volatile matters which cling so tenaciously to iron at ordinary temperatures, are driven
off, the sulphur combining with the oxygen and forming sulphurous acid gas. The loss of
weight of crude iron during its conversion into an ingot of malleable iron was found on a
mean of four experiments to be 12| per cent., to which will have to be added the loss of
metal in finishing rolls. This will make the entire loss probably not less than 18 per
cent., instead of about 28 per cent., which is the loss on the present system. A large
portion of this metal is, however, recoverable by treating with carbonaceous gases the rich
oxides thrown out of the furnace by the boil. These slags are found to contain innumerable
small grains of metallic iron, which are mechanically held in suspension in the slags, and
may be easily recovered. I have before mentioned that after the boil has taken place a
steady and powerful flame succeeds, which continues without any change for about ten
minutes, when it rapidly falls off. As soon as this diminution of flame is apparent the
workman will know that the process is completed, and that the crude iron has been
converted into pure malleable iron, which he will form into ingots of any suitable size and
THE CHELTENHAM PAPER, 1856 159
shape, by simply opening the tap-hole of the converting vessel and allowing the fluid malleable
iron to flow into the iron ingot-moulds placed there to receive it. The masses of iron
thus formed will be perfectly free from any admixture of cinder, oxide, or other extraneous
matters, and will be far more pure, and in a more forward state of manufacture, than a pile
formed of ordinary puddle-bars. And thus it will be seen, that by a single process requiring
no manipulation or particular skill, and with only one workman, from three to five tons of
crude iron pass into the condition of several piles of malleable iron in from thirty to thirty-
five minutes, with the expenditure of about one-third part the blast now used in a finery
furnace with an equal charge of iron, and with the consumption of no other fuel than is
contained in the crude iron. To those who are best acquainted with the nature
of fluid iron, it may be a matter of surprise . that a blast of cold air forced into
melted crude iron is capable of raising its temperature to such a degree as to retain
it in a perfect state of fluidity after it has lost all its carbon, and is in the
condition of malleable iron, which in the highest heat of our forges only becomes softened
into a pasty mass. But such is the excessive temperature that I am enabled to arrive at
with a properly-shaped converting vessel and a judicious distribution of the blast, that I
am enabled not only to retain the fluidity of the metal, but to create so much surplus heat
as to re-melt the crop-ends, ingot-runners, and other scrap that is made throughout the
process, and thus bring them without labour or fuel into ingots of a quality equal to the
rest of the charge of new metal. For this purpose a small arched chamber is formed
immediately over the throat of the converting vessel, somewhat like the tunnel-head of the
blast furnace. This chamber has two or more openings on the side of it, and its floor is
made to slope downwards to the throat. As soon as a charge of fluid malleable iron
has been drawn off from the converting vessel the workmen will take the scrap intended to
be worked into the next charge, and proceed to introduce the several pieces into the small
chamber, piling them up around the opening of the throat. When this is done, he will run
in his charge of crude metal, and again commence the process. By the time the boil
commences, the bar-ends and other scrap will have acquired a white heat, and by the time
it is over most of them will have been melted and run down into the charge. Any pieces,
however, that remain may then be pushed in by the workman, and by the time the process
is completed they will all be melted, and ultimately combined with the rest of the charge ;
so that all scrap iron, whether cast or malleable, may thus be used up without any loss or
expense. As an example of the power that iron has of generating heat in this process, I
may mention a circumstance that occurred to me during my experiments. I was trying how
small a set of tuyeres could be used; but the size chosen proved to be too small, and
after blowing into the metal for one hour and three-quarters, I could not get up heat
enough with them to bring on the boil. The experiment was, therefore, discontinued,
during which time two-thirds of the metal solidified, and the rest was run off. A larger
set of tuyere pipes were then put in, and a fresh charge of fluid iron run into the vessel,
which had the effect of entirely remelting the former charge, and when the whole was
tapped out it exhibited, as usual, that intense and dazzling brightness peculiar to the
electric light.
To persons conversant with the manufacture of iron it will be at once apparent that
the ingots of malleable metal which I have described will have no hard or steely parts, such as are
160 HENRY BESSEMER
found in puddled iron, requiring a great amount of rolling to blend them with the general mass ;
nor will such ingots require an excess of rolling to expel cinder from the interior of the mass,
since none can exist in the ingot, which is pure and perfectly homogeneous throughout, and
hence requires only as much rolling as is necessary for the development of fibre. It, therefore,
follows that, instead of forming a merchant bar or rail by the union of a number of separate
pieces welded together, it will be far more simple, and less expensive, to make several bars or rails
from a single ingot. Doubtless this would have been done long ago, had not the whole process
been limited by the size of the ball which the puddler could make.
The facility which the new process affords of making large masses will enable the manu-
facturer to produce bars that, on the old mode of working, it was impossible to obtain ; while, at
the same time, it admits of the use of moffe powerful machinery, whereby a great deal of labour
will be saved, and the process be greatly expedited. I merely mention this fact in passing, as it
is not my intention at the present moment to enter upon any details of the improvements I have
made in this department of the manufacture, because the patents which I have obtained for them
are not yet specified. Before, however, dismissing this branch of the subject, I wish to call the
attention of the meeting to some of the peculiarities which distinguish cast steel from all other
forms of iron : namely, the perfect homogeneous character of the metal, the entire absence
of sand-cracks or flaws, and its greater cohesive force and elasticity, as compared with the blister
steel from which it is made — qualities which it derives solely from its fusion and formation into
ingots, all of which properties malleable iron acquires in like manner by its fusion and formation
into ingots in the new process. Nor must it be forgotten that no amount of rolling will give to
blister steel (although formed of rolled bars) the same homogeneous character that cast steel
acquires by a mere extension of the ingot to some ten or twelve times its original length.
One of the most important facts connected with the new system of manufacturing malleable
iron is, that all iron so produced will be of that quality known as charcoal iron : not that any
charcoal is used in its manufacture, but because the whole of the processes following the smelting
of it are conducted entirely without contact with, or the use of, any mineral fuel; the iron
resulting therefrom will, in consequence, be perfectly free from those injurious properties which
that description of fuel never fails to impart to iron that is brought under its influence. At the
same time, this system of manufacturing malleable iron offers extraordinary facility for making
large shafts, cranks, and other heavy masses ; it will be obvious that any weight of metal that can
be founded in ordinary cast iron by the means at present at our disposal may also be founded
in molten malleable iron, and be wrought into the forms and shapes required, provided that we
increase the size and power of our machinery to the extent necessary to deal with such large
masses of metal. A few minutes' reflection will show the great anomaly presented by the scale
on which the consecutive processes of iron-making are at present carried on. The little furnaces
originally used for smelting have assumed colossal proportions, and are made to operate on
200 or 300 tons of materials at a time, giving out 10 tons of fluid metal at a single run. The
manufacturer has thus gone on increasing the size of his smelting furnaces, and adapting to their
use the blast apparatus of the requisite proportions, and has by this means lessened the cost
of production in every way ; his large furnaces require a great deal less labour to produce a given
weight of iron than would have been required to produce it with a dozen furnaces ; and in like
manner he diminishes his cost of fuel, blast, and repairs, while he insures a uniformity in the
result that never could have been arrived at by the use of a multiplicity of small furnaces.
THE CHELTENHAM PAPER, 1856 161
While the manufacturer has shown himself fully alive to these advantages, he has still been
under the necessity of leaving the succeeding operations to be carried out on a scale wholly at
variance Avith the principles he has found so advantageous in the smelting department. It is
true that hitherto no better method was known than the puddling process, in which from
400 Ib. to 500 Ib. of iron is all that can be operated upon at a time ; and even this small
quantity is divided into homoeopathic doses of some 70 Ib. or 80 Ib., each of which is moulded
and fashioned by human labour, carefully watched and tended in the furnaces, and removed
therefrom one at a time to be carefully manipulated and squeezed into form. When we consider
the vast extent of the manufacture and the gigantic scale on which the early stages of the
process is conducted, it is astonishing that no effort should have been made to raise the after-
processes somewhat nearer to a level commensurate with the preceding ones, and thus rescue the
trade from the trammels which have so long surrounded it.
Before concluding these remarks, I beg to call your attention to an important fact connected
with the new process, which affords peculiar facilities for the manufacture of cast steel. At that
stage of the process immediately following the boil, the whole of the crude iron has passed into
the condition of cast steel of ordinary quality ; by the continuation of the process the steel
so produced gradually loses its small remaining portion of carbon, and passes successively from
hard to soft steel, and from soft steel to steely iron, and eventually to very soft iron ; hence,
at a certain period of the process, any quality of metal may be obtained. There is one in
particular, which, by way of distinction, I call semi-steel, being in hardness about midway
between ordinary cast steel and soft malleable iron. This metal possesses the advantage of much
greater tensile strength than soft iron. It is also more elastic, and does not readily take
a permanent set ; while it is much harder, and is not worn or indented so easily as soft iron, at
the same time it is not so brittle or hard to work as ordinary cast steel. These qualities render
it eminently well adapted to purposes where lightness and strength are specially required,
or where there is much wear, as in the case of railway bars, which, from their softness and
lamellar texture, soon become destroyed. The cost of semi-steel will be a fraction less than iron,
because the loss of metal that takes place by oxidation in the converting vessel is about 2| per
cent, less than it is with iron ; but, as it is a little more difficult to roll, its cost per ton may fairly
be considered to be the same as iron. But, as its tensile strength is some 30 or 40 per cent, greater
than bar iron, it follows that for most purposes a much less weight of metal may be used, so that,
taken in that way, the semi-steel will form a much cheaper metal than any with which we are
at present acquainted.
In conclusion, allow me to observe that the facts which I have had the honour to bring
before the meeting have not been elicited from mere laboratory experiments, but have been the
result of working on a scale nearly twice as great as is pursued in our largest iron works : the
experimental apparatus doing 7 cwt. in thirty minutes, while the ordinary puddling furnace
makes only 4| cwt. in two hours, which is made into six separate balls, while the ingots or
blooms are smooth, even prisms 10 in. square by 30 in. in length, weighing about equal to ten
ordinary puddle-balls.
During the reading of the paper, I made a chalk sketch of the
converter on the blackboard, and answered several questions put by
162 HENRY BESSEMER
members present ; at its conclusion, an enthusiastic vote of thanks was
accorded me.
On the table in front of the raised platform I had exhibited a few
samples hastily got together for the occasion ; one of them was a flat
iron bar, about 3j in. wide by f in. in thickness, which had been rolled
direct from a cast ingot at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, then under
the superintendence of Colonel Eardley Wilmot. Another, but smaller,
bar of iron had been rolled, cut up and piled, and again rolled into a long
bar of small section. One of the ends cut off from this bar, showing
the overlapping of some parts of the pile, has fortunately been preserved,
and is now in the glass-case of old specimens which I presented some
years ago to the Iron and Steel Institute. I also exhibited a large mass
of fractured decarburised iron of silvery whiteness, and some broken
ingots of malleable iron, etc.
The first person to rise after the reading of the paper was the
late Mr. James Nasmyth, who occupied a seat near me on the platform.
He held up between his thumb and finger a small fragment of wholly
decarburised iron, and enthusiastically exclaimed, " Gentlemen, this is
a true British nugget." Then in glowing terms he referred to the
novelty of the process, the rapid conversion into malleable iron of the
molten iron as it came direct from the blast furnace, the power the
process afforded of dealing with immense masses, the absence of all
skilled labour, and the non - employment of fuel. All this, he said,
pointed to results so vast and so commercially important, that it was
impossible to grasp the full effect it must have both on the iron and
engineering interests of this and of every other country. This paper
had come upon him quite unexpectedly, and the true instinct of the
engineer and man of science rose above all other considerations. He
forgot how his own personal interests might be affected by it, and in his
enthusiasm he said : "I am not going in any way to claim priority
of thought or action, but I cannot forget that a few years ago I patented,
in the puddling process, the use of steam, which was blown through
the bar or 'rabble' with which the puddling operations are carried on.
This might be called a first step on the same road ; but Mr. Bessemer
has gone miles beyond it, and I do not hesitate to say that I may go home
THE CHELTENHAM PAPER, 1856. 163
from this meeting and tear up my now useless patent." Mr. Nasmyth
resumed his seat amid a storm of cheers. Surely all who heard that
noble speech, however much they might have honoured Mr. Nasmyth
as an improver of the puddling process, must have honoured him infinitely
more for thus throwing over his own production, and fearlessly advocating
an invention that so utterly destroyed the value of his own.
I must not forget to mention that Mr. Budd — who may be well
excused for the feeling of ridicule inspired by the extraordinary title
of my paper — was the next to rise at the meeting. He said he had
listened with deep interest to the important details of this invention,
and if Mr. Bessemer desired an opportunity of commercially testing
it, he should be most happy to afford him every possible facility. His
ironworks were entirely at Mr. Bessemer's disposal, and if he liked
to avail himself of this offer, it should not cost him a penny. This
generous proposal made ample amends for the little joke at the breakfast-
table, and was received with hearty cheers ; after some further discussion,
and the reading of some other papers, the meeting broke up. As I was
about to leave, The Times reporter was introduced to me, and he told
me that he had not paid sufficient attention to t^e first part of my paper,
as the ironmasters present seemed to treat it rather as a good joke than
as a reality, and, taking his cue from them, he iiad not made so full
a report as he desired. But the enthusiastic way in which the latter
part of my paper was received on all sides, made him desirous of giving
a much fuller report than he had done. He further said : " If you
will be kind enough to lend me your paper, I will promise you that
every word of it shall appear in The Times to-morrow." I was much
pleased with his proposal, and at once handed him my paper, which
duly appeared in extenso on the following morning as promised, and
from The Times report of August 14th, 1856, the copy just given is
reproduced. It is impossible to gauge with any degree of accuracy
the effect, social or political, of the hundreds of articles that, from time
to time, have appeared in that influential and widely-circulated journal,
but when we view the publication of this particular paper from a national
point of view, it simply defies any estimate of the magnitude of the
interests involved.
164 HENRY BESSEMER
And yet this high appreciation of my invention by Mr. George
Rennie, and the announcement of it to the whole world through the
columns of The Times, was like a two-edged sword ; for, while on the
one hand it was the direct cause of bringing to my aid the sinews of war,
and assisted me in fighting the great battle of vested interests arrayed
against me, on the other hand it had a fearful disadvantage, which
might have wrecked all. In listening to the kind words of Mr. George
Rennie, I too readily allowed myself to bring my invention under public
notice. I should not have done so until all the details of the process
had been worked out, and I had made it a great commercial (and not
merely a scientific) fact. My premature disclosure brought down upon
me a wild pack of hungry wolves, fighting with me, and with each other,
for a share of what was to be made by this new discovery. To these
eager adventurers, the conversion of five tons of crude molten iron into
cast steel, in a few minutes, was the realisation of the fabled philoso-
pher's stone, that transmuted lead into gold. It was not a question
with these people of improving my process, but of an endeavour to
imitate it, or to do something similar by some dodge or other that
was not covered by my patent. If they could \ simply surround me
and hem me in with possible or impossible claims, I must surely, they
thought, pay them to get out of my way. The agent of one of these
so-called inventors told me to my face that he had a little bit of land
in the middle of my road, and that there was not room for me to pass
on either side, and that I dared not run over him. Many examples
might be adduced of the wild schemes propounded in this mad race
to appropriate the principle of my invention. One inventor, instead
of forcing air upward through the metal, proposed to suck it out of the
vessel by directly pumping out the fire and showers of sparks, instead
of driving clean, cold, atmospheric air into it, as I had claimed in my
patent. Another would force down air upon the surface with such
great pressure as to penetrate the metal from the top instead of letting
the air pass naturally upwards. Another would allow the molten iron
to flow down steps, and blow on it as it fell from step to step. Another
claimed to spread the metal in a thin sheet and blow on to it, but not
into it, as I did. Another so-called inventor proposed to let the molten
IMITATIONS OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS 165
iron fall down a deep well in the form of a shower, and collect it at the
bottom as malleable iron, not thinking that his process would simply
make iron shot. Another claimed the exclusive use in my process of that
kind of pig iron that had been most commonly used in Styria for the
last hundred years for making steel, the ore of which was known as
" stahl stein," or steel ore ; nor was I to use manganese either as a metal,
an oxide, or a carburet, although that metal was in daily use in all the
hundreds of steel pots in Sheffield.
I had used the word " pig-iron " from which, after various processes,
all iron and steel then in use was made ; had I used the more scientific
term, " carbonate of iron," instead of the accepted trade term, " pig " or
crude iron from the blast furnace, I should have been safe from one scheme
intended to circumvent me by a play on words. According to this plan,
malleable scrap iron was put into a tall cupola furnace, and during its
descent absorbed so much carbon as to issue therefrom as a white cast-
iron. It was claimed that this was not pig-iron or crude molten iron,
as mentioned in my patent, as it was assumed that white iron so made,
with two per cent, of carbon, might be blown into steel by my process
without my being able to prevent it. These, and all other discreditable
attempts to make use of a colourable imitation of my patent, utterly
and ignominiously failed.
Within a few days of the publication of my Cheltenham paper,
many eminent engineers and ironmasters from various parts of the
kingdom did me the honour to come up to London, and see the process
carried out at my bronze factory at St. Pancras. Many and strange
were the opinions expressed on these occasions, and many questions
were asked as to the terms on which I proposed to allow the trade to
use the process. At that time the steel manufacturer took no interest
in the question, and it was left to the ironmaster to secure the huge
advantage of the new discovery. I and my partner, Mr. Longsdon,
had thought the subject well over, and we came to the conclusion that
it would be wise not to have the whole trade opposed to us, but
to give a special interest to one ironmaster in each district, so that his
working would prove an example to other iron works, and his special
interest would induce him at any future time to help to support my
166 HENRY BESSEMER
patents, and not join in an adverse movement of the trade. But, at
first sight, it did not appear easy to do this without parting with a
share of the patents, and thus depriving ourselves of the absolute control
of them. At last we fixed a royalty of ten shillings per ton for making
malleable or wrought iron. To the first applicant for a licence in each
district, we would give a great and permanent advantage over all others,
and allow him to take a license to make a given number of tons per
annum at a royalty of one farthing per ton during the whole term of
the patents, he purchasing this right by paying at once a ten shilling
royalty on the annual quantity agreed upon. He would then have a strong
interest in the maintenance of the patents, and we should have the
advantage of cash in hand with which to fight our battles, if attacked.
These terms having been definitely fixed, were communicated to the
trade, and we continued to show the process to all who wished to see it.
On August 27th — fourteen days after the publication of my
Cheltenham paper in The Times — we were visited in the afternoon
by Mr. H. A. Bruce (afterwards Lord Aberdare) and Mr. George
Clark, trustees of the great Dowlais Iron Works. We said that we
were sorry that the experiments were over for the day, but we should
be happy to show them on the morrow. " Oh," said these gentlemen,
" We do not care about seeing the process, for our chemist (Mr. E.
Riley), on reading your paper in The Times, extemporised a converting
furnace in one of the sheds, had the blast conveyed from our blast-
furnace engines, and tried the experiment ; the object of our visit is
to treat for a license. We want to make 70,000 tons of malleable
iron per annum." They were a good deal disconcerted on hearing our
terms, and after much discussion it was arranged that we should dine
with them that evening at the Tavistock Hotel, and further talk the
matter over. This discussion resulted in their agreement to pay us
£10,000 for a license under which they should be at liberty to make
20,000 tons of malleable iron per annum, at a royalty of one farthing
per ton, during the whole duration of the patent. A memorandum to
this effect was drawn up and signed as soon as dinner was over ;
and, when all was thus settled to our mutual satisfaction, our
first licensees returned to Dowlais. It was exceedingly satisfactory
THE INTRODUCTION OP THE BESSEMER PROCESS 167
to us that these gentlemen should have spontaneously made their own
experiments in private, and satisfied themselves of the practicability
of the process by the aid of their own chemist and workmen ;
and, on the strength of the results so obtained, should have come
up in haste to London to secure a license for their works, lest the
right should pass into other hands. This circumstance gave us great
assurance of the practicability of the invention which, everyone knew,
had at that time never been commercially carried out at any iron
works. Hence the purchase of a licence to work the new process was
simply a mercantile speculation in which the purchaser, who paid £10,000
down, stood to save, during twelve years, £120,000, less £125 paid in
farthings. The inventor, on the other hand, had the advantage of
ready cash to cover the risks he himself had run in expending two years
of labour, in bearing the costs of constructing apparatus, taking out
patents, and making expensive experiments at a time when the whole
scheme was purely ideal, and the risks were much larger to him than
they were to those who now speculated on his success.
This sale of licenses for the whole term of the patents made the
licensees firm supporters of the patents, while the advantage given to
one manufacturer in each of the great iron districts was not calculated
to injure the trade, as the owner of the privilege would put the extra
profits in his pocket, instead of throwing away his advantage by under-
selling his neighbours. For instance, the Dowlais Iron Company were
making 70,000 tons of rolled iron annually, and would have to pay a
full royalty on 50,000 tons, thus reducing their advantage to less
than three shillings per ton on their annual production of iron, a sum
too small to permit of their underselling the rest of the trade. This
was, then, the scheme by which I proposed to force my invention into
commercial use, in face of the gigantic vested interests arrayed against it.
Soon after the departure of the Dowlais licensees, two gentlemen
from Scotland had a close run as to who should arrive first, and so
claim the advantage of being the pioneer for Scotland. This claim
was eventually settled in favour of Mr. Smith Dixon, of the Govan Iron
Works, Glasgow, who paid £10,000 for a license to make 20,000 tons
of iron annually at a royalty of one farthing per ton. This was followed
168 HENRY BESSEMER
by a license to the Butterley Iron Company, in Derbyshire, to make
10,000 tons annually on the same terms. A license was also granted to
make 4000 tons annually to a tin-plate manufacturer in Wales, at one
farthing per ton, on payment of one year's royalty of £2000, thus
making sales of royalties to the amount of £27,000 in less than one
month from the announcement of my invention in The Times. Up
to this period, and long after it, the only persons interested were the
ironmasters, the question not making the smallest impression in the
steel trade. Sheffield wrapped itself in absolute security, and believed
that it could afford to laugh at the absurd notion of making five
tons of cast steel from pig-iron in twenty or thirty minutes, when
by its own system fourteen or fifteen days and nights were required
to obtain a 40-lb. or 50-lb. crucible of cast steel from pig-iron. So
the Yorkshire town was allowed to stand aside while the more enter-
prising ironmaster gave the invention a trial, as far as bar -iron making
was concerned. At this period the ironmaster would never have
dreamed of changing his trade to that of a cast-steel manufacturer,
had such a thing been proposed to him.
Among the many persons who called on me from time to time,
and made proposals for a license, none was so energetic and thorough-
going as Mr. Thos. Brown, of the Ebbw Vale Ironworks. He brought
with him an eminent consulting engineer, Mr. Charles May, and with a
good deal of quiet tact, beat about the bush, trying to gauge my ideas
on the value of my patents. He expatiated on the advantages of turning
an invention to immediate account, and being not only well paid, but
much overpaid, for all costs and labour expended in perfecting the
invention, which, when purchased for cash, might be upset in law without
any loss to the inventor, who had been wise enough to realise when
he had the opportunity. This was the whole gist and meaning of a rather
long introductory speech, and I distinctly remember the reply which
I made at the time, and which I have often since repeated. I said :
" Mr. Brown, the expense and labour that I may have had over this
invention is no measure of its value. If you and I were walking arm-
in-arm along the street, and I saw something glittering in the gutter,
and if the mere fact of my being the first to discover it gave me a legal
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS 169
claim to its possession, and all the labour and trouble taken by me were
simply to lift it out of the gutter with my thumb and finger, and if this
little glittering thing on examination turned out to be the Koh-i-noor,
then the Koh-i-noor being legally my personal property, I should want
a million sterling for it, if that happened to be its ascertained commercial
value, notwithstanding the fact of its having come so easily into my
possession." I thus quietly gave Mr. Brown to understand that I was
in no hurry to sell my birthright for a mess of pottage. Mr. Brown
then adopted another method, and attempted to dazzle me at once,
so as not to spoil the effect of a grand offer by letting it slide out piece-
meal. " Well," he said, " the real object of my visit is to make you
an offer to purchase all your patent rights in Great Britain for your
iron and steel inventions ; and I will tell you at once how far I am prepared
to go, and I can go no farther. I am prepared to give you £50,000 cash
for them." I said : " Mr. Brown, I cannot but feel that this is a very
handsome offer indeed, for an invention that has not yet passed from
the scientific to the commercial stage, and it is conclusive evidence of the
high appreciation of its value by a practical ironmaster, and manager
of a great Welsh iron-works. But, Sir, if my invention successfully passes
from the scientific to the commercial stage, as I doubt not it will do,
it must inevitably revolutionise the iron industry of the whole world ;
and even the very handsome sum you offer is not a tithe of its actual
value. No, Sir, I cannot accept your very liberal offer ; it is a large
sum to risk, and whatever risk there is, it is I who should run it. I have
had dozens of proofs — none of which you have seen — proofs that make
me certain of the ultimate result, and I am content to see the
invention through all its trials and vicissitudes, and stand or fall
by the result."
Mr. Brown was evidently taken aback by my steady refusal to accept
a sum which he no doubt felt, and very reasonably so, would certainly
tempt me. Indeed, I presume he brought Mr. Charles May simply
to witness the bargain he felt sure of making, the written terms of which
were most probably in his coat pocket. Intense disappointment and
anger quite got the better of him, and for the moment he could not
realise the fact of my refusal ; he hesitated, muttered something inaudible,
170 HENRY BESSEMER
took up his hat, and left me very abruptly, saying in an irritated tone,
as he passed out of the room, " I'll make you see the matter differently
yet !" and slammed the door after him. We shall see, in a future Chapter,
what were the steps taken by Mr. Brown to attain this end, and how
far he succeeded.
In the meantime, small, upright, fixed converting vessels had been
erected at the iron works of Messrs. Galloway at Manchester, at Dowlais
in Wales, at Butterley in Derbyshire, and also at the Govan Iron Works
at Glasgow, and in each case the results of the trials were most
disastrous. The ordinary pig iron used for bar-iron making was found to
contain so much phosphorus as to render it wholly unfit for making iron
by my process. This startling fact came on me suddenly, like a bolt from
the blue ; its effect was absolutely overwhelming. The transition from
what appeared to be a crowning success to one of utter failure well-
nigh paralysed all my energies. Day by day fresh reports of failures
arrived ; the cry was taken up in the press ; every paper had its letters
from correspondents, and its leaders, denouncing the whole scheme as
the dream of a wild enthusiast, such as no sensible man could for a moment
have entertained. I well remember one paper, after rating me in pretty
strong terms, spoke of my invention as " a brilliant meteor that had flitted
across the metallurgical horizon for a short space, only to die out in a train
of sparks, and then vanish into total darkness."
I was present at some of these trials, and saw the utter failure that
resulted with the quality of metal operated upon. It is a curious, and
scarcely credible, fact that not one of the ironmasters who had previously
felt such abundant confidence in the success of the process as to back
their opinions with large sums of money, took any trouble whatever,
or offered any practical or scientific help, towards getting over this
unlooked-for difficulty. They all stood by, mere passive and inert observers
of the fact, not one of them lifting up a finger, or stretching out a
hand, to save the wreck. For my own part, stunned as I was for the
moment by the first blow, I never lost faith, or gave up the belief that
all would yet be well. I had too deep an insight into the principle
on which the whole theory was based to doubt of its correctness. By the
mere accident of living in London, I had access only to the pig iron used
THE INTRODUCTION OF THE BESSEMER PROCESS 171
by London ironfounders. I had sent to a founder who had occasionally
made me iron castings, and requested him to send me a few tons of pig iron
for experiments. He sent me the grey Blaenavon iron which he was then
using in his business, and I accepted it simply as pig iron, without ever
suspecting that pig iron from other sources was so different, and would
give such contrary results.
There was also another most important factor which accounted for
rny partial success in those early days, and which was unobserved
and unknown until a much later period, viz., in all these early experi-
ments in London, I lined the converter with clay or firebrick, and not
with a silicious material such as ganister or sand. When the small
converting vessels were erected for trial by my licensees, they were
lined with silicious materials which prevented the elimination of any
phosphorus from the iron, as was demonstrated later by Thomas and
Gilchrist's well-known dephosphorising process. It was, however, no use
for me to argue the matter in the Press ; all that I could say would
be mere talk, and I felt that action was necessary, and not words. I
therefore determined to justify myself by the only possible means left
to me. After a full and deliberate consideration of the whole case, I
resolved to continue my researches until I had made my process a
commercial, as well as a scientific, success. I was in possession of a
large sum of money, which those ironmasters who believed in my
invention had deliberately invested in the speculation, acting just as I
myself had done, when I had gone to great expense in carrying out
my experiments in hope of reaping a large profit. But I was not content
to balance matters thus, and cry " quits." At the same time there were
duties which I owed to myself and my family. I had spent two years of
valuable professional time, much hard labour, and a great deal of money,
over this invention, and a proportion of the proceeds belonged, in all
fairness, to my family. Having thought thoroughly over the risks and
the powerful opposition I had to fight against, I came to the conclusion
that it was my duty to settle the sum of £10,000 on my wife under
trustees, so that I could not be absolutely ruined in the further pursuit
of my invention, or by litigation in the defence of my patent rights.
After this investment I had still left £12,000 to spend in perfecting
172 HENRY BESSEMER
my process, if found necessary. My partner, Mr. Longsdon, who had
implicit faith in me, intimated his resolve to go heart and soul with
me in bearing his share of the cost. Although not strictly in the
chronological order of events, it may here be briefly stated that these
licenses to make malleable iron by my process, for which £27,000 had
been paid, and which turned out unfortunately to be of no commercial
value, in consequence of being superseded by my steel process, were
nevertheless re-purchased by Messrs. Bessemer and Longsdon for the
sum of £32,500, or £5500 more than they were sold for to those
gentlemen who had ventured to speculate on the success of my
invention.
At this period it became essential for me to know exactly what
were the constituents of pig iron in all its commercial varieties, and what
were the precise proportions in which these substances usually existed.
In order to gain this all-important knowledge, we engaged the services
of Dr. Henry, a well known professor of chemistry, to make complete
and careful analyses of the iron and other materials used in all our
future experiments, as well as of the results obtained in the converter.
The very numerous investigations of this gentleman were supplemented
by the able assistance of Mr. Edward Riley and Dr. Percy, and much
information was also gathered from the publications and previous
researches of Mr. Robert Hunt, of the Record Office of the School
of Mines.
In this way, continued investigations, accompanied by experimental
trials in the converter, were always adding to our store of facts, but
unfortunately they seemed to bring us scarcely a step nearer to the
end we had in view. British pig-iron abounded with this fatal enemy,
phosphorus, and I could not dislodge it. Apparatus was put up for the
production of pure hydrogen gas, which was passed through the metal ;
as also were carbonic oxide, carburetted hydrogen, etc. Metallic oxides
and alkaline salts, and many other fluxes, were tried with little or no
beneficial results, and the metal was treated in various other ways. It
is needless to follow the continuous string of heartbreaking failures and
disappointments, which were very costly and very laborious. Eventually,
I began to feel that the problem must be attacked from an entirely new
EARLY DIFFICULTIES WITH THE BESSEMER PROCESS 173
position, viz., the production of pig-iron without phosphorus, a subject
which I now took in hand. In the meantime I became very anxious to
know how far my converting process would be successful if we succeeded
in making, or obtaining, some pig-iron that was wholly or practically
free from phosphorus and sulphur ; and I determined to set this one vital
question at rest for ever by obtaining from Sweden some pure charcoal
pig-irons from which such excellent steel was made in Sheffield.
The very large scale on which my experimental trials were at this
time carried out involved a considerable outlay in various ways, but
there was no slackening of exertion, no cessation of the severe mental
and bodily labour. A long and weary year was consumed in experi-
ments, and but little real progress was made towards the removal of
the difficulty ; many new paths were struck out, but they led to no
practical results. Several weeks were sometimes necessary to make
and fit up the apparatus required to test a new theory, and it too
often happened that the first hour's trial of the new scheme dashed
all the high expectations that had been formed, and we had again to
retrace our steps. Thus, week after week went on amid a constant
succession of newly-formed hopes and crushing defeats, varied with
occasional evidences of improvement. I, however, worked steadily on.
Six months more of anxious toil glided away, and things were
in very much the same state, except that many thousands of pounds
had been uselessly expended, and I was much worn by hard work and
mental anxiety. The large fortune that had seemed almost within my
grasp was now far off; my name as an engineer and inventor had
suffered much by the defeat of my plans. Those who had most feared
the change with which my invention had threatened their long- vested
interests felt perfectly reassured, and could now safely sneer at my
unavailing efforts ; and, what was far worse, my best friends tried, first
by gentle hints, and then by stronger arguments, to make me desist
from a pursuit that all the world had proclaimed to be utterly futile.
It was, indeed, a hard struggle ; I had well-nigh learned to distrust
myself, and was fain at times to surrender my own convictions to the
mere opinion of others. Those most near and dear to me grieved over
my obstinate persistence. But what could I do? I had had the most
174 HENRY BESSEMER
irrefragable evidence of the absolute truth and soundness of the principle
upon which my invention was based, and with this knowledge I could
not persuade myself to fling away the promise of fame and wealth and
lose entirely the results of years of labour and mental anxiety, and at
the same time time confess myself beaten and defeated. Happily for
me, the end was nigh.
The pure pig-iron, which I had ordered from Sweden, arrived
at last, and no time was lost in converting it into pure, soft,
malleable iron, and also into steel of various degrees of hardness. It
was thus incontestably proved that with non - phosphoric pig-iron my
converting process was a perfect success ; and that with pig-iron that
had cost me only £7 per ton, delivered in London, we could, and did,
produce cast steel commercially worth £50 to £60 per ton, by simply
forcing atmospheric air through it for the space of fifteen to twenty
minutes, wholly without the use of manganese or spiegeleisen.
Thus was the so-called fallacious dream of the enthusiast realised
to its fullest extent, and it was now my turn to triumph over those
who had so confidently predicted my failure. I could see in my
mind's eye the great iron industry of the world crumbling away
under the irresistible force of the facts so recently elicited. In that one
result the sentence had gone forth, and not all the knowledge accumulated
during the last one hundred and fifty years by the thousands whose
ingenuity and skill had helped to build up the mighty fabric of the
British iron trade — no, nor the millions that had been invested in
carrying out the existing system of manufacture — could reverse that one
great fact, or stop the current that was destined to sweep away the
old system of manufacturing wrought iron, and to establish homogeneous
steel as the material to be in future employed in the construction of
our ships and our guns, our viaducts and our bridges, our railroads
and our locomotive engines, and the thousand-and-one things for which
iron had hitherto been employed.
And yet, with all this newly-developed power, I was paralysed for
the moment in the face of the stolid incredulity of all practical iron and
steel manufacturers — an incredulity which stood like the wall of a
fortress, barring my way to the fruits of the victory I had already won.
THE INTRODUCTION OF BESSEMER STEEL 175
I announced the fact of my complete success to the world, and held in
my hands the most undeniable proofs of the truth of my assertion, but
no one would now believe it. They remembered, but too well, the great
expectations that were excited two years previously by the first announce-
ment of my invention at Cheltenham, and were not again to be
disturbed by the cry of "Wolf!" Thus it happened that, after the
hard battle I had fought for so many years, I found myself as far as
ever from the fruits of my labour, for not a single ironmaster or steel
manufacturer in Great Britain could be induced to adopt the process.
Anxious to possess still further practical proofs of the value of my
invention, I made, at my experimental works at St. Pancras, a few
hundredweights of steel ingots of all the special qualities required in
an engineer's workshop. This steel we took to Sheffield, where it was
tilted, by an experienced steel-maker, into bars of precisely the same
external appearance as the ordinary steel of commerce. Either I, or
my partner, Mr. Longsdon, was present the whole time occupied in
the operation, and as each bar was finished we stamped it, while still
hot, with a special punch which we kept in our pockets for the purpose,
thus rendering the accidental or intentional change of a bar impossible.
These bars we took to the works of my friends, Messrs. Galloway,
the well-known engineers, of Manchester, where they were given out
to the workmen and employed by them for all the purposes for which
steel had previously been used in their extensive business. So identical
in all essential qualities was this steel with that usually employed that,
during two months' trial of it, the workmen had not the slightest idea
or suspicion that they were using steel made by a new process. They
were accustomed to use steel of the best quality, costing £60 per ton,
and they had no doubt whatever that they were still doing so.
None of the large steel manufacturers at Sheffield would adopt
my process, even under the very favourable conditions which I offered
as regards licenses, viz., £2 per ton. Each one required an absolute
monopoly of my invention if he touched it at all. This I fully made up
my mind to resist, by adopting the only means open to me — namely,
the establishment of a steel works of my own in the midst of the
great steel industry of Sheffield. My purpose was not to work my
176 HENRY BESSEMER
process as a monopoly, but simply to force the trade to adopt it by
underselling them in their own market, which the extremely low cost of
production would enable me to do, while still retaining a very high
rate of profit on all that was produced. My partner, Mr. Longsdon,
and my brother-in-law, Mr. William Allen, to whom I mentioned this
project, were quite willing to join me in it as a purely manufacturing
speculation, apart from any interest in my patents, which, however, the
firm were allowed to use free of royalty, in consideration of their
permitting the works to be inspected and the process fully explained to
all intending licensees.
It will be remembered that Messrs. Galloway, of Manchester, were
the first persons who took a license to manufacture malleable iron by
my converting process, having purchased the sole right to manufacture
it in Manchester and ten miles round, prior to the reading of my paper
at Cheltenham. One of the original upright fixed converters had been
erected at their engineering works, and having, like all the rest, failed
to produce satisfactory results with ordinary phosphoric pig-iron, it had
been at once abandoned. But when the proofs of our success in steel
making, two years later, were afforded to Messrs. Galloway by the actual
use in their own workshop of steel tools of all sorts made by us in
London, it was mutually agreed that they should rescind their original
license for Manchester and join us as equal partners in the Sheffield
works, which I and Mr. Longsdon had determined to erect, with
Mr. William Allen as the resident managing partner.
Mr. Longsdon, with his intimate knowledge of architecture, soon
designed our model works — a neat white brick range of buildings with
sandstone dressings, and a tall chimney as the usual landmark. Thus
were established the first Bessemer Steel Works, and in less than twelve
months from its commencement, we had built a dozen melting furnaces
and erected the steam and tilt hammers, blast furnaces, and converting
apparatus, suitable for carrying on the new manufacture. This we com-
menced by bringing steel" into the market at £10 to £15 per ton below the
quotations of other manufacturers. In thus opposing the old-established
steel trade in its very midst, we ran the risk of " rattening," or a bottle
of gunpowder in the furnace flues, by which the workmen of Sheffield
THE BESSEMER PROCESS 177
had earned for themselves an unenviable notoriety, and we had reason
to consider ourselves fortunate that we escaped. We were doubtless
indebted for this immunity to the entire and absolute disbelief, both
of masters and men, in our power to compete with them. It was
this obstinate refusal to see and judge for themselves which lost the
manufacturers of Sheffield their great monopoly of the steel trade ; for,
although the steel makers refused to see, it was abundantly clear to
the ironmasters that profits could be realised by working the new
process ; hence it was speedily adopted in all the great iron districts
of the country.
Some idea may be formed of the importance of the manufacture, and
of how much the people of Sheffield lost by their prejudice and incredulity,
when I state the simple fact that, on the expiration of the fourteen
years' term of partnership of our Sheffield firm, the works, which had
been greatly increased from time to time, entirely out of revenue, were
sold by private contract for exactly twenty-four times the amount of the
whole subscribed capital of the firm, notwithstanding that we had divided
in profits during the partnership a sum equal to fifty-seven times the gross
capital. So that, by the mere commercial working of the process, apart
from the patent, each of the five partners retired from the Sheffield works
after fourteen years, having made eighty-one times the amount of his
subscribed capital, or an average of nearly cent, per cent, every two
months — a result probably unprecedentad in the annals of commerce.
Remembering the keen interest which the Emperor of the French
had taken in my early experiments with rifled projectiles, I naturally made
him acquainted with the success I had achieved ; while, at the same time,
I also kept our own Government fully informed. At that period the
Foundry and Ordnance Department at Woolwich was ably presided over
by Colonel Eardley Wilmot, R.A., who had taken the deepest interest
in the progress of my invention from its earliest date.
A A
CHAPTER XIII
BESSEMER STEEL AND COLONEL EARDLEY WILMOT
TnvURING the time that the works at Sheffield were being erected,
I was very busy endeavouring to discover all the non-
phosphoric iron ores in this country, and, after many analyses, the
chief were found to be the hematites of Lancashire and Cumberland,
and the Forest of Dean, and some spathose ores at Weardale and at
Dartmoor. The hematite pig irons were, however, fatally contaminated
with phosphorus, although some of these rich ores were absolutely free
from this deleterious element. I found, on repeated analyses, that the
mines of the Workington Iron Company yielded a very pure ore, but
that their pig-iron contained much phosphorus. Here, at least, I had
a field to work upon ; and I wrote to the Secretary of the Company,
asking him to name a day when I could go down and meet the Directors.
An early date was fixed, and, at our interview I told the Directors that
I, and many others, would become large buyers if they could make a
pig-iron as free from phosphorus as the hematite ore was before smelting.
I further said, that if they had no secrets, and would show me everything
they were doing, I did not despair of finding out the source of con-
tamination, and of pointing out a way of producing pure pig-iron that
would command a ready sale wherever my process was carried on. The
Board expressed their willingness to afford me every facility, and sent
for their furnace-manager, who was instructed to take me over the works,
answer all my questions, and furnish me with samples for analysis of all
the raw materials they employed. I went round with him, and collected
small samples for analysis of the coke obtained from different sources,
the limestones from all the pits they worked, and samples of the hard
and soft hematite ore from each of their different mines. The limestones
contained but few shells, and I was quite at a loss to imagine where
the phosphorus came from. As we were returning to the offices near
BESSEMER PIG 179
one of the railway sidings, we came upon a large heap of slags and cinder.
"What is that?" I asked the manager. " Oh, that is what we flux the
furnace with," he said. "Yes, but what is it?" "It is a furnace slag,
rich in iron," he replied. " We send into Staffordshire lots of our fine ore
for fettling the puddling furnaces, and after they have done with it they
send it back to us ; in fact, we could not get a fluid cinder in our blast
furnaces without it." " All right !" I said, " the cat is out of the bag now,
and the mystery is all over." And so I found that the Staffordshire iron-
master, after purifying his phosphoric iron in the puddling furnace, and
transferring its impurities to the hematite ore, sent the ore back again
to Cumberland, and succeeded in spoiling the purest iron ore which this
country possessed.
I was in high spirits at this discovery, for I now felt certain that
we should soon have thousands of tons of British iron suitable for the
production of steel by my process.
Before leaving the works, I arranged to take all these samples
of raw material to London, and get my own chemist to make a careful
analysis. Then, choosing the fittest materials in each case, furnace charges
could be formulated by our chemist, Professor Henry, of course omitting
the phosphoric slag, and substituting for it the dark shale of the coal
measures, so as to give a sufficiently fluid cinder. These theoretical furnace
charges were afterwards sent to the Workington Company, with the
following offer on our part, viz., the company were to use these charges
for at least twelve hours after they believed that all the old materials
had passed out of the blast furnace, so as to be quite sure that the
old impure matters had been entirely got rid of, and then they were
to run me 100 tons of this new pig-iron, which I undertook to purchase,
whatever its quality might be. They were instructed to make a large
letter B on the mould pattern used for casting, so as to distinguish this
pig from all others. This plan of marking was duly carried out, and
I got my 100 tons of " Bessemer Pig," the first that ever was made.
This brand of iron is, up to the present day, quoted in all price lists,
and in all the iron markets of the world, and has placed at our disposal
millions of tons of high-class iron, such as had never before been
produced in this country.
180 HENRY BESSEMER
The new steel works of Henry Bessemer and Company, at Sheffield,
had been erected some months, and the first converter mounted on axes
was put to work in 1858. At first our attention was chiefly directed
to the manufacture of high-class tool steel, for which our quotation was
£42 per ton, as against £50 or £60 by other makers. All this tool steel
was made from Swedish charcoal pig-iron, costing only about £3 per ton
more than English brands. The excellence of the steel so made is best
proved by the fact that during the two years that this branch of the
steel trade was carried on by us at Sheffield, we supplied such firms
as Sir Joseph Whitworth, Messrs. Beyer, Peacock and Company, Messrs.
Sharp, Stewart and Company, Sir William Fairbairn and Company,
Messrs. Hicks, of Bolton, Messrs. Platt Bros., of Oldham, etc. A
moment's consideration will show that such firms as those mentioned
would never have continued to use this steel if it had been in the slightest
degree inferior to the best steel made by the old process. By way
of commercial proof, let us suppose that our price was £14 per ton
below that of the trade. This would save precisely five farthings on
the cost of a tool weighing 1 Ib. Now if such a tool during its
whole life occupied a workman (whose wages were sevenpence an hour)
only twelve minutes more in extra sharpening on the grindstone, the
advantage of £14 per ton would have been wholly lost. Is it, I would
ask, probable that the eminent engineering firms quoted would have
continued to use this Bessemer tool steel if the smallest shade of inferiority
had manifested itself? Our tool steel was also used at the Arsenal,
Woolwich, at the time when Colonel Eardley Wilmot, R.A., was Super-
intendent of the Royal Gun Factories, prior to the advent of Sir
William Armstrong, and in confirmation of this fact I may quote the
following passage from the Proceedings of the Institution of Civil
Engineers, according to which, on May 24th, 1859, Colonel Wilmot,
in the course of a speech in reference to Bessemer Iron and Steel,
said : —
As regards the steel, he had been using it for turning the outsides of heavy guns
cutting off large shavings several inches in length, and he has found none other superior to it,
although much more costly.
Indeed, Colonel Wilmot exhibited to the meeting a box full of exceptionally
BESSEMER STEEL WORKS AT SHEFFIELD 181
large and heavy shavings taken off by this steel, in the ordinary course
of turning in the lathe.
We had now a large converting vessel erected at Sheffield, and
commenced operations on an extended scale. We were very anxious
to see how one of these large ingots would behave under the steam
hammer, but a delay had unfortunately taken place in the erection of
our own large hammer. In my impatience to see the result, I
waited only until the first heavy ingot ever cast at the works had cooled
down sufficiently to prevent it setting fire to the truck on which it
was carried, before I sent it by rail to Messrs. Galloway, at Manchester,
who had a large steam hammer in daily use. I followed by train, and
saw the ingot formed into a gun of the old-fashioned type. This gun
is, in many respects, a unique specimen of pure iron, and is now
in the possession of the Iron and Steel Institute. The ingot was made
of Swedish charcoal pig, costing £6 10s. per ton delivered in Sheffield ;
it was converted into pure soft iron, and no spiegeleisen or manganese
in any form was employed in its production. This was not only the
first large ingot made at our works at Sheffield, but it was the first
piece of ordnance ever made in one piece of malleable iron, without
weld or joint. It is no less remarkable for its extreme purity. The
metal of this gun had originally been most carefully analysed, and
many years later, during a discussion at one of the Iron and Steel
Institute meetings in 1879, mention was made of its purity, a state-
ment that was received with incredulity. It was said that it was
so near absolute iron that there must have been some mistake in the
analysis ; whereupon it was proposed by the President to have it again
analysed.
Mr. Edward Riley, the well-known analyst of iron and steel, was
entrusted with this interesting investigation, and for this purpose the
gun was removed from the offices of the Institute to my laboratory
and workshops at Denmark Hill, and there put into the lathe. Shavings
off the muzzle of the gun were received on a sheet of clean white
paper held by Mr. Riley under the cutting tool, and were afterwards
taken by him to his own laboratory in Finsbury Square for careful
analysis. This occurred in the early part of March, 1879. A copy
182 HENRY BESSEMER
of the analysis, which fully confirmed that originally made, is given
below.
Laboratory and Assay Offices,
2, City Road (14A, Finsbury Square),
EDWD. RILEY. London, E.G.
March 22nd, 1879.
DEAR SIR,
Herewith I beg to forward you the results of my analysis of the sample
of steel turned from a small steel gun in my presence on Monday last.
The sample gave :
Carbon . . . . .014
Silicium .... .004
Sulphur .... .052
Phosphorus .... .047 .046
Iron ..... 99.893 99.787
Manganese .... nil.
Copper . minute trace
100.010
Believe me to remain,
Yours very faithfully,
EDWD. RILEY, F.C.S.
Metallurgist, Analytical and Consulting Chemist.
Henry Bessemer, Esq.
It is very generally known that of all the Swedish bar-irons, hoop
L Dannemora bar-iron is the purest brand to be met with in commerce.
It is these iron bars, which sell for £30 per ton and upwards, that
are used wholly, or in part, in making the highest class of crucible
steel produced in Sheffield. As an example of its purity, Dr. Percy,
in his well-known work on Metallurgy, gives the analysis of what he
justly calls "this world-renowned iron," and in order that there should
be no possible mistake on this point, I print below a portion of page 736
of the volume devoted to iron and steel.
SWEDEN.
An examination of the specimens of Bessemer steel from Sweden in the Exposition
shows us that the metal there produced is of a far superior character to that made in
England, and naturally leads to inquiry as to the cause of the difference, and whether we
may hope to attain the same success in the United States. First we observe coils of wire
of all sizes, down to the very finest, such as No. 47, or even smaller. This they have not
SWEDISH IRON 183
been able regularly to produce in England. In the next place we notice a good display of
fine cutlery, and the writer is informed by a competent authority that this metal answers
so well for this purpose that it is now used almost to the exclusion of any other. This
statement is corroborated by the fact that in the miscellaneous classes of the Swedish depart-
ment, where cutlery occurs not as an exhibition of steel, but merely as a display of
workmanship by other parties in the same manner as other articles of merchandise, cases
of razors are exhibited with the mark of the kind of steel of which they are made stamped
or etched upon them as usual, and these are all "Bessemer," but from a variety of different
works, viz., Hogbo, Carsdal, Osterby, and Soderfors. The ore used in Sweden for producing
iron for the Bessemer process is exclusively magnetic, and of a very pure quality. An
analysis of a mixture of those used for the iron employed at the Fagersta works before
roasting gives the following composition : —
Carb. acid ...... 8.00
Silicium ...... 17.35
Alumina ... . 0.95
Lime ....... 6.50
Magnesia . . . . . .4.35
Protoxide of manganese . . . . .3.35
Magnetic oxide . . . . . 32.15
Peroxide of iron 27.40
100.05
Phosphoric acid . . . . .03
All the pig made from this mixture of ores the exhibitors state will give a steel without
the use of spiegeleisen, which is not at all red short.
The analysis of gray iron from the same works, used for the Bessemer process, is
given as follows : —
Carbon combined . . . . .1.012
Graphite ...... 3.527
Silicium ...... 0.854
Manganese ...... 1.919
Phosphorus ...... 0.031
Sulphur ...... 0.010
From these examples, 2, 3, and 4 of hoop L bar-iron, we have for
No. 2, pure iron 99.863 per cent. ; for No. 3, pure iron 99.220 ; and for
No. 4, pure iron 98.605 ; giving a mean of 99.220 of pure iron in these
three samples of hoop L.
Now, by Mr. Riley's analysis, we have only two testings of the
Bessemer malleable iron gun, the first giving 99.893 per cent, of pure
iron, and the second one 99.787, a mean of 99.840 per cent, of pure
iron, or 00.611 more than Dannemora bar.
184 HENRY BESSEMER
Since the Dannemora iron mines achieved their deservedly high
reputation, many new mines had come into operation in Sweden, at
which pig-iron only was made, and it was the products of these mines
that I had analysed for my special use, and thus discovered that some
of them were producing pig-iron of extreme purity. Thus I was enabled
to make malleable iron or steel of the highest quality from Swedish
pig, costing, delivered in Sheffield, £6 10s. to £7 per ton, and yielding,
from my converter, ingots of cast steel of great purity at a cost of
less than £10 per ton, fully equal to that made from Swedish bar
costing £30 per ton, such bar being only the raw material for the old
crucible process of making steel.
From a consideration of these facts, it will be readily understood
how we could produce cheap high-class tool steel, while for general
uses we had obtained native pig-iron — "Bessemer pig" — smelted with
coke, admirably adapted for the production of steel for all structural
purposes, for which it was in every way superior to the highest brands
of iron previously known in this country.
I had no sooner arrived at these results on a commercial scale than
I again put myself in communication with Colonel Eardley Wilmot,
the Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory at Woolwich Arsenal,
for I had never lost sight of the original object of my research—
a metal suitable for the construction of ordnance. It was, in fact, this
idea that had led, step by step, to the discovery of my process. I
was the more pleased to communicate these facts without delay to the
authorities at Woolwich, because, in the person of Colonel Eardley
Wilmot, I found a zealous officer, who took the deepest interest in any
improved materials or processes that could be advantageously employed
in the founding or construction of ordnance. He, fortunately, had no
pet schemes of his own to promote, and was neither a patentee nor a
private manufacturer ; he was, in fact, an officer whose sole aim and
ambition was to arrive at the highest perfection and development of
the department over which he so ably presided, wholly without reference
to the sources from which such improvements were derived.
It was now many months since I had reported myself at Woolwich,
but on my communicating the fact that we were commercially successful
BESSEMER STEEL AND COLONEL WILMOT 185
in producing both pure and malleable iron in masses, and steel of any
degree of carburisation that might be desired, at a price far below that
of the best bar iron, and in masses of almost any assignable weight,
the information immediately riveted Colonel Wilmot's attention. His
old hopes of having a superior metal for guns seemed suddenly to revive,
and he became deeply interested in all that I had to communicate.
After a very protracted discussion, I left with a promise to send him
several different qualities of our steel for analysis, testing for tensile
strength, etc.
These investigations at Woolwich lasted over a period of several
months, during which time I frequently called to see Colonel Wilmot, and
sometimes to see Professor (afterwards Sir Frederick) Abel,* who was at
the head of the chemical laboratory, where a great number of analyses
were, from time to time, made and communicated to me. Many interesting
tests were also made by drawing down a portion of an ingot first, to
two-tenths in additional length, and then to four-tenths, and so on.
Some portions were elongated to five times their original length, each
piece being tested to show the true amount of increased strength given
to it by additional forging and elongation of the bar. In fact, Colonel
Wilmot left no stone unturned to arrive at the actual facts of the case, and
a full knowledge of the strength and properties of the new material.
Some of the tests above mentioned have been lost, but I have still
twenty-nine well-authenticated records showing the extreme tenacity
and toughness of the metal. On one occasion I happened to remark
to Colonel Wilmot that such was the extraordinary ductility of our
cast malleable iron and mild cast steel, that I had no doubt a thick gun-
tube might be collapsed, and hammered up quite flat, under the steam-
hammer, whilst perfectly cold, without showing any tendency to crack
or burst open. Colonel Wilmot observed that, notwithstanding the
numerous proofs he had had of its marvellous tenacity, he thought that
no material could possibly undergo such a severe ordeal without fracture.
" Well," I said, " it will be an interesting experiment, even if it fails,
and I will put it to the test if you wish it." I accordingly had an
* Died, September 6th, 1902.
B B
186 HENRY BESSEMER
ingot of mild steel, and one of wholly decarburised iron, forged until
they were extended to about double their original length. Two portions
of each were cut off, turned, and bored in the lathe, and then beautifully
finished both inside and out, the length and diameter of each cylinder
being 6 in. and the thickness of metal J in. These pieces of gun-tube were
bored to 4|- in., in diameter — a size suitable for a 40-pounder gun. I
personally took these four tubes down to Woolwich, and was present with
Colonel Wilmot when they were placed in succession (while cold) under
the large steam hammer, and crushed flat, each tube being quite closed
up. In no case was there the slightest indication of either tearing or
rupture at any part of their surfaces. Colonel Wilmot was greatly
astonished, and so was the experienced foreman of the hammer shop
who conducted the experiment, and who expressed his admiration with
a forcible adjective, which I need not repeat. I gave one steel and one
pure iron cylinder to Colonel Wilmot, and retained the other two, which
were exhibited in the International Exhibition of 1862.
After personally inspecting the crushing of the two pure iron cylinders
and the two mild steel ones, Colonel Wilmot was so convinced of the
immense importance to the State of Bessemer mild steel as a material
for guns, that he said he would no longer delay taking active steps
for its manufacture at Woolwich. On his asking me if he might go
over our Sheffield Works, and see for himself how everything was
done, I at once assented. A day was fixed, and Colonel Wilmot and
I went down together to Sheffield, where he passed the greater part
of the following day in making himself fully acquainted with all the
details of what was in reality a very simple process, and with which
he expressed himself perfectly satisfied. I cannot omit to mention a
very curious and somewhat significant fact, which more than justified
Colonel Wilmot in the strong opinion he had formed of the value
and practicability of the process. The well-known and extensive steel
works of Sir John Brown and Co. are only separated by a wall from
the Bessemer Steel Works at Sheffield, but neither Sir J. Brown, nor
any of his people, had taken the smallest apparent interest in what
we were doing, and, indeed, like the rest of the good people at Sheffield,
had a profound disbelief in the production of steel direct from pig-iron
BESSEMER STEEL MAKING AT SHEFFIELD 187
by any conceivable process. Now Colonel Wilmot, during this visit
to Sheffield, had occasion to see Sir John Brown on other business, and,
so ardent a convert had he become, that he succeeded in persuading
Sir John Brown and his partner Mr. Ellis, to go with him next door
and see the Bessemer process in operation. They came, and had but
a short time to wait before the cupola furnace was tapped, and a charge
of molten pig-iron was run by a spout directly into the empty converter.
They seemed much interested in watching the great change which took
place in the flame and sparks emitted as the process proceeded ; but
when the eruption of cinder, and the accompanying huge body of flame,
were seen to issue from the converter, they were greatly astonished. In
about twenty minutes the flame had dropped, the mouth of the huge
vessel was gradually lowered, and a torrent of incandescent metal was
poured into the casting ladle. Up to this moment they merely expressed
surprise at the volume of flame, the brightness of the fight, and the
entire novelty of the process. But no sooner did they see the incandescent
stream issue from the mouth of the converter, than their practised eyes
in an instant recognised it to be fluid steel, and they themselves were
" converted," never to fall back again into a state of unbelief. They
stayed to witness the casting operation, and accepted one of the hot
ingots for testing at their own works, the result being that Sir John
Brown and Company became the first licensees in Sheffield under my
steel patents.
The moral to be drawn from these facts is simply this ; — that
the state of the manufacture was at that period such, that after once
witnessing the process and testing the material at their own works,
these eminently practical steel-makers resolved, at the risk of entirely
revolutionising their old-established business, to put up plant and become
Bessemer Steel manufacturers. Now, I would ask any impartial person
if this fact did not justify, and more than justify, Colonel Wilmot in
the conclusion to which he had arrived independently — that this cheap
and rapid production of steel ought at once to be utilised in the manu-
facture of guns for the British Government.*
* On the occasion of my reading a Paper at the Institution of Civil Engineers, on
The Manufacture of Iron and Steel, in May, 1859, Colonel Wilmot said, in reference to a
188 HENKT BESSEMER
After my return to London, I waited on Colonel Wilmot by
appointment, went with him to inspect the gun-foundry at the Arsenal,
and chose a suitable spot for the erection of the Bessemer Steel plant.
It was finally arranged by us to remove one of the three large reverberatory
furnaces that had been used to melt pig-iron for casting guns, and in
its place put up a pair of converters, utilising the other two furnaces
for melting the Bessemer pig. I took accurate measure of the foundry
and its contents, so as to enable me, at my own offices, to arrange all
the details of a converting plant to be erected in the old gun-foundry
and to make an estimate of the cost.
When this was done, I handed to Colonel Wilmot an approximate
estimate of £6,000, for erecting a steam-engine, boilers, and converting
plant of sufficient size to produce 100 tons of gun steel per day, and
I guaranteed that the cost of the steel poured into their own moulds
should not exceed £6 10s. per ton, when hematite pig-iron was used,
or £10 per ton when Swedish charcoal pig-iron was employed : my
remuneration being a royalty of £2 per ton on all metal converted,
the same as charged to all private manufacturers.
very silly observation of one of the members : "As regards the difficulty of the process, as
well as the results of it, he thought the best thing for a member of a practical society to
do was to follow his example, and go and see it for himself; nothing could be more simple
or more perfectly under control." (Excerpt : Minutes of Proceedings of the Institution of
Civil Engineers.)
CHAPTER XIV
THE BESSEMER PROCESS AND THE WAR OFFICE
WAS kept for some time in daily expectation of a reply from the
War Office accepting my tender, but no letter arrived, and at last
I ventured on seeking an interview with the Minister of War, Mr.
Sidney Herbert. He appeared to know very little on the subject.
I took, however, the opportunity of explaining to him, in as clear and
concise a manner as possible, the great national interests hanging on his
decision. I told him that steel, the strongest of all known conditions
of the metal iron, had hitherto been so costly as to considerably restrict
its use ; that by my process we produced it at a cost not exceeding
£6 or £7 per ton, instead of £50 or £60, its ordinary market value ;
that instead of being made in small crucibles of 40 Ib. or 50 Ib. only
in weight, we could make five tons of it in the short space of twenty
minutes in a single operation ; and, what was still more important, instead
of being the hard and brittle material, such as is required to make cutting
implements, the new steel possessed a toughness and tenacity far exceeding
the very finest qualities of wrought iron known in commerce. I also
endeavoured to impress on him the fact that Colonel Eardley Wilmot
had seen the process in operation, had amply tested it, and had in his office
at Woolwich pieces of gun-tubes that had been put to such unheard-of
proofs as to afford to the meanest capacity overwhelming evidence of
its fitness for the construction of ordnance. I also told him that in the
chemical laboratory numerous analyses had been made by their own
chemist ; that in their rolling mill, bars had been rolled, and in their
testing-house an immense number of most satisfactory tests had been
made as to the tenacity and toughness. I said that the people at the
head of each of these departments at Woolwich could adduce abundance
of corroborative evidence of every statement I had made.
190 HENRY BESSEMER
Mr. Sidney Herbert listened to all this, and remarked that it was
a technical question which he was not prepared to deal with at that
moment ; but said that he would give the whole matter his most earnest
attention, and that I might call on him that day week to hear his reply.
I waited impatiently for this second interview, in full confidence that
Colonel Wilmot, and other heads of the chemical and testing departments,
would have been called on to corroborate, or disprove, the statements
I had made, and would have given him such proofs in favour of mild
Bessemer steel as would at once have secured me the contract to erect at
Woolwich the converting apparatus which Colonel Wilmot was so anxious
to see in practical operation there. But Mr. Herbert did not examine
or consult Colonel Wilmot, who could have told him all about it. He
made no enquiries at the testing or other departments at Woolwich, nor
did he take the trouble to look at the flattened gun-tubes, and other
proofs, which would have irresistibly convinced any man of ordinary
capacity and intelligence that this material was, at least, well worthy
of being put to a practical proof in the interests of the State, by the
immediate construction of a gun. He informed me that he had consulted
Sir William Armstrong, who, he said, had at once declared that " steel
was wholly inapplicable to the construction of ordnance ; " and who, if
Mr. Sidney Herbert's statements were true, had succeeded in convincing
him that it would be a waste of time and public money to put up the
Bessemer apparatus at Woolwich. It was quite evident that Mr. Sidney
Herbert had made up his mind to fling to the winds all the labours and
trials of Colonel Wilmot, and at the same time to utterly ignore me and
the expense and trouble to which I had been put. The strongest
protest on my part at this injustice, and my urgent request to have
my process tried, failed to move Mr. Sidney Herbert one iota from his
firm resolve to keep me and my process out of Woolwich, and to allow
Sir William Armstrong, with his immensely more expensive welded iron
gun, to have the field to himself. There was nothing for it but to
submit, and I retired from this interview in deep disgust with Mr.
Herbert and his arbitrary proceedings.
The event just recorded, although it had the effect of closing my
connection with Woolwich Arsenal, did not in any way determine the
THE BESSEMER PROCESS AND THE WAR OFFICE 191
fitness or otherwise of mild Bessemer steel for the construction of
ordnance. I feel bound in honour, and in justice to my own name, to
vindicate, not by mere words, but by an array of well-authenticated
facts such as no intelligent person can lessen or deny, the perfect adapt-
ability of this discarded material for that purpose.
It will be remembered by my readers that Bessemer steel, which
is now used, and its value acknowledged, over the whole civilised world,
was the direct outcome of my investigations in search of a more suitable
metal than was at that time employed in the construction of ordnance.
It is my present purpose to show that I had succeeded in attaining the
result which I sought, and thus not permit the mere assertion of one
man to obliterate from the page of history the fact that I originated a
process and produced a material which, at the time the experiments
were made by Colonel Wilmot at Woolwich, and for twelve years after
that period,* and consequently during the whole tenure of office of Sir
William Armstrong at Woolwich, stood unrivalled as a material for the
construction of ordnance. No other known process could, at that period,
produce steel with such marvellous rapidity, and at such an enormous
reduction in price ; no other known method could produce in large
masses steel of such a degree of mildness as to pass, by almost imper-
ceptible gradations, downwards until it became soft iron ; nor did there
exist any other known process by which large masses of almost chemi-
cally pure iron could be produced without weld or joint, t
Many persons who are not intimately acquainted with the early
history of Bessemer steel have fallen into great error, and honestly believe
that the Bessemer process was in itself uncertain and incapable of
perfect control, and that the excellent material commercially produced
at the present time has been the result of a long succession of improve-
ments in the process since it left my hands. Nothing could be more
absolutely erroneous or more historically untrue, as I shall show further
on by incontestable proofs. No doubt all popular beliefs and prejudices
* The open-hearth process was patented in 1865, and practically introduced in 1869.
t I am speaking of a period of about twelve years prior to the manufacture of any kind
of open-hearth steel, and when the production of mild crucible steel was extremely difficult
arid pure malleable iron in large cast masses was impossible by any known process but mine.
192 HENRY BESSEMER
have some real, or supposed, good reason for their origin, and this
particular popular error was, I admit, the outcome of circumstances only
too well calculated to give rise to, and perpetuate, such a belief. The
Bessemer process was sprung upon the iron trade suddenly, and in
a moment, as it were, it excited the wildest hopes and the direst
apprehensions. But it was very soon afterwards discovered that with
ordinary phosphoric pig-iron it failed to produce iron or steel of any
commercial value. It is almost impossible at this distant period to realise
the sudden revulsion of feeling which then took place, and the utter
disbelief in the whole scheme which followed, and, passing beyond all
reasonable bounds, has not, even at the time I am now writing, entirely
disappeared. When, after the labour of two years, I had succeeded in
making " Bessemer Pig " from British hematite ; when from that pig I
had produced steel of excellent quality for all structural purposes ; when
I had manufactured a high-class tool steel from Swedish pig ; and when
also the tipping vessel was invented with the ladle provided with a
bottom valve, the conical mould, and the hydraulic crane ; when, in fact,
the general system of the present day was a proved commercial reality
at my own works in Sheffield ; then, and not till then, did I again
bring my process before the trade, when it still met with blank
incredulity and distrust. But this time I was backed with proofs
that could not be denied, for there, in the town of Sheffield, in the
very heart of the great steel industry of the country, stood the Bessemer
Steel Works, in daily commercial operation, underselling the old-established
manufacturer, who still resisted its encroachment and obstinately refused
to believe in it. But the temptation to the ironmaster to become a
steel manufacturer at then existing prices was very great, and the adapta-
bility of the process to the manufacturer of rails was self evident. Rail
mills and steel works were established by people who had no previous
knowledge or experience of steel and its peculiarities, and, what was still
worse, there was not a manager or foreman, or even an ordinary workman,
to be found who had any knowledge whatever of the new process. As
an instance oi this difficulty, I may mention a case in point. A very
handy carpenter, whom I had employed to assist in the works, had
acquired a certain amount of routine knowledge of the process. This
EARLY DIFFICULTIES 193
made him a valuable man, and one of my licensees who had adopted
my process bid a high price for this small amount of practical knowledge,
and engaged this carpenter's services, under a five years' agreement, at
£5 per week. It is only fair to say that he was quite worth it.
Thus it happened that those ironmasters who had adopted my process
had to struggle against difficulties quite unknown in any old-established
trade. Need we wonder, then, that the quality of their steel sometimes
differed from day to day ?
The ironmaster had been in the habit of making bar iron from
every kind of pig, and he could not realise the fact that good steel
by my process could only be made from a special quality of iron. This
he did not like to buy from other makers ; in those early days he did not
fully understand how to make it himself, and hence he would use inferior
hematite iron, or mix some of his own phosphoric pig with it, to eke it
out and lessen the cost. The bad results so produced were all set down
to the uncertainty of the Bessemer process ; nor did the extreme jealousy
of the steel trade prevent such unfavourable reports from being published
with all the usual embellishments naturally arising from ignorance or
prejudice.
This adoption of my process by the ironmaster for making rails went
far to discredit it. If you told a steel maker that it was being largely
used, he would say : " Well, perhaps it is good enough for rails ; anything
is good enough for rails." Indeed, it is true that in the case of rails
moderate variations of temper were not fatal. The rail might be a little
too hard or too soft, but in either case it was immensely superior to iron,
and so it passed muster. But it was when boiler plates, ships' plates
or crank-axles, were required, that the inexperienced ironmaster, with his
inexperienced workmen, began to realise the fact that steel was wanted
of a certain standard of quality for special purposes ; and that he
must train his men, who were little else than mere apprentices learning
a new trade, to produce these several qualities with certainty. It is not
at all surprising, under such conditions, that Bessemer steel acquired
the character of being uncertain and not trustworthy. Hundreds of
workmen who had never before worked a plate of steel in their lives,
and were totally ignorant of its proper treatment, were engaged in the
c c
194 HENRY BESSEMER
manufacture of steel boilers and in building steel ships. Such workmen
had no hesitation in putting a hot steel plate down on the floor, with
one end in a puddle of water ; or in placing a mass of cold iron on a red-
hot plate to keep it flat while cooling ; or, on the other hand, in over-
heating it in a furnace, quite unconscious that no steel would bear the
same high temperature as iron. And when they had thus succeeded in
spoiling a plate originally of good quality, they did not hesitate to lay
all the blame on the Bessemer process, which they honestly believed
was the sole cause of the mischief that their own want of experience as
steel-smiths had occasioned.
When the investigation of the character and properties of Bessemer
Steel, undertaken by Colonel Eardley Wilmot at Woolwich Arsenal,
was completed, all the early difficulties of the process had been entirely
removed. We had become intimately acquainted by use, and by
analysis, with several brands of Swedish pig-iron, from which either soft
ductile iron, or steel of any degree of carburation, could be — and in fact
was — daily produced at our Sheffield works, on a commercial scale without
the employment of spiegeleisen. We had command also of a practically
unlimited supply of a very high-class non-phosphoric hematite Bessemer
pig-iron, suitable for conversion into steel. We had also magnesian
pig-iron from Germany, and Franklinite pig-iron from the United States,
the latter containing about 11 per cent, of manganese, which was greatly
preferred for deoxydising steel derived from British coke-made iron. We
had our converting vessels at that time mounted on axes ; and, in fact,
the Bessemer process was so complete, and so under command, as to enable
us to produce at will, pure Swedish steel of all tempers down to soft iron,
and also mild hematite steel, as good in all respects as we are able to make
at the present day. Above all, we had the advantage of the knowledge
and experience of Mr. W. D. Allen, Managing Partner of the Bessemer
Steel Works at Sheffield. In proof of my assertion that the Bessemer
process was at that time as perfect in results as at any later date, I will
give a few examples of our products, commencing at a period several months
prior to the advent of Sir William Armstrong at Woolwich, covering
the whole five years of his official power, and extending for some years after
his departure from the Arsenal. Fig. 49, Plate XIX., is a photographic
PLATE XIX
H
H
13
co
V o- THE
UNIVERSITY
of
STEEL GUN TUBES 195
reproduction of some test specimens, to which I have already alluded,
representing three out of four pieces of gun-tube tested at Woolwich,
two of them made of mild steel, and the others being nearly chemically
pure iron. It will be remembered that these cylinders were made at
my works at Sheffield, and were crushed flat, in the presence of Colonel
Wilmot and myself at Woolwich, while cold, under the heavy blows
of a large steam hammer. In order to give a correct idea of the nature
and appearance of these crushed gun-tubes and hoops, I refer my readers
to the photographic reproduction, Fig. 49. The specimens illustrated
were made of Bessemer hematite pig-iron, converted into steel by the
Bessemer process, and of a quality precisely the same as we were, at
that early period, daily using in the manufacture of railway-carriage
axles, piston-rods of steam engines, and other general machine forgings.
In the illustration, A represents a portion of a gun-tube for a
rifled gun, machined and finished ; B is one of these pieces, flattened, as
shown, and C is a larger hoop, crushed flat with the heavy blows of
the steam hammer. The two sides where the bend takes place are
immensely stretched on the exterior surface, and also greatly compressed
on their inner side, but at no point does the metal exhibit the smallest
trace of fracture. The dimensions of these specimens will be readily
seen by reference to the two-foot rule photographed with them. These
examples of the toughness and endurance of Bessemer mild steel, after
being subjected to violent and sudden strains, were exhibited in my
large glass case at the International Exhibition of 1862, and must have
been seen by hundreds and thousands of persons. When one reflects
on the extent and prominence of my exhibit, covering an enclosed area
of 1,225 square feet, and surrounded by a counter of more than 100 ft.
in length, covered with steel exhibits, and having a 24-pounder gun
forging on a pedestal at the central entrance, and an 18 pounder finished
gun in the large central case, it is difficult to believe that this gun-hoop
and these crushed gun-tubes were not seen during the time of the
Exhibition by every engineer in London, and by every employe at
Woolwich Arsenal, as well as by our Minister of War, who with a
light heart excluded Bessemer process from Woolwich.
I desire to draw the reader's earnest attention to these crushed gun-
196 HENRY BESSEMER
tubes, for it is impossible, in my opinion, for any intelligent person to
look at these marvellous proofs of the toughness and power of extension
and distortion of the metal, and not be convinced that such a material
was pre-eminently suited for the construction of ordnance. The two
similar crushed cylinders which I gave to Colonel Wilmot were greatly
prized by him, and were kept as trophies, with several other experimental
proofs, on the writing-table in his private office at the Arsenal, where
I saw them on several occasions prior to his vacating the office.
I may mention that when Colonel Wilmot inspected my Sheffield
Steel Works, he happened to see on the scrap-heap a large mass of
Bessemer malleable iron, which he wished to have for the purpose of
experiment, and which, at his request, was sent to him to Woolwich.
On May 24th, 1859, speaking of Bessemer iron and steel at a meeting of
the Institution of Civil Engineers, he referred to this piece of iron during
the discussion, and stated that a cylindrical piece of Bessemer pure iron,
when only extended by forging to twice its original length, had a
tenacity per square inch of 28 tons 13 cwt. 1 qr. and 2 lb., a tenacity
which it possessed in all directions alike, as against the best Yorkshire
iron, which was usually credited with a tenacity of 25 tons in the direction
of its length, and very considerably less across the grain, even after
being rolled and piled and again rolled into long bars. These bars,
when welded together to form a large forging of any kind, will
never afterwards possess the strength of the original bar, by two or
three tons per square inch. The analysis given by Colonel Wilmot was
issued from the Chemical Laboratory of the War Department, and can
be fully relied on as showing that no impurity but sulphur existed in
the specimen analysed in sufficient quantity to estimate, while no
spiegeleisen or manganese was used in its production. (This metal
was converted from Swedish pig.)
Colonel Eardley Wilmot's remarks are herewith reproduced from the
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers.
Colonel Eardley Wilmot, R.A., said he had, from the commencement of these inquiries,
taken a great interest in them, and had mechanically tested the products originally produced.
A chemical examination was also made at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, and the result had
indicated, and it had been stated at the same time, that the Bessemer process was perfectly
COLONEL WILMOT'S EXPERIMENTS 197
effectual for removing the silicon from iron, but that it did not operate upon the phosphorus
or the sulphur. Acting on this knowledge, which was corroborated in many quarters,
Mr. Bessemer had wisely dealt with such iron as yielded the desired result. As regarded
the difficulties of the process, as well as the results of it, he thought that the best thing for
a member of a practical society to do, was to follow his example, and to go and see it for
himself. Nothing could be more simple, or more perfectly under control; and having, by
a few trials, ascertained the particular kind of treatment required, with the sample of iron
to be dealt with, it was operated upon with certainty. It was said that there was nothing
new in the process ; but it might be fairly asked, was it, or was it not, a new result, that
a bar of iron 4 in. in diameter could be bent cold into a perfect contact, without any sign
of flaw? As regarded the particular product in which he was most interested, namely,
a cast metal for cannon, projectiles, iron plates for shot-proof ships, and all military purposes,
a circumstance had not being mentioned which he would name as being peculiarly instructive ;
while the metal, after having being operated on to the extent required to make it malleable
iron, was in the ladle ready for pouring into the moulds, an accident occurred to the
tapping-hole of the ladle, and the metal was allowed to get cold in it, instead of being
poured out. Here was the ordinary condition of a common casting in a gun mould, with,
however, this important difference, that in this case it was very shallow, as compared with
the gun mould, and there was, therefore, no condensation of the material from fluid pressure.
A cylinder of 2 in. diameter was taken out of this mass, and gave a tenacity of 42,908 Ib.
on the square inch, and a specific gravity of 7.626. A similar cylinder was drawn out
under an ordinary smith's hammer to twice its length, and then gave a tenacity of 64,426 Ib.,
and a specific gravity of 7.841. This portion of metal was examined by the Chemist to
the War Department, and was found to contain —
Silicon ..... 0.00
Graphite ..... 0.00
Combined Carbon .... minute quantity
Sulphur ..... 0.02
Phosphorus ..... trace
Manganese ..... trace
This appeared to him to approach more nearly to true iron than any he had seen. The
ordinary iron of the market was, in that sense, not iron, but a compound of iron and certain
other ingredients. The ordinary re-melting would remove, or combine, the graphite only ;
the Bessemer process would remove the silicon, and when applied to an iron having but
little phosphorus and sulphur, would do all that was required. If an additional process
was discovered for removing these, all the iron ores of England, instead of only a very
large portion of them, could be converted into pure iron.
As regarded the steel, he had been using it for turning the outside of iron guns,
cutting off large shavings several inches in length, and he had found none superior to it,
although much more costly. It was only necessary to witness the operation of the manufacture
by the Bessemer process to be satisfied that the expense of converting the pig-iron into
any of the products involved scarcely any cost beyond the labour, and that for a very short
198
HENRY BESSEMER
period of time. And as far as the price went, Mr. Bessemer had offered to supply such
sizes as it was worth his while to make at the prices stated.
The above quotation serves to corroborate what I have previously
said as to the deep interest taken by the Superintendent of the Royal
Gun Factories on this subject, and I much regret that the numerous
analyses made from time to time at the Arsenal have not been preserved.
But I find that I gave in my Paper, which I read in May, 1859, at
the Institution of Civil Engineers, when Colonel Wilmot was present,
a number of official tests of the tensile strength of soft Bessemer
malleable iron in its cast unhammered state, and also when hammered.
There were also several tests of highly-carburised Bessemer steel, in
hammered and unhammered condition.
The extreme limits of tensile strength of the converted metal are
shown in the following Tables, which give the results of many trials
made at different times at the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, under the
superintendence of Colonel Wilmot : —
TESTS MADE AT WOOLWICH OP BESSEMER STEEL.
Tensile Strength per Square Inch.
Bessemer Steel.
Various Trials.
Mean Tensile Strength.
Ib.
42,780
48,892
57,295
In the cast
61,667
6 3,023 Ik = 28. 13 tons
unhammered state.
64,015
per square inch.
72,503
77,808
79,223
136,490
145,512
After hammering
or rolling.
146,676
156,862
158,899
152,9121b. = 68.26 tons
per square inch.
162,970
162,974
COLONEL WILMOTS EXPERIMENTS
199
Tensile Strength per Square Inch.
Bessemer Iron.
Various Trials.
Mean Tensile Strength.
Ib.
38,197
In the cast
40,234
41,243 Ib. = 18.41 tons
unhammered state.
41,584
42,908
per square inch.
43,290
64,059
After hammering
or rolling,
65,253
75,598
76,195
72,643 lb. = 32. 43 tons
per square inch.
82,110
Flat Ingot
rolled into Boiler Plate
Avithout piling.
63,591
63,668
72,896
73,103
68,319 lb. = 30.50 tons
per square inch.
CHAPTER XV
BESSEMER STEEL: THE ARMSTRONG CONTROVERSY
nnHE late Ebenezer Parkes, of Birmingham, a well-known metallurgist
-*- and tube manufacturer, conceived the bold idea that copper tubes
for locomotive boilers of, say, 2 in. in diameter and 12 ft. in length could
be formed without a seam or joint from flat circular plates of copper
of 27 in. in diameter and about -f$ in. in thickness. He forced these
plates through an opening 11 in. in diameter, in a die under an hydraulic
press ; they thus became short cylinders. These cylinders were after-
wards drawn out longer and less in diameter on steel mandrils,
which were made for him at our Sheffield Works. He, however, found
that the strain on ordinary sheet copper was so severe that many plates
cracked and failed, and it was not until he obtained chemically-pure
copper — the result of electrolysis — that his manufacture was a commercial
success. On one occasion I met Mr. Parkes at my Works at Sheffield,
and, in speaking of the extreme toughness of our mild steel, he said
he had no doubt that he could force plates of it through his dies, as
he was doing with copper. I must confess that I did not think this
possible ; but on his persisting in his assertion, I arranged to return
with him to Birmingham the same evening, taking five discs of our
mild steel, varying from J in. up to f in. in thickness. I was anxious
also to try a very stout plate, and there happened, at the time, to be
some locomotive boiler tube-plates (ordered by the Lancashire and
Yorkshire Railway Company) in course of construction at our works.
One of these was found to be sufficiently large to allow us to cut off
a disc from one end, 27 in. in diameter, without spoiling the plate.
Taking these discs, Mr. Parkes and I proceeded to Birmingham, and
on the next morning we commenced operations. We succeeded in making
these steel plates into deep cylinders of 11 in. in diameter. They were
BESSEMER STEEL BOILER PLATES
201
quite cold when operated on : had they been red-hot, those parts in
contact with the cold dies would have become cooled, and stretching
unequally with the hot parts, would inevitably have failed. Figs. 50
to 55 illustrate the mode of operation.
In Fig. 50, A represents the ram of an hydraulic press, and B
a circular punch, the lower angles of which are slightly rounded ;
c is a circular ring, or die, having a trumpet-shaped mouth, shown in
FIG. 50
FIG. 51
FIG. 52
'DIAMETER
FIG. 53 FIG. 54 FIG. 55
FIGS. 50 TO 55. BESSEMER STEEL BOILER PLATE BEING PRESSED INTO A CUP (1861)
section, and resting on the hollow bed D, of the hydraulic press. A circular
recess of 27 in. in diameter was made on the upper side of the die to
receive the plate of steel to be operated on ; E, Fig. 50, shows the cold
plate of steel placed in the die ready for bulging. The descent of the
ram forced the plate into a dished form, shown at E in Fig. 51. The
further descent of the ram, as shown in Fig. 52, drove the plate nearly
through the die : it, however, still had its mouth slightly splayed.
Another movement of the ram pushed the plate entirely through the
die, and made it into a plain parallel cylinder, with a slightly-rounded
D D
202 HENRY BESSEMER
bottom, as represented at Fig. 55. In spite of this marvellous trans-
formation, in form and dimensions, the metal remained at all parts wholly
uninjured, as was incontestably proved by the fact that the cylinder
became a beautiful sonorous bell, in which the critical musical ear could
not detect any fault in tone, due to crack or injury of any kind.
Now let us for one moment consider what changes the solid cold
steel underwent, as it flowed like a piece of plastic clay, and suffered so
great a change in the position of all its constituent particles. In Fig. 53
we have the original disc seen on edge ; it was f in. in thickness, 27 in. in
diameter, and 84f in. in circumference ; both its sides were originally
of the same area. When made into a cylinder or cup it measured on
the outside 34j- in. in circumference, and on the inside 29 in. only ; the
metal which originally formed its outer circumference had been reduced
to 34 J in. Such a change of form and flow of cold steel from one part
of the mass to another, required enormous force, and yet so great was
the toughness and resilience of this mild steel that the changes of form
and dimension were possible without producing a symptom of rupture. I
fearlessly challenge any person of ordinary intelligence to study, however
slightly, these diagrams, and then to cast his eye on the accompanying
illustration, Fig. 56, Plate XX., which is a reproduction of this
steel cup, without coming to the conclusion that in these early days
of the Bessemer process we could, and did, produce a metal pre-eminently
adapted to the construction of ordnance : a metal that could be manu-
factured from Swedish charcoal pig-iron in homogeneous, unwelded masses
of from 5 to 20 tons in weight, at less than one-half the price paid for
Lowmoor iron bars, from which the Armstrong gun coils were made.
I cannot tell the precise date of the actual production of the cup illustrated,
but I know it was many months before the great Exhibition of 1862.
I can trace it back to that period by evidence that cannot be disputed.
The Engineer newspaper of the first week in May, 1862, describing my
exhibit of Bessemer steel, says : —
There are also some extraordinary examples of the toughness of Bessemer steel made from
British coke-made pig-iron, among which may be enumerated two deep vessels of one foot in
diameter, with flattened bottoms and vertical sides ; at the top edge, one of them is f in. and
the other | in. in thickness. These are formed up in a press from flat circular discs of steel.
PLATE XX
EXPERIMENTS WITH BESSEMER STEEL 203
They can now be drawn into long tubes, either of their present diameter, or they may be reduced
to locomotive boiler tubes of 2 in. in diameter ; there is also shown an attempt to raise a piece
of the best Staffordshire iron plate by the same tools ; this only went about as deep in proportion
as an ordinary soup plate before it fractured all around the punch, and almost fell into two
pieces. It may be remembered that Mr. Parkes, who invented this beautiful system of making
unwelded tubes, has been obliged to use the very highest quality of copper for that purpose ;
the ordinary copper of commerce generally cracks, but the Bessemer steel, as seen by these
examples, stands this fearful ordeal wiflh perfect safety.
On the closing of the Exhibition of 1862, I presented this cup to
Dr. Percy, who placed it in the gallery of the Geological Museum in
Jermyn Street, whence it was, many years ago, transferred to the South
Kensington Museum. The Curator kindly allowed me to have a photo-
graph taken of it, and from this photograph the engraving on Plate XX.
has been made.
Since writing the above, I have called to memory an earlier date
on which one of these deep cups was exhibited. I refer to the occasion of
Sir William Armstrong's visit to Sheffield, as President of the Institution
of Mechanical Engineers, which held its summer meeting there on
July 31st, 1861 ; in proof of this I refer to the copy of my Paper
as printed and issued by that Institution. In the Proceedings of the
Institution the Secretary interpolated, between the reprint of my Paper
and the report of the discussion thereon, the announcement which is
here reproduced.
Mr. Bessemer exhibited an 18-pounder gun made of the Bessemer steel cast in a single
ingot of the required size and subsequently hammered, with a variety of specimens of the
metal, broken to show the quality of the fracture; also some piston rods, a boiler plate
flanged for a locomotive firebox, and a plate bulged in a die without cracking or tearing; a
plate of thin metal punched with a number of small holes very close together, and a tube
of the metal which had been crushed flat without the surface of the metal cracking. He
showed also one of the fireclay tuyeres used for blowing the melted metal in the converting
vessel, and specimens of the ganister used for lining the vessel and ladle, both new and
after use.
The " variety of specimens of the metal broken to show the quality
of the fracture" should have been described as "specimens crushed to
show the toughness of the steel." " A plate bulged in a die " is the
deep cup made from a flat piece of boiler plate 27 in. diameter, and
already mentioned as being illustrated in Fig. 56, Plate XX. The tube
204
HENRY BESSEMER
of metal crushed flat without cracking (see c, Fig. 49, Plate XIX.) was
similar to the crushed gun-tubes so many years exhibited in the South
Kensington Museum, and now in the possession of the Iron and Steel
Institute. Figs. 57 to 60, on Plates XXI., XXII., and XXIII., show
other specimens exhibited at the meeting.
It is unnecessary to multiply examples, since those already given
cannot fail to convince any unprejudiced person that in these early days
of the Bessemer process all those manufacturers who understood it, and
took the amount of care which is necessary in all properly-conducted
manufacturing operations, were able to produce steel of high quality with
as great a degree of regularity as is common with any other modes of
FIG. 61. PEESSING BESSEMER STEEL BLOCK FOR RIFLE BARREL
production. I, however, cannot refrain from giving yet another instance
of the wonderful tenacity and endurance of this metal when subjected
to the most violent strains.
About the year 1862, a Mr. Thompson, of Bilston, took out a
patent for a novel and ingenious mode of manufacturing Enfield rifle-
barrels, and after many trials he chose Bessemer mild steel as the material
most suitable for this purpose. Our works at Sheffield supplied him
with large quantities of mild steel, in the form of round bars 3 in. in
diameter. These were afterwards sawn into lengths of about 6 in., and
when made red-hot were placed on end under the steam-hammer, which
carried a cylindrical steel punch of 1 in. in diameter, having a conical
end resembling an armour-piercing shot, as shown in Fig. 61. The
hammer A had projecting from it the punch B, beneath which was placed
PLATE XXI
PLATE XXII
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(( UNIVERSITY
of
EXPERIMENTS WITH BESSEMER STEEL 205
the steel piece c, shown partly pierced by one or two blows. This piece
was placed over an opening in the anvil block D, and after two or three
more blows it was pierced from end to end, forming a short tube
from which no metal has been removed. This violent treatment did not
split or injure the steel in any way, but was well calculated to show
any defect if the metal operated upon was not absolutely sound. After
the operation of punching, the short tubular piece was rolled between
a pair of rollers having a series of tapering grooves formed on them,
and also an enlarged recess to form the breech part out of the solid,
so that a barrel in one piece without welding was produced. This was
afterwards finished in the usual way. The severe test to which these mild
steel barrels were subjected at the Proof House, Birmingham, is shown
in the annexed tabular statement, which is taken from a Paper read
by me at the Royal United Service Institution on May 2nd, 1864,
and published in the Transactions, from which the Table herewith
given is copied.
TRIAL OP Two STEEL GUN-BARRELS (ENPIELD PATTERN), AT THE PROOF-HOUSE, BIRMINGHAM.
Barrels made from Bessemer Steel by Thompson's Patent process.
Barrels, 1853 Infantry Pattern, .577 bore. Bullets used, 715 grains. Diameter, .551
Length, 1.043. Ratio of length to diameter, 1.893,
Result of Experiments :
1st round, charge 205 grains, 7| drachms powder, 1 bullet.
2nd round, charge 224 grains, 8J drachms powder, 1 bullet.
3rd round, „ „ 2 bullets.
4th round, „ „ 3 bullets.
5th round, ,, „ 4 bullets.
6th round, „ „ 5 bullets.
The barrels were now examined and found intact.
7th round, charge 224 grains, 8\ drachms powder, 6 bullets.
8th round, „ „ 7 bullets.
9th round, „ „ 8 bullets.
10th round, „ „ 9 bullets,
llth round, ,, „ 10 bullets.
12th round, „ „ 11 bullets.
13th round, „ „ 12 bullets.
14th round, „ „ 13 bullets.
15th round, „ „ 14 bullets.
16th round, „ „ 15 bullets.
Barrels found intact.
206 HENRY BESSEMER
17th round, charge 224 grains, 8J drachms powder, 16 bullets.
The firing was now continued with one barrel only, the nipple having been blown out
of the other, which, still retaining its charge of 16 bullets, remained intact.
18th round, charge increased to 269 grains, 9f drachms powder, 17 bullets.
19th round, „ „ „ ,,18 bullets.
*20th round, „ 413 „ 15 „ „ and 25 bullets.
Length of each bullet, 1.043.
The barrel was then examined and found intact. Further test was deemed unnecessary.
Proved by Mr. Samuel Hart, Assistant Proof-Master, *in the presence of Ezra Millward, Esq.,
Proof-Master at Birmingham, December 23rd, 1863.
With these examples of the extraordinary toughness and tenacity
of both pure Bessemer iron and Bessemer steel, no one, with any knowledge
of the violent strains to which the test pieces were subjected, can doubt
the fact that between the copper-like toughness of the pure Bessemer
iron, and the great tenacity of the more highly carburised steel which we
were at that time supplying to engineers, for making every description of
cutlery and cutting tools, there did exist, and could easily have been
found by trial, the precise quality of steel most suitable for the construc-
tion of ordnance. It must be borne in mind that it was not until
some ten years later, that is, in the year 1869, that any Siemens-Martin,
or open-hearth steel, was made, and consequently that the only varieties
of cast-steel then available for guns were crucible cast-steel and
Bessemer cast-steel. The fact must also be recognised that both the
difficulty and the cost of producing large masses of crucible steel
increased greatly whenever the metal was required to be of the very
mild quality known as low carbon steel, which is most difficult to fuse
in crucibles, as well as to retain in fusion during the time occupied in
filling a large mould from hundreds of separate small vessels. Hence
the strong temptation the steel manufacturers had to supply a
more carburised, and consequently a more easily fusible and less
tough, steel than was specified ; while the price of this crucible steel
was greatly augmented as the ingot became larger, increasing to over
£100 per ton. It is equally notorious that not one of these disadvantages
applied to the Bessemer metal ; it was, in fact, cheaper to produce a single
mass of 10 or 20 tons in weight than to make the same weight in a number
of small batches of 3 tons to 5 tons. Nor was there any greater difficulty
COST OF BESSEMER STEEL 207
in making the mildest possible quality of steel, because we always began
by making pure soft iron. From the zero point of decarburisation
the hardest qualities of steel could be made, differing by almost imper-
ceptible gradations, and depending on the number of pounds of rich
carburet of iron added to the pure iron for that purpose.
The material had been proved in all respects suitable for the
manufacture of ordnance, and, as I have already said, Colonel Eardley
Wilmot and I had arranged, under contract, to erect a Bessemer
plant in the old gun foundry at Woolwich, which was amply large
enough for that purpose. This project, had it been carried out, would
have rendered wholly unnecessary the erection of a second arsenal
at Elswick, built under the guarantee of the British Government at
a cost of £85,000. It must also be borne in mind that by my
process we had the advantage of being able to make, if desired, malleable
iron guns in a single piece without a weld or joint, by founding,
or by the combined processes of founding and forging, with or without
hoops ; so that if malleable iron, and not steel, had in reality been the
best material for the construction of ordnance, such guns could have
been produced at Woolwich Arsenal, either as complete gun-castings,
or as ingots to be forged, at a cost not exceeding £6 or £7 per ton
if made of British iron, and not exceeding £10 per ton if made of Swedish
charcoal pig-iron ; whereas the Lowmoor iron bars used to make the
coiled guns cost over £20 per ton, and were the mere raw material to
start with. Nor did the Bessemer pure malleable iron, if used for guns,
admit of any of the charges that had been made to depreciate the value
of steel for that purpose, namely, that it was very uncertain in quality,
and could not be obtained of the precise degree of carburisation and
toughness required. Such a charge could not possibly be made in
reference to pure iron, which was wholly decarburised, a condition which
it was impossible to mistake during its manufacture, for the huge white
flame issuing from the converter suddenly drops when all the carbon
is burnt out, a result which occurs with unerring certainty. At all
events, if Bessemer steel could not be depended upon at Woolwich,
Swedish charcoal pig-iron, wholly decarburised, could have been made
in masses of 10 to 20 ton, at a cost not exceeding £10 per ton, and
208 HENRY BESSEMER
of, at least, 5 tons per square inch greater tensile strength than Lowmoor
bars, as was proved by Colonel Wilmot's experiments at Woolwich Arsenal;
while the cost of the huge unwelded mass would have been less than
half the cost per ton of the bar-iron used to make a welded coil with
its many imperfect junctions.
I should like to say a few words here about the broad distinctive
characters of the two materials, wrought or bar-iron, and cast homogeneous
iron or steel. I need scarcely remind the reader that bar-iron making
begins with the process of puddling, which produces a ball or mass of
iron that, in every case, is mechanically mixed with fluid scoria, and
sometimes with sand and dry oxide or iron scale. From this crude
material, puddle bars are made, and these are cut into lengths of 2 ft.
or 3 ft., and formed into a bundle or pile, which is brought up to a
welding heat in a suitable furnace, and then rolled into a merchant bar.
This process of rolling and piling is repeated more than twice, and a bar
is in this way produced, which to the eye appears, and is supposed,
to have all its separate parts welded or united so as to form an undivided
and indivisible mass. But this is not so. I have never seen a bar of
wrought iron produced by puddling that, in two or three minutes, by
a very simple treatment, I could not separate more or less perfectly
into its component bars, which are in reality never thoroughly united,
although they adhere more or less soundly. In fact, so imperfect is this
adhesion called "welding," that whenever bar-iron is worked under the
hammer, it is necessary to forge it at such a degree of heat as will
continue the welding process ; for by working it much below this
temperature, the imperfectly coherent mass begins at once to separate
at all the junctions between the several bars of which it is composed,
and tumbles to pieces.
I will describe an experiment clearly illustrating this fact. Two
pieces of ordinary commercial bar - iron of 1 in. square were heated
to a blood-red heat, and put under a small steam-hammer, where they
received several blows on alternate sides ; the result was a complete
disintegration of the mass, as shown in Fig. 62, Plate XXIV. The lower
example was similarly treated on alternate angles, instead of on the flat
sides. It may be supposed that the far-famed Lowmoor and other
PLATE XXIV
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or J
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PLATE XXV
BESSEMER STEEL V. WROUGHT IRON 209
Yorkshire irons are exempt from this defect, but this is not so, the
simple fact being that " best-best " iron has been piled more times than
common iron, and the result of working it at a temperature that will not
continue the welding process, only divides it into more numerous filaments
than a bar of common iron. I may mention the fact that, on one occasion,
during a short stay at my works at Sheffield, I had the honour of a
visit from an active partner in one of the great Yorkshire firms which stand
so deservedly high among bar-iron makers. I mentioned this fact of
imperfect welding, and the consequent disintegration of bar-iron by simply
working it at a temperature below welding heat. My visitor laughed
outright at the possibility of such a thing happening to any bar-iron
that his firm had ever turned out. I said : "If you will wait while
one of my people goes to an iron warehouse in the town and purchases
a bar of your iron, I will convince you that I am right." Well, he
patiently waited until the bar was procured, and admitted at once
that the brand stamped on it was his own. A short length was then
cut from it and heated in his presence. It was put under one of
the rapidly-moving tilt hammers at that moment being used in forging
our bar steel at the same low heat. The result was that the Yorkshire
iron bar divided, under this simple treatment, for about a foot of its
length into a mass of fibres forming a veritable birch-broom, to the utter
astonishment of the manufacturer.
At the time when the two bars of 1-in. square iron, shown in Fig. 62,
Plate XXIV., were hammered, a similar bar of Bessemer mild steel was
treated at the same temperature under the same hammer. The illustra-
tion, Fig. 63, Plate XXV., shows how it simply became extended into
a flat undivided surface, without crack or rift in the material. These
examples of forging below a welding heat serve to show the imperfection
inevitable in all puddled or welded iron ; while the steel example also
shows the continuity of parts resulting from the Bessemer steel or homo-
geneous iron being formed into an ingot while the metal is in a fluid
state, hence producing an undivided and indivisible mass, however much
it may be hammered, hot or cold.
It will be readily understood how deeply interested I was in the
application of my invention to the construction of ordnance, and how
E E
210 HENRY BESSEMER
much I felt encouraged by the high appreciation of what I had achieved
by so competent a person as Colonel Eardley Wilmot. Although I saw
that there was an almost endless variety of applications in industry to
which this cheap and superior metal could be advantageously applied,
I nevertheless felt a strong desire to see it used in the manufacture
of guns. Its summary rejection at Woolwich, however, without even
a trial, furnished me with yet another proof of the utter foolishness
of relying on Government, and made me throw up all idea of following
that branch of manufacture as a speciality. With a still lingering desire
to put my material to the test of gun-making, I had looked pretty deeply
into the subject, in order to see what had already been done by others,
and how far the road was still open to me as a gun-manufacturer.
On searching at the Patent Office I found the specification of Captain
Blakeley, dated February 27th, 1855 ; in this specification, Captain
Blakeley described his invention as consisting of certain improve-
ments in the construction of ordnance, in which an inner tube or
cylinder of steel, gun metal, or cast iron, was enclosed in a case or
covering of wrought iron or steel, which casing was made in parts,
either shrunk on to a cylindrical tube, or forced cold on to a tube, the
exterior surface of which was slightly conical, so as, in either case, to
tightly grip the inner tube, adding materially to its strength and power
of resisting internal pressure. This casing, whether made of cast-iron
or steel, might itself be further supported or strengthened by one or
more outer layers of rings or hoops, also put on under tension. Here
we had clearly and distinctly laid down the vital principles embodied in all
modern built-up guns, in this and in other countries — that of external
compression of the inner tube by an outer one ; and, unless it can be
shown that this patent of Captain Blakeley was anticipated by a prior
invention, he must stand before the world as the originator and father
of modern built-up artillery. From this patent I saw at once that it would
be impossible for me to manufacture built-up guns having an internal
steel tube, without direct infringement. Captain Blakeley, at this early
period (February, 1855), had the sagacity to see that a steel tube or lining
was an indispensible condition of a perfectly built-up gun : not only because
of its homogeneous character and freedom from welded joints, and its
BESSEMER STEEL V. WROUGHT IRON 211
greater cohesive strength, but also because of its greater hardness and
power to resist the severe abrasion of its inner surface, caused by the
studs on the projectile moving along the rifled grooves under immense
lateral pressure. Although he knew that steel was the best possible
material for the lining of the gun, he, nevertheless, thought it prudent
to claim also the use of gun-metal and cast-iron, lest he should have
his invention evaded by the substitution of either of these last-named
homogeneous metals. He, however, evidently thought it unnecessary
to guard himself against the possible evasion of his patent built-up gun
by the substitution of a welded wrought-iron tube in place of a homo-
geneous steel one. This doubtless arose from his knowledge of the great
inferiority of wrought-iron, as compared with steel, for such a purpose,
and also from his practical experience, as an artillerist, of the searching
and highly corrosive nature of the intensely-heated powder gases, which,
sooner or later, find out and deeply corrode the numerous imperfectly-
welded joints inevitable in a wrought-iron gun tube.
The natural effects of corrosion on wrought-iron bars must have been
commonly observed. Take, as an example, an old pump-handle, and
see how the once smooth and even surface is eaten into deep grooves
and furrows by corrosion, commencing at, and following, all the lines
where the several parts, of which the bar is composed, are imperfectly
welded together. Or examine an old chain cable, the links of which
were made of smooth round iron rods, and see the indented shape it
has acquired, the once smooth surface of each link being grooved by
corrosion of the metal where the parts were imperfectly welded in the
original formation, even of the high-class iron used for cables. This
is the effect of water only on ordinary wrought iron. If any one
doubts the destructive effects of fluids more corrosive than water, let
him put a bright, well-finished piece of bar-iron into water containing
only one-tenth of its weight of sulphuric acid, and he will find that in
less than one hour he will have a perfect picture of the arrangement
of parts of which the bar is composed, showing all the imperfectly-
welded fibres, like a beautifully engraved map. What, then, must be the
result from the union of the oxygen in the saltpetre with the sulphur
in gunpowder, producing sulphuric acid gas, acting under enormous heat
212 HENRY BESSEMER
and pressure within the gun, and searching out and attacking all its
welded joints ?
In my search at the Patent Office, I also found the provisional
petition of Mr. William George Armstrong (afterwards Lord Armstrong),
dated February llth, 1857, being two years less sixteen days after the
patent of Captain Blakeley, which is dated, 27th February, 1855.
Annexed is a copy of Mr. Armstrong's provisional specification, issued
under the authority of the Commissioners of Patents : —
(This Invention received Provisional Protection only.}
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William George Armstrong at the Office of the Commissioners
of Patents, with his Petition, on the llth February, 1857.
I, WILLIAM GEORGE ARMSTRONG, of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, in the County of Northumber-
land, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of the said Invention for " Improvements
in Ordnance," to be as follows : —
The improvements relate, firstly, to forming guns with the internal tube or cylinder
of wrought iron or gun metal in one piece, surrounded by one or more cylindrical casings of
wrought iron or gun metal shrunk upon the internal cylinder.
It will be seen that this proposal of Mr. W. G. Armstrong differs
from the invention set forth in Captain Blakeley's prior patent, by
substituting a wrought-iron internal tube for a steel one. As I could
not lawfully make a built-up gun with collars or rings shrunk or forced
on to a steel tube, and as I had no intention of evading Captain Blakeley's
patent by using an inferior material for the inner tube of the gun,
I abandoned all idea of the manufacture of built-up guns, and contented
myself with supplying Captain Blakeley with steel tubes, or with forged
steel guns complete in one piece, with the trunnions formed thereon out
of the solid ingot. This manufacture I commenced as early as February,
1861; between that date and February 5th, 1863, I had manufactured
at my works in Sheffield no less than seventy forged steel guns for foreign
service, not one of which was ever returned to me, or was reported to be
in any way defective.
All these orders for guns came to me spontaneously, and were never
sought for by travellers, advertisements, circulars, or otherwise. But
not one gun, or gun-block, was ever ordered of me by the British
Government to test the qualities of this new steel, which at that period
BESSEMER STEEL V. WROUGHT IRON 213
was the subject of the deepest interest and most careful examination
by intelligent engineers in every State in Europe.
In the early part of the year 1859, the Bessemer Steel Works at
Sheffield had regularly embarked in the manufacture of high-class
steel for tools, and also for cutlery. For this purpose I had investigated
the whole question of the supply from abroad of pure charcoal pig-iron,
and had practically tried the famous Algerian iron from Bone and other
mines, and also Indian, Nova- Scotian, Styrian, and Swedish pig-irons.
Among the latter, I found on analysis, to my astonishment, that certain
brands of charcoal pig, which, when delivered in Sheffield, cost only
£6 to £7 per ton, were, when decarburised by my process, superior in
purity to some of the highest brands of Swedish bar-iron, costing in
Sheffield from £16 to £24 per ton. One Swedish brand of pig-iron in
particular, costing £6 10s. delivered in Sheffield, was capable of making
malleable iron by my process more pure than the far-famed Danemora
L bar-iron, worth £30 per ton in Sheffield, and with which particular
brand the small malleable iron gun which I exhibited in May, 1859,
at the Institution of Civil Engineers, was made. The analysis of this
by Mr. Edward Riley has already been given (page 182 ante).
It will be conceded that if we obtained malleable iron of this extreme
purity by my process, steel of very high quality could also readily be
produced from that particular class of pig-iron.
Thus fortified by practical working and by actual analysis, and
also by the purchase of a large consignment of this pure charcoal pig,
we laid ourselves out at the Sheffield works for the production of high-
class tool steel, which we put on the market at 15s. or 20s. per
hundredweight below the ordinary trade prices for this article. My
process, so admirably adapted for the production of large ingots, was not
so well fitted to make a great number of the 2f in. square ingots
generally used in the Sheffield steel trade for tilting into small bars,
which particular size of ingot had all its long-established trade rules
and prices connected with it. So we determined to convert our pig
into steel in large quantities, and to pour the converted metal into an
iron cistern filled with water, in order to granulate the whole charge,
and avoid all costs of moulds, casting, etc. By this means, and by the
214 HENRY BESSEMER
blending of different charges in definite proportions, we insured the
production of steel of any desired temper, or degree of carburation,
with an accuracy wholly unattainable by the old crucible system. For
it must be borne in mind that in the ordinary crucible process the steel
melter has to deal with bar-iron that has been subjected for several
days, in a very large closed box or chamber, to the action of charcoal
powder at a high temperature, during which treatment the iron bars absorb
about one per cent, of carbon, more or less, dependent on time and
on temperature. The amount of absorption depends also on the relative
positions of the bars in the converting-box ; hence, when the bars are
thus converted into blister steel, it is almost impossible that the ends
and the middle of any particular bar should be equally carburised,
or that bars occupying different positions should absorb an equal
quantity of carbon. After the withdrawal of the bars from the
converting - chest, they are broken into short pieces for the melting
crucible. Now the only mode of telling how far each piece of the broken
bars has been carburised is to examine the crystalline fracture by the
eye, and thus class and assort the various fragments for each quality
of steel. It is wonderful how accurately a clever practised steel melter
will judge of the state of carburation of the metal ; but his judgment,
after all, can only be approximate. Such visual determination is not
like measuring or weighing the constituents of a mixture. Crucible steel
is made in separate pots of from 40 Ib. to 50 Ib. each, and the steel
maker cannot afford to make forty-five separate quantitative analyses
of every ton of steel he turns out. Even if he could do so, after he
had made the metal into ingots, he would not be more secure, since he
could not alter the ingot when once cast. As a matter of fact, the
precise degree of carburation of each 50 Ib. of steel produced in the old
crucible process depended on the judgment of a man looking at the
crystallised fracture of each piece he put into his crucible ; and all
must agree that it is highly creditable to those engaged in this mere
guesswork that they got as near as they did to the quality required.
In the manufacture of tool steel, on the system which I laid down
at my Sheffield works, we entirely eliminated this source of inequality,
by dispensing with ocular examination of a crystalline fracture, which
BESSEMER STEEL MAKING AT SHEFFIELD 215
is subject to numerous modifications in character, from causes other
than its precise degree of carburation. We converted five tons of pig
iron at one charge, and having granulated it by pouring the molten
steel into a cistern of water, we had this quantity of shotted metal in
a condition that was still practically fluid as far as the power of
mixing was concerned. If each granule weighed, on an average, seven
grains, we had in our 50 Ib. crucible 50,000 separate pieces, the
precise degree of carburation of which had been ascertained by careful
quantitative analysis of the whole five tons, which analysis we could
afford to make — and did make — very carefully.
We produced, as nearly as practicable, three qualities of converted
metal, say A, with half per cent, of carbon, B, with one per cent., and
C, with one and a-half per cent. ; we also made pure iron upon which
we could absolutely rely. These four qualities, accurately analysed,
were kept in separate bins ; the analyst who gave the order to the
steel melter to make two or three tons of steel of any precise and
predetermined degree of carburation would, say for example, weigh
4l£ Ib. out of bin A, and put 8f Ib. from bin B into it, thus making
the 50 Ib. charge, always using the nearest of the three qualities
to the one required, and making it a little milder or a little more
highly carburised as desired. Most minute differences could thus, at all
times, be made with unerring certainty by the simple fusion in a
crucible of two metals, the carburation of which had, in each case, been
tested by careful analysis. The mixing of these accurately-ascertained
qualities in definite weights while in the granulated state resulted in
the production of a quality the exact mean of the known constituents
of the two qualities mixed. It gave a more certain and a more
accurate result than could possibly be obtained on the old system of
crucible steel-making, where judgment by the eye took the place of
accurate analysis and the weighing machine, as used in my system.
Hence it was an undeniable fact that we could, and did, produce
commercially crucible cast steel of great purity, and of any precise and
predetermined degree of carburation, with greater accuracy than was
obtained by the method employed to produce crucible steel in
Sheffield.
CHAPTER XVI
BESSEMER STEEL GUNS
course of events now brings me to an incident connected with
-*- Woolwich Arsenal, which I would fain pass over in silence, but,
if history is to be written at all, the historian must speak the truth.
In 1859 the firm of Henry Bessemer and Company, of Sheffield, had
qualified themselves to receive proposals to tender to Woolwich Arsenal,
for the supply of steel for cutting tools, and on June 3rd of that year,
we tendered unsuccessfully, under a form of contract sent by the War
Office, at the same price as we were obtaining from several first-class
engineers — namely, £42 per ton, the ordinary trade price in Sheffield
for such tool steel varying from £50 to £60 per ton. We tendered
again for another lot of tool steel on July 8th, at £40 to £42 per ton ;
again our offer was not accepted. We tendered also on September 5th,
at prices still lower, viz., from £32 to £40 per ton; and again, on
September 7th, for some bars at £40, and for some (the greater part)
at £32 per ton. But this low tender also failed to secure us the order,
and, as we could make the highest quality of tool steel by my process
from Swedish pig-iron at an extremely low cost, we were determined
on the next occasion to get the order, or know the reason why. On
December 7th, 1859, forms of tender were sent us for two different sizes of
steel bars, and we quoted as low as £20 per ton for each of them ; our
tender was then accepted for the first time, and we commenced at once to
make the steel. Bars of each quality were carefully tested by us in
our own works, so as to prevent the possibility of a single bar being sent
out of any but the very highest quality, my managing partner
personally taking charge of these special tests. This rigid inspection
at our works was considered by our firm to be absolutely necessary
in this case, because we felt assured that our former tender of £32 to £42
BESSEMER STEEL AT WOOLWICH 217
was far below that of any Sheffield house, although it was not accepted ;
hence our belief that the steel about to be sent would undergo the most
severe and rigid tests.
In due course the steel was delivered to the carriage department
at Woolwich Arsenal, as directed, but, after several days, we were
informed that it was useless, and that we must take it back. Now,
the conditions of the tender were such that the Government officials
were the sole judges of the fitness of the material, and had absolute
power of rejection if not satisfied with it. In case of the steel not
proving satisfactory, the Government had also power to purchase a
like quantity of any other manufacturer, and charge the difference in
price to the person whose steel was rejected. Thus the Government
could send back to us all the steel which had been tendered for at £20
per ton, and purchase a like quantity at £50 or £60, making our firm pay
the difference of £30 or £40 a ton. Under these circumstances I was
determined to investigate this matter for myself. I accordingly went
down to the Arsenal, and was shown into the office of the head of the
carriage department. I asked him in what way the steel was defective.
Before replying, he got up from his chair, opened a drawer, and took
out ten or dozen " chipping chisels," which were made, as usual, out
of an octagon bar of steel known in the trade as -JJ- in. "octagon chisel
steel." All but two of the chisels were broken ; they were very slender
and delicate, and had been a good deal punished by the prover's hammer.
Notwithstanding this, I was much astonished at such a result, and on
attentively examining the fractured parts I became convinced that they
were not made of the quality known as " chisel steel," which is invariably
used for this purpose. I then looked over the written contract that
had been sent to us, and found that among the specified shapes and sizes
of steel bars therein described, there was not one single bar of octagon
steel. I handed the list to the gentleman who received me, and asked
him to point out octagon steel, which, of course, he could not do. In
order that there should be no possible mistake on this point, I have
had the entry made by my clerk at the time, in his rough order book
at Sheffield, photographed, as shown in Fig. 64, thus furnishing unques-
tionable evidence of the absence of any octagon bars in the contract.
F F
218
HENRY BESSEMER
X^V y
yC, ^eu<^ 4£,
s ^ sr
'*-Tf&S^&0&-^
FIG. 64. PARTICULARS OF TOOL STEEL SUPPLIED TO WOOLWICH, 1859
BESSEMER STEEL AT WOOLWICH 219
On my pointing out the absence of octagon steel in the contract, the
gentleman touched the bell, and told the messenger to send the store-
keeper to him. On the arrival of this person, his chief said : " I told
you to make a dozen octagon chipping chisels, in order to test the
Bessemer steel, and now I find that we had not ordered any ; what
did you do ? " " Oh," said the man, " I gave out one of the larger bars,
and had it drawn down to octagon, and brought you the chisels."
Now, the nearest bar in size in the whole list that could be made into
| -in. octagon bars was in cross-section 3 in. by lj in., or more than six
times the area of the f in. octagon chisels made from it, and it was, as
the fractures showed, of much too hard and highly carburised a quality
to be made into chipping chisels ; not to mention the damage it
must have received from the excessive heating in a common black-
smith's forge. Instead of being tilted down to the proper size, as
in a steel works, it was worked with a smith's hammer by an ordinary
blacksmith, and not a steelsmith — a fact in itself enough to endanger
this highly carburised steel, which must not be overheated or "burnt."
Hence it must be clear that this so-called test of the quality of
Bessemer steel, supplied under this contract, was, even in the
case of chisel steel, no test at all of its quality. Under these
circumstances, any fair and impartial person would have apologised for
such a gross mistake and wholesale condemnation, and would have
said that the other bars should be carefully tested as to their
suitability for the several purposes for which they were required. But,
on the contrary, the chief, who never even pretended that any other
tests had been made, insisted on condemning the whole of the bars
embraced under this contract. I said : "I will take back the steel
which you have power under the words of the contract to reject so
unfairly, and will wash my hands of Woolwich for all time ; but
let me tell you that, having condemned this steel, it is your
duty to your employers to purchase an equal quantity of some other
manufacturer, and make our firm pay the £30 to £40 difference in
price. But this is just what you dare not do, because I should resist
such a claim, and that would bring the question into a Court of Law,
where your conduct would become known to the world." The whole
220 HENRY BESSEMER
of this steel was returned to our Sheffield works. We were at that
time regularly supplying this kind of tool steel to the most eminent
engineers in this country, among whom may be mentioned Sir Joseph
Whitworth, Messrs. Sharp, Stewart and Co., Sir William Fairbairn,
Messrs. Beyer, Peacock and Co., etc., who paid us £42 per ton for the
same quality for which we had quoted £20 per ton in the Woolwich
contract, in order to force the Arsenal authorities to accept it. Every
bar of this steel, so shamefully rejected at Woolwich, was marked
in the centre by a special punch, and sent as required to the eminent
firms above referred to, and not one of the bars was ever returned to
us or complained of.
In contrast with this summary rejection of Bessemer steel at
Woolwich, I may mention that we had, during the time when Colonel
Eardley Wilmot was Superintendent of the Royal Gun Factory, supplied
him with tool steel, which had given him every satisfaction. Indeed,
he was so pleased with it that, during the discussion which followed
the reading of my paper on May 24th, 1859, before the Institution of
Civil Engineers, he incidentally made the remarks which I reproduce
below from the printed Minutes of the Proceedings of the Institution.
He said : —
As regarded the steel, he had been using it for turning the outside of iron guns,
cutting off large shavings several inches in length, and he had fo\md none superior to
it, although much more costly. It was only necessary to witness the operation of the
manufacture by the Bessemer process, to be satisfied that the expense of converting the
pig iron into any of the products involved scarcely any cost beyond the labour, and that for
a very short period of time. And, as far as the price went, Mr. Bessemer had offered
to supply such sizes as it was worth his while to make, at the prices stated.
So exceptionally heavy were the cuts and sizes of the shavings he
referred to, that he placed on the table a box full of them, to show
their unusual character.
In the latter part of the year 1859 important changes in the control
and management of the Arsenal took place, and on November 4th
Sir William Armstrong was appointed " Superintendent of the Royal
Gun Factory for Rifled Ordnance." It was on December 7th of the
same year that Henry Bessemer and Company, as one of the authorised
BESSEMER STEEL FOR GUNS 221
contractors to the Government, supplied a quantity of tool steel at the
low price of £20 a ton, which was summarily rejected under the
circumstances before described. It was quite clear to me that neither
I, nor my steel, was wanted at Woolwich, and I made up my mind
to leave the place severely alone in future.
In the year 1858 we were getting fairly into commercial working
at Sheffield, and on September 8th of that year we supplied a first
sample order of steel boiler-plates to Sir William Fairbairn, of Manchester.
It was deemed desirable to communicate these facts to the world,
through the Institution of Civil Engineers, whose members could not fail to
be deeply interested in the production of a new kind of homogeneous cast
steel, having greater toughness and cohesive strength than the best wrought
iron, and at a cost considerably less than that of cast steel made by any
other known process. I, therefore, wrote a paper " On the Manufacture
of Malleable Iron and Steel," which was illustrated by many interesting
examples of the metal that had been subjected to various tests of the
most severe description. This paper I submitted to the Council of the
Institution about the end of December, 1858. It was accepted, and
read at a crowded meeting on May 24th, 1859.
Now, I had no intention whatever to ask Sir William Armstrong, as
a favour to myself, to adopt and use this wonderfully tough and rapidly
produced metal, for the manufacture of gun-tubes, in lieu of the weaker,
and much more costly, coiled iron employed by him for that purpose.
But, I felt that, notwithstanding the summary rejection of Bessemer
steel and Bessemer iron by Lord Herbert, it was a public duty which
I owed to my country to give him a further opportunity, both
of hearing and seeing what was daily being done with welded
masses of Bessemer iron and with Bessemer mild steel. I knew
that Sir William Armstrong had been, for several years, a member
of the Institution of Civil Engineers ; he was, when my paper was
accepted, also a Member of Council, and, therefore, was one of the
persons by whom all communications submitted to the Institution were
examined, criticised, and finally voted worthy — or otherwise — of being read
before a public meeting of their members, and of being published in their
Proceedings. In the ordinary course of events, my paper would, I knew,
222 HENRY BESSEMER
be examined by Sir William Armstrong, and that this would be so
appeared to me the more certain, because the careful and punctual
secretary, Mr. Forrest, was in the habit of sending the actual paper
that was to be examined to the private residences of all Members of
Council who might be absent from the Council meetings. It was also
his custom to invite important persons, who were supposed to be specially
interested in the subject, to attend and take part in the discussion which
follows the reading. Here again it seemed certain, if everything else failed,
that Sir William Armstrong would be invited to come and join in the
discussion of a subject in which he, as a paid servant of the State, must, or
should, take the deepest interest. It was in this way that Colonel Eardley
Wilmot was invited, and was present during the reading of my paper. But
the one man in all Great Britain who was — or who ought to have been —
most deeply interested in the subject, was not present at this important
meeting ; and thus I lost the unique opportunity I so much desired of
bringing before him, while in the presence of the most eminent engineers
of Great Britain, the proofs of the fitness of my metal for the construction
of ordnance. But, such was the impression made on the other members
of the Council of the Institution by the facts I brought before them,
and by the marvellous proofs afforded by the specimens exhibited, of the
value of this new kind of mild steel for constructive purposes, that they
voted me the Telford gold medal ; later, they made me a member of the
Institution, and they also, " as the originator of the greatest improvement
in the Iron Manufacture of Great Britain during the preceding five years,"
presented me with the Howard Quinquennial Prize, a massive gold
cup, intrinsically worth 120 guineas. Finally, when advancing years
rendered my duties as a Member of Council too arduous, they further
conferred on me the great and distinguished position of Honorary
Membership.
I will not trouble my readers with any lengthy abstracts from this
paper, but it may be of interest to show some important portions
of it. The following is one of the extracts referred to, which has been
reproduced from the report of my paper, and the discussion thereon,
printed by the Institution of Civil Engineers, and sent to all its
members.
BESSEMER IRON AND STEEL 223
In the early part of this Paper it was shown that the process of puddling unavoidably
introduces into the metal more or less cinder, and other mechanically-mixed impurities ;
also, that the different degrees of refinement and decarbonization of the numerous lumps of
metal which compose a puddle ball, render the production of a homogeneous mass, by that
means, a desideratum not yet achieved. It has likewise been pointed out how, in the
working of the other malleable metals, all these difficulties are avoided by casting the metal
in a fluid state into moulds. Now this is precisely what the Bessemer process proposes to
accomplish — that is, to bring malleable iron, or steel, into the same category with the other
malleable metals, and by its purification, in a fluid state, to avoid the diffusion of cinder
throughout the mass; so that when cast into an ingot, or into a single homogeneous mass
of any desired form, or size, a metal of equal hardness in every part may be produced,
without the necessity of welding or joining of separate pieces. That this can be accomplished,
is shown by the specimens exhibited. The iron bars of 3 inches square, which have been bent
and doubled-up cold, the twisted bars, and the collapsed cylinders which do not split, but
yield like copper to the blows of the hammer, prove this. If assurance be required, that
there are no hard ribs, or sand cracks, the examples of the malleable iron gun, or the iron
and steel cylinders may be taken. With reference to the tensile strength of iron bars, or
boiler plate, so made from English coke pig metal, the careful testing of plates made of
puddled iron, according to Mr. W. Fairbairn, has given an average of 45,300 Ibs. per
square inch for Staffordshire plates, 45,000 Ibs. for Derbyshire, and 57,120 Ibs. for Yorkshire
plates. Now, four samples of the Bessemer iron plate, tested at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich,
according to the report of Colonel Eardley Wilmot, gave an average of 68,314 Ibs., or
63,591 Ibs. as the least, and 73,100 Ibs. as the highest proof for boiler plates fths of an inch in
thickness. Here, then, is a result showing a greater amount of tensile strength above Low
Moor, or Bowling iron boiler plates, than those plates possess above the ordinary quality
of Staffordshire plates.
Here there is proof that Bessemer iron plates, tested at Woolwich
Arsenal by Sir William Armstrong's immediate predecessor in office,
gave an average tensile strength of 68,314 Ib. per square inch = 304 tons,
quite five tons over the best Yorkshire plates. Also, the fact is
demonstrated that this superior iron could be made from Swedish
charcoal pig iron at about one-half the cost of Yorkshire iron bars, and
that it could be made with great rapidity into masses oi any form ol
several tons in weight without welding.
Again I quote from the paper : —
In order to show the extreme toughness of such iron, and to what a strain it may be
subjected without bursting, several cast and hammered cylinders were placed cold under the
steam hammer, and were crushed down, without the least appearance of tearing the metal.
Now these cylinders were drawn from a round cast-iron ingot, only 2 in. larger in diameter
than the finished cylinder, and in the precise manner in which a gun should be treated.
They may, therefore, be considered as short sections of an ordinary 9-pounder field gun. Iron
224 HENRY BESSEMER
so made requires very little forging; indeed, the mere closing of the pores of the metal
seems all that is necessary. The tensile strength of the samples, as tested at the Royal
Arsenal, was 64,566 Ib. per square inch, while the tensile stress of pieces cut from the
Mersey gun gave a mean of 50,624 Ib. longitudinally, and 43,339 Ib. across the grain ; thus
showing a mean of 17,550 Ib. per square inch in favour of the Bessemer iron.
If it be desired to produce ordnance by merely founding the metal, then the ordinary
casting process may be employed : with the simple difference that the iron, instead of
running direct from the melting furnace into the mould, must first be run into the converting
vessel, where in from ten to twenty minutes it will become steel, or malleable iron, as may
be desired ; and the casting may then take place in the ordinary way. The small piece of
ordnance exhibited will serve to illustrate this important manufacture, and is interesting in
consequence of its being the first gun that ever was made of malleable iron without a weld
or joint. The importance of this fact will be much enhanced when it is known that
conical masses of this pure tough metal, of from five to ten tons in weight, can be produced
at Woolwich at a cost not exceeding £6 12s. Od. per ton, inclusive of the cost of pig iron,
carriage, re-melting, waste in the process, labour, and engine power.
It will be interesting to those who are watching the advancement of the new process to know
that it is already rapidly extending itself over Europe. The enterprising firm of Daniel Elfstand
and Company, of Edsken, who were the pioneers in Sweden, have now made several hundred
tons of excellent steel by the Bessemer process. Another large works has since started in their
immediate neighbourhood, and two other companies are making arrangements to use the process.
The authorities in Sweden have most fully investigated the whole process, and have pronounced
it perfect. The large steel circular saw-plate exhibited was made by Mr. Goranson, of Gefle, in
Sweden, the ingot being cast direct from the fluid metal, within fifteen minutes of its leaving the
blast furnace. In France, the process has been for some time carried on by the old-established
firm of James Jackson and Son, at their steel works, near Bordeaux. This firm was about to
go extensively into the manufacture of puddled steel, and indeed had already got a puddling
furnace erected and in active operation, when their attention was directed to the Bessemer
process. The apparatus for this was put up at their works last year, and they are now greatly
extending their field of operations by putting up more powerful apparatus at their blast furnaces
in the Landes. There are also in course of erection, four other blast furnaces in the South of
France, for the express purpose of carrying out the new process. The long and well-earned
reputation of the firm of James Jackson and Son is in itself a guarantee of the excellent quality
of the steel produced by this process. The French samples of bar steel exhibited were manu-
factured by this firm. Belgium is not much behind her neighbours in the race, as the process
is being put in operation at Liege. While in Sardinia preparations are being made to carry
it into effect, Russia has sent to London an engineer and a professor of chemistry to report
on the process, and Professor Miiller, of Vienna, and M. Dumas and others, from Paris, have
visited Sweden to inspect and report on the new system in that country.
These facts will serve to show how, on the Continent of Europe,
the fame of this new metal was spreading, and its manufacture extending.
It will be seen from the foregoing that Colonel Wilmot fully
STEEL-MAKING AT SHEFFIELD 225
corroborated what I have previously stated, and gave the results of
some experiments of his own with a mass of iron he happened to see
lying with other waste scrap at my works at Sheffield. This mass of iron
(see page 196 ante) he desired to be sent to Woolwich, and from it were
cut the two cylindrical pieces which he described to the meeting; he
proved that Bessemer pure iron, only slightly hammered, showed in the
proving-house a tenacity of 64,426 lb., or 28.76 tons per square inch.
Another year or more slipped away, almost unnoticed in the
ardour and excitement created by the rapid development and progress of
my invention. Our own works were crammed with orders for locomotive
double-throw cranks, which had hitherto been exclusively made at
Lowmoor, or at some other of the justly-celebrated Yorkshire ironworks,
but which were now being constructed of Bessemer steel. We were also
busy with plain engine and carriage axles, marine engine and screw-
propeller shafts, steel guns and gun blocks, locomotive engine and
carriage tyres, etc. Our works were daily engaged in superseding
welded Lowmoor tyres, and we were turning out, as fast as the mills
could roll them, mild steel weldless tyre-hoops from 4 ft. 6 in. to 5 ft.
in diameter, to be shrunk on to locomotive engine driving-wheels, and
also 3 ft. tyres for carriage wheels, of which many thousands were
ceaselessly running on our railways. All these hoops were tightly
shrunk on to the wheels with a firm grip, just in the same manner as
hoops are shrunk on to built-up guns. These thousands of hoops were
daily responsible for the lives of tens of thousands of passengers seated
immediately above them. Every train of twenty-five carriages would
have a hundred of these steel tyres supporting their heavy load of
wood and iron, and their still more valuable living freight, rushing over
the steel rails at a high speed, and tending, by their rolling motion and
heavy pressure at a single point of their circumference on the steel
rail, to become elongated and loosened from the wheel, a tendency
which this strong elastic steel most successfully resisted. It must be
borne in mind that the loosening of this firm grip on only one of these
hundred hoops, or the fracture of any one of them, might have
wrecked a whole train, and killed more people than the bursting of a
gun — an instrument that may be required to do duty for a few hours,
G G
226 HENRY BESSEMER
at intervals of many years, or, perhaps, never be used at all. That
these thousands of Bessemer steel tyres did not fail in constant
service, and did not lose their grip upon the wheels, furnished no
proof to those obtuse intellects who could only recognise the virtues
of welded iron. Bessemer steel hoops, so extensively used with the full
sanction of the eminent engineers of our British railways, found,
however, no favour at Woolwich or at Elswick. They were, nevertheless,
employed by Captain Blakeley, the original inventor of built-up guns,
and also by the Blakeley Ordnance Company of London, for the manu-
facture of built-up guns which were being made for Russia, and other foreign
governments, while Woolwich and Elswick were rapidly manufacturing
welded iron guns with welded iron hoops, for home use.
As a practical proof of how far weldless steel tyres would resist
fracture under the most severe trials, a locomotive engine-tyre, turned
and finished, was placed up on edge under a steam hammer, and received
blow after blow until its two opposite sides touched each other, when
its elasticity again allowed it to spring back a few inches. This large
tyre was thus formed into a long flat loop (see Fig. 65, Plate XXVI., in
which its dimensions are indicated by the foot-rule lying in front of it).
With all this ill-usage it showed no sign of cracking or fracture. This
tyre has for the last thirty -five years been exhibited in South Kensington
Museum, and is undeniable evidence of the toughness and endurance of
Bessemer steel under the most violent and abnormal strains. It also affords
a good example of the tough mild steel manufactured at our Sheffield
works at that early date.
In the summer of 1861, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers
held a provincial meeting at Sheffield, and, as a member of this Institution,
it was only natural that I should read a paper on the occasion of their
visit to the town where my steel works were located. I was still most
anxious that my own countrymen should use Bessemer steel for the
manufacture of ordnance : for this, as my readers are aware, was the
express purpose to which I had devoted myself for so long a period,
and striven so earnestly to accomplish.
The fact that I had succeeded in making a special mild steel, in
every way adapted for the purpose, was proved by a report of the
PLATE XXVI
H
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O
GUN-MAKING AT SHEFFIELD 227
Belgian Government, which had spontaneously applied to me to make
them a trial gun, thirteen months before the date on which I read my
paper before the Sheffield meeting : a meeting which was presided over
by Sir William Armstrong. This gun was made at our works, and
sent to the Fort, at Antwerp, on the 16th June, 1860, its receipt being
acknowledged in the following letter.
Brussels,
August 19th, 1860.
SIR,
I have the honour to inform you that the conical steel forging, rough
from the forge, which was manufactured in your establishment, and of which you advised
the shipment in your letter (stated in the margin), was received by the Commander of
Artillery, in the Fort of Antwerp. Being submitted to the examination of a commission
composed of officers of the cannon foundry of Liege, it was found to weigh 840 kilos, (equal
16 cwt. 2 qrs. and 22 Ibs.), and to be of good quality of steel.
Be pleased, Sir, to accept the assurance of my distinguished consideration.
(Signed) THE MINISTER OP WAR.
This gun-block was bored and finished under military inspection,
at Antwerp, and went through the regulation proofs in a perfectly
satisfactory manner. It was afterwards determined to bore it to a much
larger size, viz., 4.75 in. in diameter, suitable for 12-pounder spherical
shots, and to fire larger charges of powder and to increase the number
of shots, each of such additions being repeated three times, until the
gun should at last give way, the charges of powder rising from 2 Ib.
up to 6f Ib., and the shots from one to eight. On firing the second
round of eight shots the gun gave way, apparently by the over-riding
of the spherical shot.
I have annexed an accurate scale engraving of the gun as altered
to a 4.75 in. bore, suitable for 12-pounder spherical shot (see Fig. 66,
Plate XXVI.). In re-boring, the gun was reduced to 9£ cwt., only
about ten times the weight of the eight shot, the thickness of metal
at the breech being 2f in., and If in. at the muzzle. In fact, it was
little more than a mere gun lining, but it nevertheless afforded the
most incontestable proof of the extraordinary endurance of this metal
under conditions of extreme severity. The fact that the Belgian
Government should seek out a foreign manufacturer, and put this new
228
HENRY BESSEMER
material to the test, only makes it more extraordinary that our own
Government should have passed it by.
Nor was this Belgian gun an isolated case, for, up to the date of
which I am writing (Midsummer, 1861), several agents of foreign Govern-
ments had spontaneously applied to the Bessemer Steel Works, at Sheffield,
for steel guns. But our firm could not manufacture built-up guns with
a steel barrel or inner tube, because this would have manifestly been a
direct infringement of Captain Blakeley's patent of February, 1855; and
knowing that iron, in any welded form, would be vastly inferior to steel
for the inner tube of a gun, we declined to manufacture such an inferior
article, and confined ourselves to making simple solid-forged steel guns
FIG, 67. FORGED BESSEMER STEEL GUN WITH TEST PIECES
and gun-tubes. Up to this time we had 'supplied twenty-eight guns,
consisting of 12-, 18-, and 24-pounders, forged, and ready for the boring
mill, at £45 per ton, a price about three times their actual cost, but
still very considerably below that of crucible steel forgings.
I may here mention that every gun, after being forged by our firm,
had its quality tested in the following simple and practical manner.
The gun when being forged had a part of both ends drawn down
under the hammer, into a flat bar of some 12 in. or 15 in. in length
and 3 in. wide by 2 in. in thickness — this was our standard test. A
gun so forged is shown in the annexed engraving, Fig. 67. In this
illustration the view A shows the gun with these test pieces still
projecting from each end ; they were cut off and bent, when cold, into
OFTHF
([ UNIVERSITY
OF
PLATE XXVII
GUN-MAKING AT SHEFFIELD 229
the form shown in c, while B shows the gun-block ready to be turned
and bored. A group of these test pieces is reproduced to a scale of
half the actual size in Fig. 68, Plate XXVII., and this engraving —
prepared from a photograph — clearly shows how wonderfully these
pieces bore the enormous strain due to the cold bending of so large
a mass, the metal in each case bulging out laterally on the inside of
the bend, and contracting in width on the outside of it, thus supplying
the material forming the greater length of the outer surface. Notwith-
standing this interchange of parts, not a sign of tear or breaking is
visible in any one of their sharply-defined angles.
Mr. A. L. Holley's remarks on our steel guns, published in his
book on Ordnance in 1863, are subjoined, and form an independent
testimony to their value.
141. Bessemer Steel Guns. — The Bessemer process of making steel direct from the ore, or
from pig-iron, promises to ameliorate the whole subject of Ordnance and engineering construction
in general, both as to quality and cost. This product has not yet been used for guns to any
great extent, although Mr. Krupp, the leading steel-maker, has introduced it. Captain Blakeley
and Mr. Whitworth have also experimented with it, and expressed their faith in its ultimate
adoption. Messrs. John Brown & Co., Sheffield, have made over 100 gun-forgings, some
of them weighing above 3 tons, from solid ingots of this steel. During the present year,
their production of Bessemer steel will exceed 400 tons per week. With the two new con-
verting vessels then in operation, solid ingots of 20 tons weight can be fabricated. A large
establishment about to be started in London, with a 50-ton hammer, and a capacity to pour
30-ton ingots, will afford the best possible facilities for the development of this process.
As a point of special interest in connection with the paper I was
going to read at the Sheffield meeting of the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers, I determined to take strict account of the time occupied
in making, at my steel works, an 18-pounder gun, and to put the
finished weapon on the table in front of the Presidential chair. By
this means the Superintendent of the Koyal Gun Factory at Woolwich
could not help being placed in possession of all the facts and arguments
I was going to put forward in my paper, and which I intended should
be illustrated with plenty of actual specimens. I have reproduced here
pages 144 and 145 from the published Proceedings for 1861 of the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers, in order to show what words
Sir William Armstrong actually heard, and what facts were brought
230 HENRY BESSEMER
to his knowledge at that meeting, and also what mechanical proofs
of the marvellous toughness of Bessemer mild steel were placed on the
table immediately in front of him.
The special aim of the author during the first year of his labours, which throughout
the last six years has never been lost sight of, was the production of a malleable metal
peculiarly suitable for the manufacture of ordnance. By means of the process that has been
described solid blocks of malleable cast steel may be made of any required size from 1 to 20
or 30 tons weight, with a degree of rapidity and cheapness previously unknown. The metal
can also with the utmost facility be made of any amount of carburation and tensile strength
that may be found most desirable : commencing at the top of the scale with a quality of
steel that is too hard to bore and too brittle to use for ordnance, it can with ease and
certainty be made to pass from that degree of hardness by almost imperceptible gradations
downwards towards malleable iron, becoming at every stage of decarburation more easy to
work and more and more tough and pliable, until it becomes at last pure decarbonised iron,
possessing a copper-like degree of toughness not found in any iron produced by puddling.
Between these extremes of temper the metal most suitable for ordnance must be found ; and all
qualities are equally cheap and easy of production.
From the practice now acquired in forging cast steel ordnance at the author's works in
Sheffield it has been found that the most satisfactory results are obtained with metal of the
same soft description as that employed for making piston rods. With this degree of toughness
the bursting of the gun becomes almost impossible, its power of resisting a tensile strain being
at least 15 tons per square inch greater than that of the best English bar iron. Every gun
before leaving the works has a piece cut off the end, which is roughly forged into a bar of
2 inches by 3 inches section, and bent cold under the hammer in order to show the state
of the metal after forging. Several test bars cut from the ends of guns recently forged are
exhibited.
The power of this metal to resist a sudden and powerful strain is well illustrated by the
piece of gun muzzle now shown, which is one of several tubular pieces that were subjected
to a sudden crushing force at the Royal Arsenal, Woolwich, under the direction of Colonel
Wilmot ; the pieces were laid on the anvil block in a perfectly cold state, and were crushed
flat by the falling of the steam hammer, but none of them exhibited any signs of fracture
when so tested. Probably the best proof of the power of the metal to resist a sudden
violent strain was afforded by some experiments made at Liege by order of the Belgian
government, who had one of these guns bored for a 12 Ibs. spherical shot of 4f inches
diameter, and made so thin as to weigh only 9£ cwts. This gun was fired with increasing
charges of powder and an additional shot after each three discharges, until it reached a
maximum of 6| Ibs. of powder and eight shots of 12 Ibs. each or 96 Ibs. of shot, the shots
being thus equal to about one tenth of the weight of the gun. It stood this heavy charge
twice and then gave way at about 40 inches from the muzzle, probably owing to the
jamming of the shots. The employment of guns so excessively light and charges so extremely
heavy would, of course, never be attempted in practice.
Some idea of the facility of this mode of making cast steel ordnance is afforded by
the time occupied in the fabrication of the 18 pounder gun now exhibited, which was made
GUN-MAKING AT SHEFFIELD 231
in the author's presence for his experiments on gunnery. The melted pig iron was tapped
from the reverberatory furnace at 11.20 A.M., and converted into cast steel in 30 minutes;
the ingot was cast in an iron mould 16 inches square by 4 feet long, and was forged while
still hot from the casting operation. By this mode of treating the ingots their central
parts are sufficiently soft to receive the full effect of the hammer. At 7 P.M. the forging
was completed and the gun ready for the boring mill.
The erection of the necessary apparatus for the production of steel by this process, on a
scale capable of converting from crude iron enough steel to make forty of such gun blocks per
day, will not exceed a cost of £5000, including the blast engine; hence the author cannot
but feel that his labours in this direction have been crowned with entire success : the great
rapidity of production, the cheapness of the material, and its strength and durability, all
adapt it for the construction of every species of ordnance.
Sir William Armstong had thus another opportunity of seeing and
trying, if he chose to do so, a quality of steel which he himself told
the meeting that he had never tried ; a kind of steel that for constructive
purposes had attracted the serious attention of the most- eminent
engineers in every country of Europe ; a kind of steel invented and
perfected expressly for the manufacture of ordnance ; a kind of steel that
was much sought after abroad for military purposes, and from which
I had, up to that period, made twenty - eight guns for foreign
governments ; a kind of steel that could be made in masses of 5 to
10 tons in less than half an hour, at a cost of £10 per ton, if
made from pure Swedish charcoal pig-iron. These important facts were
not new facts — they were known to thousands of people. But this was
the one opportunity that was left, after many others had failed, when
by force of circumstances, I had Sir William Armstrong before me face
to face, and also in the presence of a public audience ; and I there made
him look at these things, and hear my statements, which were backed
with substantial proofs on the table before him, such as could not be
denied or set down as exaggerations. But my efforts were again entirely
fruitless.
In the early days of the Bessemer steel manufacture, many persons
who had no love for steel, and saw in it a most formidable rival to iron,
had with much perverted ingenuity raised a bogey to scare and alarm
the uninitiated. They asserted that although many splendid specimens
of steel were produced, the metal was very uncertain in its quality,
and reliance could not be placed on it, as it had the fault of failing
232 HENRY BESSEMER
unexpectedly. Like all other trade prejudices, or mere creations of the
imagination, this only required looking at steadily in open day, and in
the light of well-ascertained commercial facts, to show how hollow and
without foundation it really was. In fact, this crusade against steel was
entirely unsuccessful in influencing engineers who took the trouble to
inquire into the real facts. It did not prevent the use of thousands
of steel railway tyres, which, by their great superiority, rapidly dis-
placed the Lowmoor welded tyres previously almost exclusively relied on.
It did not prevent hundreds of steam boilers being made of Bessemer
steel for private establishments, nor did it stand in the way of
our locomotive engine-boilers being made of this material, in place of
the high-class Yorkshire iron previously used for that purpose. Those
clever people who set up this bogey of " uncertainty " in the quality
of steel, simply for self -protection, dared not assert that occasional
bars of bad iron were unknown in commerce. The same persons
who so strenuously advocated the building up of heavy masses of
wrought - iron could not pretend that the welding of many parts to
form a whole was exempt from uncertainty and failure. It was even
then a well-known fact that the welding of large masses of wrought
iron involved more risk and uncertainty in its results than any other
of the processes used in the manufacture of iron.
The question of the uncertainty in quality of the Bessemer mild cast
steel simply resolved itself into a question of cost, because the quality
was easily ascertainable in the earliest stages of its manufacture, and
thus the loss of working up bad material into a costly finished article
could be most easily avoided. To show this fact, I will take as an
example the production of a Bessemer steel gun-tube, suitable for a
40-pounder gun of 4.75 in. calibre. Such a forging would simply be a plain
solid steel cylinder, 8 in. in diameter and 10 ft. long, weighing 15 cwt.
and 20 lb., and, with a flat test piece formed on each end, it would
weigh 15|- cwt. A 10-ton converter would cast eleven ingots of 1 ft.
square, weighing 18J cwt. each, and if 3 cwt. were cut off the top end
of each of these ingots to ensure absolute soundness of the part
used, we should then have the requisite weight in each ingot to make
the gun-tube, and 3 cwt. of scrap metal worth something, but which
COST OF BESSEMER STEEL 233
may be discarded in this case. Now, if this forging, when tested by
bending the flat bars formed at each end for analysis, should turn out
not to be of the precise standard quality for use as a gun-tube, let
us see what would be the loss. The highest quality of Swedish
charcoal pig-iron would be used, costing from £6 10s. to £7 per ton
(say £7), and with a small quantity of ferro -manganese, the 10 tons of
steel ingots would not cost £10 per ton, and could be utilised for engine
or tender axles, steam engine shafts, piston rods, plates or other articles.
As the ingots were made of this pure Swedish iron, they could be
sold for more than than their prime cost, at a time when steel axles
and engine shafts, made from British iron smelted with coke, were sold
at £16 to £20 per ton. But suppose, for the sake of argument, and to
give no excuse for rejecting these figures, that 20 per cent, reduction was
necessary to ensure the ready sale of the ingots, there would then be a loss
of £20 on the 10 tons. Now, all experience showed that not one out of
every ten charges converted was made of the wrong quality, and it is
almost inconceivable that a converting-house could be so grossly mis-
managed as to make one charge out of every five of the wrong quality.
But if it had been so mismanaged, it would simply have diminished the
output of the converting house 20 per cent. ; and at a period when
railway bars made from British coke-iron were selling at £12 per ton,
such Swedish steel ingots would surely have realised £8 per ton,
entailing a loss of £2 on one-fifth of the steel made, thus bringing the
cost per ton of ingots up from £10 to £10 10s. per ton.
It must be borne in mind that this particular manufacture of
Bessemer steel had one most important element of certainty as to its
composition or quality not possessed by any other iron or steel known
in commerce at that period, viz., the contents of the converter when
poured into the casting ladle, and well stirred by the revolving agitator,
would cast ten separate ingots of a ton weight each that were absolutely
identical in quality, so that after testing one of them, the other nine
could be used with certainty. This absolute identity in quality was
unattainable by any other system : a fact which none of those persons
who watched with dismay the daily encroachment of steel on the domain
of iron were able to deny.
H H
234 HENRY BESSEMER
The 18-pounder gun exhibited on the occasion of Sir William Arm-
strong's visit to Sheffield sufficed to show that in the short period of eight
hours a gun-bock of forged steel could be obtained from pig-iron. The
gun-ends bent cold, which were placed on the table to illustrate rny paper,
bore testimony to the quality and toughness of the steel of which this
gun, and many others, had been made. Some of these I have already-
dealt with, and I have selected for illustration, in Figs. 69 and 70,
Plates XXVIII and XXIX, two more striking specimens from among
the number I displayed.
Month after month rolled on, and no application came from Woolwich
for any of the Bessemer steel, which Sir William Armstrong admitted
he had never tried for guns. Nevertheless, we continued making guns
to go abroad.
The managers of the International Exhibition of 1862, fully appre-
ciating the importance of this new steel process, allotted me a very large
space, measuring no less than 35 ft. by 35 ft., equal to 1225 square
feet area, with a free passage 8 ft. wide all round it. A photographic
reproduction of my exhibit is given in Fig. 71, Plate XXX ; it was
taken from an imperfect print made in the dark days near the close
of the Exhibition. It will be seen, however, that on a pedestal in front
of the central case is a rough forging of a 24-pounder gun with trunnions
formed out of the solid; inside the case is a finished 18-pounder gun, a
large and massive gun-hoop, etc., etc. There were also shown an
embossed steel shield, a star formed of bayonets, a group of revolvers,
cavalry swords and sheaths, military rifles, projectiles, a model breech-
loader, etc. On the external counter was placed a 4-inch diameter bright
steel shaft, 35 ft. long, in one piece, steel hydraulic press cylinders,
railway axles and carriage and engine tyres, a circular saw, 7 ft. in
diameter, every size of steel wire for ropes, steel bars and rods of all
sizes, and, in fact, an immense number of other interesting objects that
would fill a long catalogue.
The enumeration of these objects may seem commonplace enough
at the present day, but at that time they were undoubtedly marvellous
industrial results, and an immense excitement was caused by this display
of the new steel, which attracted engineers, ironmasters, and steel manu-
PLATE XXVIII
or THE
DIVERSITY
PLATE XXIX
PLATE XXX
Cl
«o
X)
ft
ce
H
fi
^
THE BESSEMER PATENTS 235
facturers from every part of Europe and America. Indeed, I exhibited
beautiful specimens of steel made, under my patents, both in France and
in Sweden.
I cannot refrain from comparing the small effect which my exhibit
made upon the stolid inertness and indifference ot the War Office,
with the results it produced on the active mind and business instincts
of one of the most important and most intelligent Lancashire engineers,
an employer ot some 5000 workmen. I refer to the late John
Platt, M.P. for Oldham, where his large works were situated. This
successful engineer visited the Exhibition on the opening day, and at
once grasped the importance of my steel process from an engineering
point of view ; he pointed out its value to some of the heads of depart-
ments in his own works, who made the same high estimate. Mr. Platt,
on the fourth or fifth day after the opening of the Exhibition, had a
long interview with me, and said that he himself, and nine of his immediate
friends and connections, wished to join in the purchase of one-fourth
share of my patent. It was very natural that I should entertain an
offer to recoup me for my large expenditure, and at the same time to
afford a handsome profit, thus avoiding some of the risks to which all patent
property is subject. But I had so strong a faith in the great future of
my invention — a faith based on proved facts — that I felt bound to decline
his offer, as I desired myself and my friend and partner, Robert Longsdon,
to retain the absolute control of the patents, and thus be able at any time
to raise or lower my royalties as I thought best. Mr. Platt, however,
approached me again on the subject a few days later, saying that he and
his friends were prepared to waive all right to control the patents so long as
I retained one half, trusting that in the interests of that half I should
do what was best for myself, and consequently what was best for them.
This proposal quite met with my approval, in principle ; that is, I was
willing to enter into a bond with these gentlemen to hand over to them
five shillings out of every pound paid to me by way of royalty by my
licensees, the patents, price of royalties, etc., being governed by myself
and my partner, Longsdon, just as though no such bond were in existence.
It therefore became only a question what the purchase price should
be. To fix this, these ten gentlemen met us by appointment at the
236 HENRY BESSEMER
Victoria Hotel, Westminster, about ten days after the opening of the
Exhibition. Mr. Longsdon left this delicate negotiation entirely to me,
and at the meeting I pointed out the peculiar difficulties we had met
to discuss. The thing to be purchased could neither be measured nor
weighed ; there was no analogous case to use as a guide or precedent ;
the patents might bring in a very large sum of money, or a
quibble of the law, or some other invention, might render them of little
value. Thus I had to propose a sum which might fairly be estimated
as a very profitable purchase for them, if all went well. At the same
time I was to realise a considerable present profit, while my future
action was wholly untrammelled, as my partner and I still retained
three-fourths of the whole property intact. Having thus briefly reviewed
the position, I said : "Gentlemen, we have thought this matter thoroughly
over, and I have come to a fixed resolution to accept a certain sum
in cash for this one-fourth part of the proceeds of my invention ; or,
otherwise, I will keep the whole and run my course uninsured. I must
therefore beg you to give me a distinct " Yes " or " No " to my offer. I
cannot haggle, for no one can demonstrate it is worth so much more
or so much less. I have fixed on an easily divisible sum among ten
gentlemen, which has all the advantages of round numbers. I have
fixed on £50,000 as the purchase price." Mr. Platt, who occupied the
chair, said : " We have heard your definite proposal, and if you will be
so good as to go into the adjoining room for a few minutes, we will
discuss your proposition, and give you a reply."
I then left the meeting ; after a lapse of not more than ten
minutes I was called back, when the chairman said they had talked
the matter over, and had unanimously agreed to accept my offer.
In the course of a few days, a formal and satisfactory document
was prepared by the joint industry of the solicitors on both sides, and
Mr. Longsdon and I were invited to dine with Mr. Platt and his friends
at the Queen's Hotel, Manchester. This was about three weeks after
the opening of the Exhibition. We had a very pleasant and friendly
dinner ; we were all mutually pleased with our bargains, and in a
bumper the company drank to the success of the new steel process, and
long life to the inventor, a toast to which I had ,the pleasure of
THE BESSEMER PATENTS 237
responding. Then came the formal reading of the bond, and its sig-
nature, after which there was still another interesting ceremony, which
was performed in a genuine Lancashire fashion, each gentleman producing
from the depth of his pocket a neat little roll of Bank of England
notes of the value of £5,000, which was handed to us in the proportion
of our respective shares, viz., £40,000 to myself and £10,000 to my
partner Longsdon. The meeting then broke up in a most cordial manner,
and the friendly feeling thus inaugurated was never for one moment
clouded by a single expression of dissent or dissatisfaction in the whole
ten years of our business intercourse, during which time I had the great
pleasure of handing over to my friends their 5s. in the £, amounting
on the whole to something over £260,000. As a further testimonial
of our mutual friendship and regard, Mr. Platt presented to Lady
Bessemer, in his name and those of our Manchester friends, a
portrait of myself painted by Lehmann, and exhibited in the Royal
Academy.
I have mentioned these facts because it is almost impossible to
conceive higher testimony to the value of my processes than this
purchase of a share of the invention with all its risks ; a testimony
which was justified by the results obtained, while our War Office
officials did not venture to purchase even a few ingots of our steel
sufficient to make half a dozen 40-pounder gun-tubes.
At last there came a time when the British Government aban-
doned welded-up iron gun-tubes, and they and Sir William Armstrong
parted company (on February 5th, 1863), the Government paying the
Elswick Ordnance Company £65,534 4s. as compensation for breaking
the contract with that Company, as well as paying the other sums
which are given at page 5 of the Report of the Select Committee on
Ordnance, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, July 23rd,
1863. The following copy taken from that Report accurately gives these
amounts.
The whole supply of Armstrong guns and projectiles has been obtained from the Royal
Arsenal at Woolwich and the Elswick Ordnance Factory.
1st. The sum of 965,117Z. 9s. Id. has been paid to the Elswick Ordnance Company
for articles supplied.
238 HENRY BESSEMER
2nd. After giving credit for the value of plant and stores received from the Company,
a sum of 65,534f. 4*. has been paid to the Elswick Ordnance Company as compensation
for terminating the contract.
3rd. The outstanding liabilities of the War Office to the Elswick Ordnance Company,
for articles ordered, amounted on the 7th May last to the sum of 37,143?. 2s. IQd.
The whole of these payments and liabilities amounts to the sum of 1,067,794?. 16s. 5d.
4th. The sum of 1,471,753?. Is. 3d. has been expended in the three manufacturing
departments at Woolwich on the Armstrong guns, ammunition, and carriages, making
altogether a grand total of 2,539,5 47 J. 17s. 8d.
On May 4th, 1862, Sir William Armstrong was examined by the
Select Committee on Ordnance, on which occasion the Right Hon.
William Monsell occupied the chair ; in reply to his question, No.
3163, Sir William Armstrong gave a somewhat lengthy description of
his system of making guns of coiled iron tubes, etc. He also gave his
reasons for not using steel instead of iron, which he admitted was too
soft for that purpose.
The reason which Sir William Armstrong gave to the Ordnance
Committee for not using the superior metal quite astounded me when
I saw the printed report of his evidence before that Committee. I read
it over and over again, each time with increasing astonishment ; a feeling
which will, I doubt not, be shared by every person who has read the
preceding pages.
The three quotations herewith reproduced are part of Sir William
Armstrong's evidence, as printed in the Report of the Select Committee
of the House of Commons, 1863.
From the very first I saw, and I still feel, that steel is the proper metal for the barrel
of a gun, if it can be obtained, and my only reason for not persevering in the use of steel
was the difficulty of getting it of suitable quality. There can be no question that wrought
iron is too soft, and that brass is still more objectionable than wrought iron, and if we can
only obtain, with certainty and uniformity, steel of the proper quality, there can be no question
as to the expediency of using it.
5004. Then, in speaking in the answer to which I have referred you, of " the gun witli the
barrel of steel," you did not intend to rely on that as the difference between the two guns ? — I
merely stated it as the fact. We could not get steel suitable for the barrels ; the steel was not
to be had ; I would have used it without hesitation if I could have got it. I am quite sure
that no patent Captain Blakeley held would have been adequate to prevent my using steel.
5007. Then am I right in inferring, that your system of construction " as it was then and is
now," involved an internal lining of steel, with twisted cylinders of wrought-iron tightly con-
BESSEMER STEEL FOR GUNS 239
tracted ? When the steel is to be obtained. I do not think I can possibly be more explicit than
I have been already ; I have stated that if the steel can be obtained, it is unquestionably the best
material, and it is the proper mode of construction ; but if steel cannot be obtained, the alternative
is to use coils for the barrels.
It was only natural that I should be astonished at such a declaration,
for I could not forget the numerous proofs of the fitness of Bessemer
mild steel, which I had given to Sir William Armstrong's immediate
predecessor, Colonel Wilmot, at Woolwich ; nor could I forget the display
I had made of crushed gun-tubes, the malleable iron gun produced, in
one piece without weld or joint, and other examples of steel, on the
occasion of the reading of my Paper on the manufacture of iron and
steel, at the Institution of Civil Engineers ; to say nothing of the indis-
putable proofs of the suitability of Bessemer mild steel for the manufacture
of ordnance, brought before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers at
their meeting at Sheffield, on July 31st, 1861.
With regard to the reasons assigned by Sir William Armstrong, in
his evidence before the Ordnance Select Committee, for persisting in
the use of welded-iron gun-tubes, I must remain absolutely silent ; such
admissions and declarations as he there made do not admit of discussion,
and hence I dismiss for ever this unsatisfactory episode in the long
struggle I had maintained to induce the British Government to avail
themselves of the immense advantages which my invention offered.
In closing this portion of my history, I have the satisfaction of
feeling that I have done my duty to my country, untainted by personal
and selfish motives ; and in this hard struggle I have had the satisfaction
of seeing the survival of the fittest successfully demonstrated by the
universal acceptance of mild cast steel for the construction of ordnance.
CHAPTER XVII
CAST STEEL FOR SHIPBUILDING
A MONG the almost endless variety of useful purposes to which
•£**> Bessemer mild cast steel has been applied, there is none more
important than its employment in the construction of steam ships for
the conveyance of passengers and merchandise, and also of ships of war
and fast cruisers. The great strength of this material, as compared
with the best brands of iron ; its even and homogenous character ; its
great power of elongation before rupture ; and its unequalled amount of
elasticity under severe strains ; all combine to form a material not only
admirably adapted for the plates, beams, and angles of the ship itself,
but equally suitable for the construction of her masts and spars, her
boilers and her machinery ; and for the still more important manufacture
of the heavy armour-plates necessary to protect ships of war from the
assaults of the enemy.
From a very early period I had become deeply impressed with
the importance of the application of my new steel to shipbuilding, and
my first impulse was naturally to try and force my own conviction
on the British Admiralty, and induce them to employ it in the con-
struction of ships of war. But the remembrance of my treatment at
Woolwich came upon me as a warning, for there I had given, at much
cost and labour to myself, the most irrefutable proofs of the perfect
applicability of my mild steel to the manufacture of ordnance, and all
these proofs had been overlooked and thrown aside by the Minister of
War in favour of an inferior substitute for steel. This experience deter-
mined me not to be foiled a second time by attempting to convince
the " How-not-to-do-it " Government official. 1 therefore preferred to
await the more certain and -reliable action of mercantile instinct.
Private shipbuilders, I had no doubt, would soon find out the merits
BESSEMER STEEL FOR BOILER PLATES 241
of steel, and feel a personal interest in its adoption. Boiler-makers, I
also felt assured, would recognise its value, and use it instead of iron,
many years before the Admiralty officials would wake up and become
conscious of the advantages it possessed over the weaker material. Nor
did I have long to wait for the verdict of practical men on the value
of Bessemer mild cast-steel plates, as applied to the construction of
steam boilers ; an application which in itself is a sufficient guarantee of
their high quality, and their superiority over plates made of the highest
brands of British iron. Every person connected with the iron trade
is well aware that the articles known to the trade as boiler-plates
are superior in quality to those known as ship-plates ; in fact, iron
ships were never built with the high-class iron used for boilers.
I have already stated that, on the occasion of the Institution of
Mechanical Engineers holding one of their annual meetings at Sheffield,
in July, 1861, under the presidency of Sir William Armstrong, I read a
paper on " The Manufacture of Cast Steel and its Application to Con-
structive Purposes." I now refer again to that paper, simply to quote
a few lines from the speeches made in its discussion, by two eminent
practical Lancashire engineers, in order to show what had been done
up to that early date in the application of the new steel to the construc-
tion of steam boilers. This discussion, be it observed, took place no
less than fourteen years prior to the date on which Sir Nathaniel
Barnaby, then the Chief Naval Architect at the Admiralty, read
his paper before the Institution of Naval Architects, in which he
criticised adversely the use of Bessemer steel plates for shipbuilding and
boiler-making. Hence it will be interesting to see how far this material
had already been employed for boiler-making.
At this meeting of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers above
referred to, Mr. Daniel Adamson,* the well-known engineer and manu-
facturer of steam boilers, whose works were at Hyde, near Manchester,
exhibited some beautiful specimens of deep and difficult flanging in
some fire-boxes for locomotive boilers. Mr. Adamson said he had
already used 200 tons of boiler-plates made from the new steel, and
* Died January 13th, 1890.
I I
242 HENRY BESSEMER
was about to procure a further supply of 70 tons. He found the
metal of excellent quality, and of regular character throughout, and
it was an admirable material for working. The flanged fire-box plates
shown were duplicates of a number that he had used in the manu-
facture of boilers for very high pressure, with the most satisfactory
results. The metal flanged beautifully, and was like copper in this
respect,* but with the advantage that it was not so liable as copper
to be damaged by overheating. He could fully confirm the statements
given as to its strength, having tested it severely. As a precaution
every plate had been ordered with a 1-in. margin all round, which
was sheared off, and bent double, as a test of the quality of the plate.
The metal was found to stand this test well, and bent double, like the
specimens exhibited, without cracking at any part of the surface.
The other engineer referred to, who took part in the discussion of
my paper, was Mr. William Richardson, the active practical partner
in the firm of Messrs. John Platt and Company, Engineers, Oldham,
in which firm Mr. Richardson had, for over twenty years, the direction
and supervision of some five thousand workmen. In the course of the
discussion on my paper, Mr. Richardson said, " He had made trial
of the Bessemer steel plates for some time in boilers at Messrs. Platt's
works at Oldham, where, some years ago, a higher pressure of steam
was adopted than was then usual. At that time they frequently found
distress at the joints of the boilers, and had adopted double riveting ;
the furnace plates were frequently blistered, though of a good make
of iron. Subsequently three boilers were made of plates of ' homogeneous
metal/t which had been at work three years, but since the Bessemer
steel had been produced at a cheaper rate and equally reliable in strength
and quality, they had used it extensively, and had now six boilers con-
structed of the new plates. They had no more trouble from blistered
plates and strained joints, while a great saving was effected, owing to
the reduced thickness of the metal requiring less fuel to produce the
* Copper is thus frequently referred to by metallurgists as an example of extreme
toughness.
t A beautifully tough, but very expensive kind of iron, made of charcoal bar-iron melted
in crucibles, and first introduced by Messrs Howell and Company, of Sheffield.
BESSEMER STEEL FOR BOILER PLATES 243
same heating power. * * * They had had only two years' experience of
the new plates, but during that time the results had proved thoroughly
satisfactory."
This latter remark of Mr. Richardson shows the high opinion
formed, from personal observation, of the new steel, at least two years
prior to the date at which it was spoken. Thus, as far back as July,
1859, Mr. Richardson had erected, at the works of Messrs. John Platt,
of Oldham, no fewer than six Bessemer steel boilers, of 6 ft. 6 in. in
diameter by 30 ft. in length, each having one flue-tube of 3 ft. 10 in. in
diameter, with plates •£$ in. thick, and working at a pressure of 85 Ib.
per square inch.
These facts will serve to show the high reputation acquired by these
mild cast-steel plates, even at this early period : a reputation that steadily
increased throughout the country, and which, in the early part of 1863,
had so fully convinced the firm of Messrs. Jones, Quiggins, and Company,
shipbuilders, of Liverpool, of the suitability of steel as a shipbuilding
material, that they determined to put it to a practical test by building a
small steam-ship. For this vessel the firm of Henry Bessemer and
Company, of Sheffield, produced the steel, which was afterwards rolled
by Messrs. Atkins and Company, of Sheffield, this being the first of
many extensive orders given us by this enterprising firm for the Bessemer
mild cast-steel ship-plates.
I am indebted to the Chief Surveyor of Lloyd's for the following
list of Bessemer steel ships, classed by them during the years 1863,
1864 and 1865.
Name of Vessel. Tonnage. Built in
Screw steam-ship, "Pelican" ... ... ... 329 ... 1863
Screw steam-ship, "Banshee" ... ... ... 325 ... 1863
Screw steam-ship, "Annie" ... ... ... 330 ... 1864
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Cuxhaven" ... ... 377 ... 1863
Sailing-ship, " Clytemnestra" ... ... ... 1,251 ... 1864
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Kio de la Plata" ... 1,000 ... 1864
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Secret" ... ... 467 ... 1864
Screw steam-ship, "Susan Bernie" ... ... 637 ... 1864
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Banshee" ... ... 637 ... 1864
Screw steam-ship, "Tartar" ... ... ... 289 ... 1864
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Villa de Buenos Ayres" 536 ... 1864
S/Tv
244 HENRY BESSEMER
Name of Vessel. Tonnage. Built in
Sailing-ship, "The Alca" 1,283 ... 1864
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Isabel" ... ... 1,095 ... 1863
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Curlew" ... ... 1,095 ... 1865
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Plover" ... ... 410 ... 1865
Screw steam-ship, "Soudan" ... ... ... 184 ... 1865
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, "Midland" ... ... 1,622 ... 1865
Paddle-wheel steam-ship, " Great Northern" ... 1622 ... 1865
At the time when the " Clytemnestra," a steam sailing-ship of
1,251 tons, was in course of construction, it was found by the builders
that want of capital would prevent it being finished, and result in the
shutting-up of the shipyard. I was so anxious that the application of
my new steel to shipbuilding should not receive a sudden check, that I
was induced to lend the firm £10,000, to put their financial affairs in
order. This, however, did not effect the desired object, and, unfortunately
for me, the prior claims of secured creditors converted my loan into an
absolute loss. It had, however, one good effect ; it enabled the firm
to continue for a while ; and by the end of 1865 no less than eighteen
steel ships, aggregating 13,489 tons, had been built of Bessemer steel,
classed at Lloyd's, and duly placed on the Register. Every person con-
nected with shipping is fully aware that the careful examination of Lloyd's
experienced surveyors is an absolute guarantee of the strength and
structural good qualities of all ships passed by them. But these steel
ships had more than the ordinary credit of going through this ordeal,
for, on a thorough investigation of the whole subject, Lloyd's surveyors
became so satisfied of the much greater strength and reliability of
Bessemer steel, compared with ordinary commercial iron ship plates, that
they considered it unnecessary for shipbuilders to use the same thickness
of steel that was required for iron ; therefore, they permitted a reduction
of 20 per cent, to be made in the weight of steel used in the con-
struction of every steel ship : a concession of vast importance for high
speed or great carrying capacity. Thus, if a ship of certain size and form
would require say, 1,000 tons of iron for the construction of its frames
and shell, Lloyd's would give the same class to a steel ship of precisely
the same form and dimensions, containing only 800 tons of steel, and
therefore capable of carrying 200 tons more merchandise than could an
STEEL FOR SHIPBUILDING 245
iron ship of the same form and size. It is difficult to conceive a higher
testimonial to the strength and fitness of Bessemer steel for shipbuilding
than is afforded by this reduction of 20 per cent, by Lloyd's. Prior to
the construction of steel ships at Liverpool, in 1863, I had introduced
the last of the important improvements in my steel process, by inducing
Mr. Henderson, of Glasgow, to manufacture ferro-manganese for me, so
as to produce steel of exceptional mildness for plates and rivets. Hence,
at that date, 1863, Bessemer steel was regularly made of as high a
quality as it ever has been, or can be, made. Thus I established
my claim to have successfully introduced the use of mild cast steel
for the construction of ships of every class and description no less
than thirteen years prior to the construction of the first Siemens-Martin
steel-built ship, the sailing vessel " Stormcock," 466 tons, built in 1878,
and registered at Lloyd's.
It will be seen from the foregoing that I had formed a pretty
accurate estimate of the inertness and inactivity of the British Admiralty,
when I decided on not wasting my time in endeavouring to awaken
them to a sense of the vast national importance of employing mild cast
steel for shipbuilding.
Private shipbuilders and shipowners had, as I felt assured they
would, availed themselves largely of the many advantages possessed
by this material, and had set an example of alertness and activity to the
officials of the Admiralty, an example which they wholly disregarded.
Thus, year after year rolled by, and still there were no signs of the
Admiralty waking up to the consciousness of the great metallurgical
revolution that was rapidly spreading over Great Britain and the whole
continent of Europe, and that had already extended in full force to the
energetic people of the United States. In fact, everywhere steel was
replacing iron for innumerable structural purposes, varying from viaducts
and bridges of large span, down to such small items of domestic hardware
as milk-cans and saucepans.
After ten years of indifference on the part of the Admiralty, it was
discovered that, notwithstanding the fact that the Bessemer process was a
British invention, the more active and more enterprising officials of the
French Admiralty had fully recognised the value of steel for the con-
246 HENRY BESSEMER
struction of ships of war, and that the French Government were far
advanced with the large iron-clad, "Redoubtable," then being built of
steel at L' Orient, and that they were also pushing forward two other
large steel vessels of war, the " Tempete" and the " Tonnerre," which were
then being built of steel in French ports. When this important fact
came upon our quietly-sleeping Admiralty officials, then, and not until
then, did they rub their eyes, and wake up sufficiently to recognise their
position. They knew that this important fact could not long be concealed
from the public press, and would thus come to the ears of John Bull,
who is apt to demand a scapegoat when he finds that his country has
allowed itself to be beaten in the race with other nations. Possibly
it was felt by the Admiralty that some reason or other ought to be
advanced for their not having commenced to build a single steel war ship,
while our nearest neighbour had nearly completed three magnificent steel
ironclads. Whether this surmise be accurate or not, it is certain that, with
the consent of the Admiralty, Sir Nathaniel Barnaby, then the Chief Naval
Architect of the Royal Navy, read, in 1875, a paper on " Iron and Steel for
Shipbuilding," before the Institution of Naval Architects, in which paper
the alleged " uncertainties and treacheries of Bessemer steel in the form
of ship and boiler plates" were explained to the public. This compre-
hensive summing up of the uncertain quality and undesirable characteristics
of the material was still further emphasised by Sir Nathaniel Barnaby
holding up to the meeting an isolated example of the failure of a thin
piece of plate metal, said to be a part of a Bessemer steel ship-plate,
which had cracked when it was bent to a very small angle. As repre-
sented in Fig. 72, Plate XXXI., this shocking example proved too
much ; it was, in fact, so bad a plate that, if originally made of such an
unheard-of quality, it could never have been either rolled or sheared
in the makers' works without proclaiming its utterly valueless character
to every workman engaged in its manufacture. It must not be forgotten
that it is physically impossible for the Bessemer process to produce a
single isolated plate of such a bad quality, for the simple reason that
Bessemer steel is never made in less than 5 -ton batches, every part
of each "blow" being equally good or bad. Now, after deducting
20 per cent, for waste in shearing, these five tons of homogeneous
PLATE XXXI
FIG 72. ALLEGED FAULTY BESSEMER PLATE, 1875
STEEL FOR SHIPBUILDING 247
fluid steel will produce twenty-three ship-plates, 8 ft. long by 3 ft. wide
and f in. in thickness. All of these twenty-three plates must, therefore,
be equally good or bad, so that one bad plate alone could not be
made, though any number of good plates may be spoiled by an ignorant,
careless, or designing workman. The exhibition at a public meeting of
such an unheard-of specimen of steel plate, and the proclamation of the
" uncertainties and treacheries " of Bessemer steel, together with other
damaging statements, by a person holding high authority, compels me
to discuss the above-named paper at some length, and in justice to myself,
to show that Bessemer steel is now and was then, in reality, a metal
immensely superior to ordinary puddled iron, and that the example
exhibited at the meeting in no way represented its true character and
properties.
In order to clearly understand this question of bad plates, it is
important to bear in mind that the iron plates used by shipbuilders were
infusible in any of the heating furnaces that were to be found in ship-
yards at that date. Hence an iron plate worker could leave an iron plate
in the furnace, and make it very hot with impunity. But cast steel, as
its name implies, has undergone fusion, and if ever it again be subjected
to an unnecessarily high temperature, approaching its point of fusion,
its molecules rearrange themselves, and the valuable qualities conferred
on the cast ingot by hammering and rolling are lost in proportion to the
amount of overheating it may have been subjected to ; so that, at a
temperature quite possible to be given to it by a careless or ignorant
workman, it becomes almost like the normal unwrought ingot from which
it was formed. But this property of cast steel is so well understood by the
practised steel-smith that he will pass hundreds of plates, or other articles,
through any of the processes of heating in the furnace, tempering,
hardening, or annealing, without the smallest injury to any one of them.
It is the unpractised iron- worker, who does not understand the properties
and mode of working steel, who makes mistakes of this kind.
It must also be observed that neither at the date about which I
am writing, nor at any subsequent date, has it been possible to make
cast steel which could not, either by ignorance, carelessness, or design,
be rendered unfit for use by overheating it. Such liability to damage
248 HENRY BESSEMER
is not peculiar to steel made by the Bessemer process, since this quality
is common to cast steel, however manufactured. When the molten
cast iron in the Bessemer converter has been decarburised by blowing
air through it, and has been poured into an ingot mould, the Bessemer
process is complete ; and such an ingot, like every one made in crucibles,
or by the Siemens or open-hearth process, may be treated properly
and make an excellent plate, or it may be treated improperly and
be rendered worthless. The Bessemer process, like all others, may
also make bad steel, if raw material of inferior quality be used in its
manufacture. Sir Nathaniel Barnaby neglected to use the most perfect,
and, at the same time, the only possible, means at his disposal of proving
beyond dispute if the particular piece of plate, which he held up to the
meeting, owed its bad quality to the Bessemer process, or to improper
treatment after it had left the converter in a pure state. If he had had
this sample of steel carefully analysed before he condemned it publicly, he
and his audience would have known whether it contained such an amount
of phosphorus, sulphur, or any other deleterious matter, as would account
for the extraordinary cracking at so slight an angle, or whether the
steel was free from these deleterious matters ; or if it was of excellent
quality when it left the converter, and had been spoiled afterwards by
its treatment in the shipyard. Unfortunately, nothing was told us in
this incomplete paper as to how, or by whom, this little sample was
prepared for exhibition. Was the workman who made it a steel-smith,
or was he an iron-worker, ignorant of the nature and proper treatment
of cast steel?
If an actual plate, which had failed in the course of shipbuilding,
had been shown at the meeting, it would have been much more satisfactory
than a sample-piece, by whomsoever made, and such an actual plate could
have been most easily produced, if such plates were common enough to
justify what was said of the material in Sir Nathaniel Barnaby's paper.
In the early part of this paper, the author damned Bessemer steel with
faint praise ; he said, " No doubt, excellent steel is produced in
small quantities by the converter." Quite so ; the small quantity of
Bessemer steel made in England alone was, during the year in which
this paper was read, over 700,000 tons, or more than one hundred times
STEEL FOR SHIPBUILDING 249
the total production of cast steel in Great Britain prior to the introduction
of the process. These 700,000 tons were worth £6,000,000 or £7,000,000
sterling ; so that the great commercial importance that Bessemer steel
had attained at the date when Sir Nathanial publicly denounced it as
a treacherous material, could not be hidden by calling it a "small
quantity" Or did Sir Nathaniel Barnaby desire his hearers to understand
that only very little of this 700,000 tons was good steel ? One per cent,
of this small quantity would have supplied the Admiralty with 7000
tons, or enough to build two of the largest ships of war ever — up to
that time — constructed ; so the smallness of the quantity was no excuse
for not using it.
Again, Sir Nathaniel Barnaby said : " Our distrust of it is so
great that the material may be said to be altogether unused by private
shipbuilders, except for boats, and very small vessels, and masts and
yards." This statement was absolutely unwarranted.
We were also told that " Marine engineers appear to be equally
afraid of it." Every Englishman who reads this will be surprised at
this confession of want of courage, on the part of our marine engineers.
However this may be, it was very gratifying to know that we had
among us eminent practical engineers in Great George Street, who had
the courage »of their opinions, and under whose sanction and advice
hundreds of thousands of tons of Bessemer steel were at that time
being used for structural purposes. At the meeting, when this paper
was read, there was present Mr. Francis William Webb, the well-known
Chief Mechanical Engineer of the London and North- Western Railway,
who was kind enough to bring for exhibition several test-pieces illustrative
of the tests to which every plate of the locomotive boilers made under
his supervision at Ore we was subjected before it was used. These
test-pieces consisted of strips of boiler-plate, doubled up quite into close
contact while cold ; and other pieces of plate, each having a hole f in. in
diameter punched into it, which hole was then expanded or " drifted "
out to 2J in. in diameter, by driving a conical punch or " drift," with a
hammer, into the small hole first made.
Mr. Webb told those present at the meeting, that in their testing-
house at Ore we they had 11,000 sets of these test-pieces, all duly
K K
250 HENRY BESSEMER
stamped and numbered, each one referring to a corresponding number
stamped on 11,000 Bessemer steel plates that had been worked up into
locomotive boilers at Crewe, all of which had stood the ordeal of these
bending and "drifting" tests. Further, he said that Bessemer steel
had entirely superseded iron plates for boiler-making at Crewe, although
his company had previously bought the best iron that could be found
in this country. He also said that the London and North- Western
Railway Company had, at the time this paper was read, no less than
three hundred locomotive boilers in daily use, and that they were
building at Crewe rather more than six steel boilers every week. All
the steel plates were punched and worked, and then flanged into various
shapes with steel hammers ; they were not tickled with copper hammers,
as Sir Nathaniel Barnaby had told his audience was a necessary
precaution in French shipbuilding.
I may add that the London and North- Western Railway Company
had, at that date, established extensive Bessemer steel works at Crewe, and
made their own steel ; thus demonstrating what could be accomplished
for a great commercial company, advised by a thoroughly practical
engineer, not given to fear and doubting.
Now, I would ask any reasonable man what there was to prevent
the Admiralty from using such a simple and infallible mode of testing
every steel plate brought into the shipyard, the responsible officials
thus assuring themselves, beyond the possibility of doubt, that every
plate in their ships was of the high standard quality contracted for,
and so ending all the ridiculous suspicions of the treacherous nature
of a material that was being daily used so successfully ? The simple
mode of testing used by the London and North- Western Railway
Company in 1875 is illustrated by Fig. 73, where (1) shows the irregular-
shaped plate as it leaves the rolls ; (2) shows it when sheared on three
of its sides, a dotted line indicating where the fourth side is to be
sheared ; and (3) shows the plate sheared on all four sides. Now, if
the Admiralty had ordered every plate delivered to them from the steel-
maker to have one side left unsh eared, as shown in (2), their own people
could have sheared this one side, and cut three pieces, numbered respectively
5, 6, and 7, as marked on the sheared-off piece shown on an enlarged scale
TESTS OF BESSEMER STEEL BOILER PLATES '
251
at (4). Having done so, the prover would have taken (5) and hammered it
into close contact while quite cold, as shown in (8); he might then have
taken the piece marked (6), made it red-hot, and while at the proper
3.
8.
9.
FIG. 73. SYSTEM OP TESTING BESSEMER STEEL PLATES ADOPTED AT CREWE BY
MR. F. W. WEBB
temperature for working, hammered it into close contact, as shown in
(9) ; these two tests would have proved or disproved the workable
quality of the plate, both hot and cold. The piece marked (7) would
252 HENRY BESSEMER
then have had a f-in. hole punched in it, and a conical steel plug, or
" drift," would have been driven into this hole until it was expanded
to a given standard size, as shown at (10) ; this would have proved
whether the plate would, or would not, bear punching. Any failure
to stand these three usual tests would have justified the return of the
plate to the manufacturer, and thus no loss would have been incurred by
the Admiralty. With the certainty of perfect safety which these proofs
afforded, the London and North -Western Railway Company, acting
under the advice of their engineer, and under the responsibility of the
directors, did not hesitate to stake the lives of many thousands of
persons every day, for whole years together, daily transporting them
over hundreds of miles of Bessemer steel rails, over which rolled
thousands of Bessemer steel tyres, drawn by hundreds of locomotives
having Bessemer steel boilers, steel axles, steel cranks, steel piston-rods,
steel guide-bars, steel connecting-rods, etc., etc. All this went on hourly,
weekly, and for years, and had been going on for ten years under the
eyes of the British Admiralty and their officials. Mr. Webb and his
directors were fully justified in this extensive use of Bessemer steel,
for they had carefully and tentatively put it to a long and continuous
practical test, and proved to demonstration that no iron made in this
country was equal to this Bessemer steel in toughness, strength, and
endurance under severe strains.
It would be very instructive to the British taxpayer to know
how many hundreds of thousands of pounds were expended by our
Admiralty in the construction of iron ships of war during their ten
years' abstention from the use of steel, and how much the efficiency
of the vessels was reduced by the extra weight involved.
In his paper, Sir Nathaniel Barnaby further stated that the steel
shipbuilders at L' Orient scrupulously avoided the use of iron hammers,
and that they had various mechanical devices for "coaxing and humouring
this material." Why did not the author give the meeting some account
of what had been done nearer home ? Why did he steer clear of Liver-
pool, where the material of eighteen steel ships had been shaped and
fashioned with steel hammers wielded by the powerful arms of the
practised steelsmith, without any " coaxing and humouring?" The meeting
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TESTS OF BESSEMER STEEL 253
was also informed that the ordinary steel angles in use at L'Orient
cost £27 per ton, and the double-tee bars about £41 per ton ; and
to this there was to be added the cost of such careful labour as he
had described. But private shipbuilders and ship-owners were not
deterred by the price of Bessemer steel from using it even ten years
before the date at which this paper was written, when Bessemer steel
was at least 30 per cent, dearer than in 1875. Would it not have
been far better to have quoted the then prices of Bessemer steel in
England, instead of giving the absurdly high prices said to obtain
in France ?
I was present at the reading of Sir Nathaniel Barnaby's paper, when
he held up to the meeting the piece of steel plate, which he called " the
treacherous Bessemer steel," illustrated in Fig. 72, Plate XXXI. I
invite my readers to compare this illustration with the various examples
I have had photographed of Bessemer steel tests of gun-forgings (see Figs.
69 and 70, Plates XXVIII. and XXIX.) and with the 11,000 test
pieces then accumulated at Ore we. But even more striking than these
were the specimens I had prepared thirteen years before. Few would
believe, without ocular demonstration, the extraordinary fact that a
thin steel plate, 11 in. in diameter and ^ in. thick, can be brought
without rupture into the forms shown in Fig. 74, Plate XXXII., while
Fig. 75, Plate XXXIII. shows various pieces of Bessemer steel, of our
regular daily manufacture at Sheffield, tested cold. The former are
examples of what is called " spinning ; " the cold steel plate is made
to revolve in a lathe, and is pressed heavily upon by a blunt instrument
as it revolves, just as a piece of soft clay revolving on a potter's
wheel is pressed upon by his thumb and fingers, and is fashioned into
a vase. As the thin cold steel plate revolves it yields to the pressure
exerted upon it by the blunt instrument forced dexterously against it,
and by degrees its particles are expanded in some directions and contracted
in others, the solid cold steel flowing, like its prototype the potter's
clay, and forming almost any variety of circular form which the work-
man desires to give it. This wondrous change of position of the several
parts of the original flat plate takes place without the smallest symptom
of a crack or failure at any part of its surface. These examples
254 HENRY BESSEMER
demonstrate the marvellous toughness of the Bessemer cast steel when
manipulated by a skilful workman.
The small vase on the left, 4j in. in height and 3j in. in diameter
(Fig. 74, Plate XXXII.), is by no means a solitary example. It was
one of a group of vases of various forms exhibited by me at the Inter-
national Exhibition of 1862, that is, thirteen years before Sir Nathaniel
Barnaby held up to the public meeting an isolated example of a
maltreated plate as a representation of the " treacherous Bessemer
steel," which he seemed to think was sufficient to excuse the British
Admiralty for their ten years' indifference and apathy. During those
ten long years, twenty-four Bessemer steel works had been erected in
England alone, having 112 converting vessels with their powerful blast
engines, steel-rolling mills, and other expensive plant and buildings,
producing annually 700,000 tons of Bessemer steel.
At the time at which I write (1896), when we look into the present
state of British shipbuilding, we find that merchant sailing-ships and
passenger steam-ships are, in all cases, built of mild cast steel, which
is admitted to be the most suitable of known materials for their con-
struction. The way in which mild cast steel (Bessemer and open-
hearth) has absolutely superseded iron is proved by the annexed extracts
from Lloyds Register of British Shipbuilding for the year 1895.
During 1895, exclusive of war ships, 579 vessels of 950,967 tons gross (viz., 526 steamers
of 904,991 tons and 53 sailing vessels of 45,976 tons) have been launched in the United
Kingdom. The war ships launched at both Government and private yards amount to 59
of 148,111 tons displacement. The total output of the United Kingdom for the year has,
therefore, been 638 vessels of 1,099,078 tons.
As regards the material employed for the construction of the vessels included in the
United Kingdom returns for 1895, it is found that, of the steam tonnage, nearly 98.8
per cent, has been built of steel and 1.2 per cent, of iron. The iron steam tonnage is
practically made up of trawlers, and comprises no vessel of more than 425 tons. Of the
sailing tonnage, 97.0 per cent, has been built of steel, and 3.0 per cent, of wood. No iron
sailing vessel appears to have been launched during the year.
Can any evidence more clearly show how the opinions of shipbuilders
and shipowners, including the great passenger steam-ship owners and the
Admiralty itself, have practically condemned iron as a shipbuilding
STEEL FOR SHIPBUILDING 255
material, with the consequent adoption of mild cast steel in its stead?
In considering this evidence it must not be forgotten that mild
Bessemer steel has not undergone the smallest alteration in manufacture,
or any improvement in quality, since the completion of the eighteen
Bessemer steel ships which were built at Liverpool. All that we did
then we do now, and consequently the steel was as well adapted for
the building of ships at that period as it is at the present day. From
1875 up to 1896 — that is, a period of twenty years — the London and
North- Western Company have built no less than 4000 Bessemer steel
locomotive boilers, and during these twenty years of constant wear and
tear, not one of these has ever been treacherous enough to burst. It
may further be recorded that the London and North- Western Railway
Company made all the Bessemer steel plates used for building their
splendid fast Dublin and Holyhead passenger boats, which have so long
been in constant use.
Although I have unavoidably used words of censure in speaking
of that abstraction, the British Admiralty, no one can doubt that its
officials are gentlemen of honour and integrity. They are liable, like
the rest of humanity, to errors of judgment, while the traditions of
the office, and the conditions under which they work, must tend to
develop the conservative side of their character, and render them averse
to experiment. But the course they pursue, whether it be technically
the wisest or not, represents, I am sure, their honest opinion, and under
no circumstances whatever would they stoop to the meanness
of attempting to escape the consequences of any errors of judgment
by making a scapegoat of the man through whose energy and
perseverance the construction of mild cast-steel ships was rendered
commercially possible, and whose invention has so greatly benefited
the nation generally, and the British Admiralty in particular.
Although that great department of the State failed for so long to
recognise the merits of my steel, I have received the most ample
recognition of the value of my inventions, alike from reigning sovereigns,
from the learned societies, and scientific institutions of every State in
Europe, all of which I acknowledge with every expression of profound
gratitude.
CHAPTER XVIII
MANGANESE IN STEEL MAKING
TN giving a brief account of the more salient points of my life's history,
-•- I have deemed it desirable in some cases not to keep strictly to the
chronological order of events, which would so entangle different subjects
with each other as to render each incident difficult to be understood.
I have therefore preferred sometimes to follow up the details of a series
of connected events, and thus trace each subject to its natural conclusion,
afterwards retracing my steps to recall other incidents which have thus
been unavoidably displaced and left to some extent in the background.
In accordance with this plan, I now go back to August, 1856, the
month in which I read my — to me — memorable, paper at the British
Association. I have mentioned on another page* that one of the immediate
results of that paper was the application for a large number of patents
by various people, either bond-fide though unpractical inventors, or
others who deliberately planned to take advantage of the premature
publication of my invention, by obtaining patents which should hedge
me round and force me to divide with them the fruits of my labours.
I think I have already made it clear that none of these efforts, bond-fide
or otherwise, ultimately interfered with the triumphant development of
my own patents. I am treading on very delicate ground, and although
the events I have to refer to occurred many years ago, and are entirely
done with so far as I am concerned, I feel that even now I may not
be able to write without prejudice, much as I should desire to do so.
I shall therefore confine myself entirely to a narrative of facts, and
keep my own individuality and personal feelings as far as possible
in the background.
As all I have to say in this Chapter bears intimately upon the
* See page 166 ante.
MANGANESE IN STEEL MAKING 257
employment of manganese in the manufacture of cast steel, it will be
in the natural order of things if I commence with a short review of
the use of manganese in this industry.
In all the old published accounts of steel making, we find that
steel works were located in places where manganesian iron was found.
The ancient steel manufacturers of Styria produced the famous German
" Natural Steel," which was so much used in this country before Sheffield
had achieved its present high reputation. The manganesian iron ore,
known here as spathose, or white carbonate, was in Germany known as
stahlstein, a term indicative of its well-known special aptitude for the
production of steel from the pig-iron known in Styria as spiegel eisen,
then and now so much used in steel making. Towards the end of
the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth, efforts were
made in this country to combine the metal manganese with our British
iron, and thus obtain pig-iron so alloyed with manganese as to give it
those qualities which enabled the Germans to produce with their
manganesian iron ores the finest steel in the market in those early
days.
The first in the long list of inventors and patentees is one William
Reynolds, who, in December, 1799, obtained a patent in this country
" for a new method of preparing iron for the conversion thereof into
steel," by employing oxide of manganese, or manganese (that is, metallic
manganese), which was to be mixed either with the material for making
the pig or cast-iron, or with the cast iron, to be converted into malleable
iron in the finery, bloomery, puddling furnace or otherwise.
In either case, ordinary British pig-iron would be converted into
manganesian pig-iron, or spiegeleisen, by the employment of Reynolds'®
patent process of preparing cast-iron " for its conversion into steel ; "
a process that has, at the time I am writing, now been public
property for a period more than eighty years. Thus I had acquired, in
common with all other persons in this country, the right to put oxide of
manganese into the blast furnace witli the iron-making materials, and so
produce manganiferous pig-iron of any desirer^uality for conversion into
malleable iron or steel. By the falling into public use of this long-
expired patent I had, in common with all other persons, also acquired
L L
258 HENRY BESSEMER
the right to add manganese (that is, the metal manganese) to cast-
iron in order to render it more suitable for conversion into steel. I
had the full right to use such alloyed cast-iron for making steel by
my process; and by my patent, bearing date October 17th, 1855, I
had the right, after the blowing process, to recarburise, or alter the
state of carburation of, the converted metal by the addition thereto of
molten pig-iron : a right of which no subsequent patent could deprive me.
This patent of Mr. Reynolds' started a host of imitators, who all
laid claim to improve iron for steel making, or to improve steel when
made, by alloying it with manganese. In case any of my readers
should desire to see how these very " numerous inventors " tried to
claim this valuable material for their own special use and advantage,
I give below a list of most of them for easy reference to their respective
specifications.
MANGANESE PATENTS.
Reynolds, Wm., A.D. 1799. "For a New Method of Preparing Iron for Conversion
thereof into Steel." Oxide of manganese is to be mixed, either with the materials for
making the pig, or cast iron, or with the cast iron, to be converted into malleable iron, in
the Finery, Bloomery, Puddling Furnace or otherwise.
John Wilkinson, A.D. 1808. "Making Pig, or Cast Metal, from the Ore for the
Manufacture into Bar Iron equal to Russian or Swedish," by manganese, or ores containing
manganese in addition to iron-stone.
John Thompson, A.D. 1819. "Extracting Iron from Ore." The inventor smelts a
mixture of iron ore and oxide of manganese.
Charles Schafhautl, A.D. 1835. " Manufacturing Malleable Iron," by using oxide of
manganese.
Josiah Marshall Heath, A.D. 1839. "Manufacture of Iron and Steel." Manufacture
of cast steel in a furnace with deficient fuel ; uses oxide of manganese. " Carburet of
manganese may be used in any process for the conversion of iron into cast steel."
William Vickers, A.D. 1839. Bfanufacture of Cast Steel." Wrought-iron borings and
scraps are melted with oxide (A ^Qpiese and carbon in crucibles to produce cast steel.
Charles Low, A.D. 1844. "Manufacture of Iron and Steel." Uses oxide of manganese
and charcoal in pots.
PATENTS RELATING TO MANGANESE IN STEEL MAKING 259
John D. M. Stirling, A.D. 1846. "Alloys and Metallic Compounds, and Welding the
same to other Metals." Molten cast iron and malleable iron and metallic manganese are used.
Moses Poole, A.D. 1847. "Manufacture of Cast Metal, Iron and Steel." Chromate of
iron, oxide of manganese, etc., are used.
Alexander Parkes, A.D. 1847. " Manufacture of Metals containing Iron and Steel." To
improve iron, some metallic manganese may be melted with it, etc.
John D. M. Stirling, A.D. 1848. "Manufacture of Iron and Metallic Compounds."
Molten iron is mixed with 5 to 30 per cent, of scrap and one per cent, of manganese in
a reverberatory furnace.
Josiah Marshall Heath, A.D. 1848. " Manufacture of Cast Steel." Granulated de-oxydised
pure iron, mixed with manganese and carbon.
Richard A. Brooman, A.D. 1853. "Producing Castings in Malleable Iron." Manganese
is used with wrought scrap in crucibles with carbon.
J. Leon Talabot, A.D. 1853. "Manufacture of Cast Steel." Blister steel is melted
with oxide of manganese.
John D. M. Stirling, A.D. 1854. "Manufacture of Steel." Cast iron is repeatedly
melted with iron oxides containing manganese.
C. A. B. Chenot, A.D. 1854. "Manufacture of Steel, Iron, and different Alloys." Iron
ore is roasted, pulverised, and converted into a "sponge." slt is then mixed with manganese,
and fused.
Auguste E. L. Bellford, A.D. 1854. "Manufacture of Steel and Wrought Iron directly
from the Ore." Iron ore is mixed with manganese and other substances, and is roasted. It is
then melted in crucibles.
Charles Sanderson, A.D. 1855. "Manufacture of Iron." Sulphate of iron and manganese
are added to molten iron.
Abraham Pope, A.D. 1856. "Manufacture of Iron." Iron ore, boghead coke, and oxide
of manganese are melted in a reverberatory furnace.
Richard Brooman, A.D. 1856. "Manufacture of Cast Steel." Manganese and other
materials are added to wrought iron to make steel.
John D. M. Stirling, A.D. 1856. "Manufacture of Steel." Manganese is used in the
manufacture of steel from cast iron and iron ore.
260 HENRY BESSEMER
Joseph Gilbert Martien, A.D. 1856. "Manufacture of Iron." Manganese is blown into
molten iron.
"William Clay, A.D. 1856. "Manufacture of Wrought or Bar Iron." Uses manganese.
Abraham Pope, A.D. 1856. "Manufacture of Steel." Manganese is used in the
cementation process.
From the foregoing long list of claimants to the use of manganese
in various ways in steel making, it must be evident that a knowledge of
of its beneficial effect was widely known and highly appreciated nearly a
century ago ; but the most prominent, and the most practically
successful, of all these patentees was a Mr. Josiah Marshall Heath, a
civil servant under the Indian Government, who, noticing in the native
Wootz steel -making of India the marvellous effect of manganese,
conceived the idea of producing steel of superior quality from
inferior brands of British iron by its use in the cast-steel process then
extensively carried on in Sheffield. Heath came over to this country,
and obtained a patent, bearing date the 15th of April, 1839, for the
employment of carburet of manganese (that is, manganese in the metallic
state) in the manufacture of cast steel : an invention of very great
utility, as by its use cast steel of excellent quality could be produced
from British iron that had been smelted with mineral fuel. Such steel
possessed the property of welding either to itself or to malleable iron.
The Sheffield cutlers were thus enabled to weld iron tangs on to the
cast-steel blades of table - knives, and also to weld many other similar
articles : a process which was not successfully carried on previous to
the use of metallic, or carburet of, manganese under Heath's patent.
Mr. Heath, in his specification, does not confine his claim to the
use of carburet of manganese in crucible steel melting, but distinctly
claims "the use of carburet of manganese in any process whereby iron
is converted into cast steel." All that Heath claimed lapsed and
became public property when his patent expired, and the right to use
carburet of manganese " in any process whereby iron is converted into
cast steel" became common property by this publication, even if the
patent were invalid. Heath was fully justified in making this general
claim, because the results obtained depended on an inevitable chemical
UNIVERSITY J
\ ]
X£i< TCRN^X
HEATH'S PATENT AND USE OP MANGANESE 261
law, viz. : whenever metallic manganese, with its powerful affinity for
oxygen, is put into molten iron containing disseminated or occluded
oxygen, a union of the oxygen and the manganese follows as an
inevitable consequence of their strong affinity for each other, wholly
irrespective of the process employed in the manufacture of the iron or
steel so treated.
In consequence of this successful invention of Heath's, no British
iron that has been smelted with mineral fuel is ever made into cast
steel in Sheffield without the employment of carburet of manganese.
In the early days of Heath's invention, he supplied the carburet
in small packages to his licensees ; he made this by the deoxyda-
tion of black oxide of manganese mixed with coal-tar, or other carbon-
aceous matter, in crucibles heated in an ordinary air furnace. This
was a costly process, and as the demand increased he suggested to his
licensees that it would be cheaper to put a given quantity of oxide of
manganese and charcoal powder into their crucibles, along with the
cold pieces of bar iron or steel to be melted. These materials would,
when sufficiently heated, chemically react on each other, and produce
the requisite quantity of carburet of manganese in readiness to unite
with the steel as soon as the latter passed into the fluid state. But
Heath's licensees said, " This is not precisely your patent, Mr. Heath,"
and they claimed the right to carry out this suggestion without
paying him any royalty. This was the cause of some eight or nine
years of litigation, by which poor Heath was ultimately ruined, although
his patent was established by a final decision of the House of Lords
— alas ! only too late ; for Heath died a broken-hearted, ruined man,
wholly unrewarded for his valuable invention.
Thus we see that both in the use of a carburet, and also by the use
a mixed powder, consisting of oxide of manganese and carbon, Heath's
process has been successfully and commercially carried on from the date
of his patent, in 1839, up to the present hour.
Now, as my converting process was specially intended to deal with
iron that had been smelted with mineral fuel, it will be readily under-
stood how disastrous it would have been to me, if, by the action of
another patentee, I had been prevented from using manganese ; for
262 HENRY BESSEMER
if manganese, in some form or other, were absolutely necessary for the
production of steel of good quality from iron smelted with mineral
fuel, it would follow that if the use of manganese, in all its known
forms and combinations when applied to the Bessemer process, could
be patented, thus becoming the exclusive property of some other persons,
then I should have been rendered utterly powerless, and my invention
could not have been worked without the permission of the holders of
these patents, and I should consequently have been wholly at their mercy.
This part of my narrative turns upon a patent obtained by Mr.
Joseph Gilbert Martien, on September 15th, 1855, about a month before
I took out my first steel patents. Mr. Martien's invention referred to
improvements in the manufacture of iron and steel. He was at that
time engaged at the Ebbw Vale Works, either on the staff of that
company or as an independent experimenter. There would have been
no need for me to refer to Mr. Martien's patent of 1855, but for subse-
quent events with which it was associated. It was really a valueless
patent, and one which found no practical application ; nevertheless, I
must describe it briefly here, and I cannot do better than reprint some
passages from Mr. Martien's specification.
Specification. A.D. 1855.— No. 2082.
Martien's Improvements in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel.
This Invention has for its object the purifying iron when in the liquid state from
a blast furnace, or from a refinery furnace, by means of atmospheric air, or of steam, or
vapour of water applied below, and so that it may rise up amongst and completely penetrate
and search every part of the metal prior to the congelation, or before such liquid metal is
allowed to set, or prior to its being run into a reverberatory furnace in order to its being
subjected to puddling, by which means the manufacture of wrought iron by puddling
such purified cast iron, and also the manufacture of steel therefrom in the ordinary manner,
are improved.
In carrying out my Invention, in place of allowing the melted iron from a blast furnace
simply to flow in the ordinary gutter or channel to the bed or moulds, or to refinery or
puddling furnaces, in the ordinary manner, I employ channels or gutters, so arranged that
numerous streams of air, or of steam, or vapour of water may be passed through and amongst
the melted metal as it flows from a blast furnace.
Thus we are distinctly told that the crude metal, after treatment
in the gutter, is made into malleable iron or steel, by puddling in the
MARTIEN AND MTJSHET's INVENTIONS 263
ordinary manner, and not by the action of the steam, air, or vapour of
water blown through it. In evidence of this I give another quotation
from Mr. Martien's printed specification.
In treating the liquid or melted metal as stated, either as it directly comes from a blast
furnace or from a finery fire, it is left in the form of pigs, plates, or in a granulated state,
' as may be desired ; or it may be conducted after such treatment directly and without material
loss of heat to a reverbatory or other furnace or furnaces, and there subjected to intense
heat and manipulation, and speedily converted into balls of malleable metal of iron and steel.
Martien was under the impression that he could, in part, supersede
the ordinary finery fire, and render the crude iron more suitable for
puddling, there being no new method or process of making malleable
iron or steel described, or even in the most remote manner suggested,
in this patent. In fact, in the last quotation, he tells us "the metal
is left in the form of pigs, plates (that is, I presume, finer's plate metal),
or in a granulated state, and if it be desired to make it into malleable
iron or steel, the old process of puddling must be resorted to.
Possibly — I think probably — we should never have heard any more
of Mr. Martien's invention had it not been for my Cheltenham paper
of August, 1856. This paper, as we have seen, was fertile in suggestions
to many would-be inventors. Amongst them in the records of the
Patent Office we find, on September 16th, 1856, the applications for two
patents connected with the manufacture of steel ; one of them was taken
out in the name of Robert Mushet and the other by Joseph Gilbert
Martien. Six days later — that is, on September 22nd — two other patents
were applied for by Robert Mushet, all four of the patents named being for
the use of manganese in the manufacture of steel ; and therefore they were,
intentionally or otherwise, obstructive patents from my point of view. It
must be remembered that these patents were applied for in the fourth
and fifth weeks immediately following the reading of my paper at
Cheltenham, at which period the whole iron trade of this country
was in a state of extreme agitation and excitement in reference to my
invention, which, at that moment, it was believed would effect a complete
revolution in the iron industry.
Now, at this period, hundreds of men in Sheffield knew perfectly
well that cast steel made from iron that had been smelted with mineral
264 HENRY BESSEMER
fuel was so much improved in quality by being alloyed with manganese,
that such iron was never made into cast steel in Sheffield without the
addition thereto of oxide of manganese and carbonaceous matter in the
form of powder, which was put into the crucible or vessel in which cast
steel was made. I have, however, already dwelt at length on Heath's
invention, and have shown that his patents, which had expired long years
before, had given to the world the free use of manganese in steel-making,
and that its general application was a matter of universal knowledge.
Mr. Mushet's specification commences, " Now know ye that I, the
said Robert Mushet, do hereby declare the nature of my said invention,
and in what manner the same is to be performed to be particularly
described in and by the following statement. When cast iron, including
grey and white pig iron and refined metal, has been decarburised or
purified by forcing air through or amongst its particles, either in the
manner described in the specification of Letters Patent, dated the 15th
day of September, 1855, granted to Joseph Gilbert Martien, or in any
other convenient manner, with a view to convert it into malleable iron,
etc." Now, it is clear that Martien did not blow air through molten
iron, in order to convert it into malleable iron, but simply in order to
prepare such cast iron for the after-process of puddling, by which
process, and not by the air blown through it, it was to be converted into
malleable iron. Further, any addition of pitch and oxide of manganese
could not possibly convert into steel iron treated in the manner
described in this patent of Martien so specifically referred to. There
was at that time no commercially-known process of converting pig
iron direct into malleable iron or steel, while still retaining its fluidity,
except that patented by me, to which alone Mr. Mushet's patent could
possibly be applied.
Any attempt to carry into practice Mr. Mushet's process, in the
manner described in his patent of September 16th, 1856, would have been
attended with great danger, and failure must have inevitably followed.
In the manipulation of cast steel a small quantity of oxide of manganese
and charcoal in the form of powder is put into the bottom of covered
crucibles, nearly filled with cold broken-up steel bars. In such crucibles
only a very small amount of atmospheric air is present, consequently the
MANGANESE AND PITCH 265
charcoal at the bottom of the covered crucible is not consumed. But as
soon as a very high temperature is attained the carbon present gradually
deoxydises the manganese, producing a fluid carburet of that metal,
which unites with the steel as soon as the latter is fused. Now, Mr.
Mushet proposed a somewhat different method of procedure. In this
first patent for improvements in the manufacture of steel he stated
that he preferred to use pitch as the carbon element, and having melted
it, to put into the fluid pitch an equal weight of oxide of manganese
in the form of powder, and to stir them well together. This mixture was
to be allowed to cool, after which the brittle mass was to be reduced to
a state of powder, and a quantity equal to one-fifth, or to one-tenth, the
weight of the converted metal was to be used before, during, or after
the conversion. Now, I have found on testing the specific gravity of
this fine powder that a cubic foot of it weighs, as near as may be,
62J Ib. (the same as water) ; hence the minimum charge of one-tenth of
the weight of the contents of an ordinary 5 -ton converter, or 10 cwt.,
would have a bulk of 13.9, or nearly 14, bushels — we may call it 13 bushels
— while the maximum charge would be 26 bushels. Let us see how such
an addition would behave if put into a Bessemer converter : a vessel
with an interior lining brilliantly red-hot, and containing about 90 to
100 cubic feet of atmospheric air, at a temperature of about 1000 deg.
Fahr. Certainly the first shovelful of such a highly-combustible powder
thrown into this red-hot chamber filled with heated air would result in a
dangerous gas explosion, and the instant rejection of the unreduced
manganese powder present in the mixture. How, then, were the 13
bushels, or the 26 bushels, of this explosive powder to be got into the
red-hot vessel ? For even if it were possible to put in only the smaller
quantity of 13 bushels, of this powder, it would form for a few minutes
a huge bath of molten pitch, and it would require a very bold man to
pour into it 5 tons of molten iron. The whole proposition is so abso-
lutely unpractical that it requires no further comment.
Six days later (September 22nd, 1856), Mr. Mushet applied for
another patent, which did not differ from the use of carburet of
manganese as patented by Josiah Marshall Heath in 1839, for years used
by Sheffield steel manufacturers, and in which patent Mr. Heath claims,
M M
266 HENRY BESSEMER
fourthly, " the use of carburet of manganese, in any process whereby
iron is converted into cast steel," to which I have previously referred.
Now, it is obvious that this use of carburet of manganese, even if it
could not have been claimed by Heath in his patent of 1839, had — as I
have already stated — become, by mere publication, common property
for a period of no less than sixteen years prior to Mr. Mushet's
patent of September, 1856. The only plea that could possibly be
advanced to justify Mushet's claim to a long-ago expired patent,
which had been extensively used, was that the steel into which
this carburet of manganese was to be put had been made by a
different process. Now, let us see to what a deadlock all improved
manufactures would be reduced if once we admit such a claim. Let
us take an example which is strictly analogous. Some fifty or more
years ago a great discovery was made by Mr. Pattinson, of Newcastle,
who invented a most ingenious mode of extracting metallic silver from
ordinary commercial pigs of argentiferous lead. Previous to this, silver
had been almost exclusively obtained from silver ore, amalgamated with
mercury, and afterwards refined, melted, and cast into ingots. There
was no analogy whatever between the old process of extracting silver
and that discovered by Mr. Pattinson. It had long previously been
found that silver, though a very beautiful metal in appearance, was
almost useless, either for the manufacture of utensils or for current
coin, on account of its extreme softness ; articles made from pure silver
being easily bent or misshapen, and coins losing their impression by
wear and abrasion. But it was fortunately discovered that an addition
of 10 Ib. of copper to every 90 Ib. of silver, so hardened and strengthened
the silver as to render it eminently adapted both for the manufacture
of utensils, and also for current coin. This valuable alloy of copper and
silver was accepted by all European Governments as a standard alloy to
be stamped as " silver" and it has been in universal use for many years,
just as steel alloyed with carburet of manganese passes current as steel,
the alloy having also been in public use for many years. But the
silver obtained from lead pigs by Mr. Pattinson's new process, like that
obtained from silver ore, was, of course, too soft to be used in that
state. Now, if some speculative patentee had, on the first announcement
SPIEGELEISEN IN STEEL MAKING 267
to the world of Mr. Pattinson's great discovery, rushed to the Patent
Office to claim the sole right to put 10 per cent, of copper into silver
obtained by Pattinson's process, under the plea that this silver had been
produced by a new method, it is self-evident that the claim could not
here be substantiated. To admit it would have been simply to destroy
all future great inventions ; the whole idea is too absurd to require
further argument.
On September 22nd, 1856, Mr. Mushet took out yet another patent,
claiming the employment of one of nature's compounds : a compound
which steel - makers have used for the production of steel as far back
as the history of steel-making extends, and which consists of iron found
in the mine associated, or combined, with manganese and oxygen. Such
ore, when smelted, produces a pig iron which contains iron, carbon,
manganese, silicon, and generally phosphorus, sulphur, and other matters
in small quantities, in combination with the iron. In his third patent
Mr. Mushet did not mention my name, or designate any patent of mine,
as the invention which he proposed to improve by the use of spiegeleisen ;
and again the Crown and the public were told that, for the purposes
of his invention, " the iron may be purified by the action of air in the
manner invented by Joseph Gilbert Martien," as will be seen by the
following quotation, reproduced from a printed copy of Mushet's
specification, published by the Commissioners of Patents : —
The iron may be purified by the action of air, in the manner invented by Joseph
Gilbert Martien, or in any other convenient manner. The triple compound or material which
I prefer to use is pig or cast iron made from spathose ore, such ore and the pig or cast iron
made from it containing a proportion of manganese, as well as the iron and carbon of which
cast iron is usually composed.
If Mr. Mushet had taken the trouble to examine my early patents
for the manufacture of steel, he would have found that the re-carbura-
tion of converted metal by the addition thereto of molten pig iron, was
perfectly well understood, and had been patented by me more than a
year prior to the date of either of his three manganese patents.
Mr. Mushet also appears to have entirely overlooked my description
of the several modes of making alloys in my process, as set forth in
my patent, dated May 13th, 1856, sixteen weeks prior to the date
268 HENRY BESSEMER
of either of his three patents. This description was not given for the
purpose of claiming any such alloys, but, on the contrary, its object
was to disclaim the right to make alloys in my converter of any
metals previously used in the trade to form an alloy with steel, and
by such disclaimer and publication to prevent anyone from obstructing
me in the free use of all such well-known alloys. In order to show
what I really did say in my patent, I give a copy of the paragraph from
my specification.
When employing fluid metal for alloying with malleable iron or steel, I pour it through
an opening in the converting vessel, so that it may fall direct into the fluid mass below;
but when employing metal in a solid form, I put it into the upper chamber through the
door g, and allow it to acquire a high temperature, after which it may be pushed with a
rod, through the opening d, into fluid iron or steel ; and when using salts or oxides of
metals for the purpose of producing an alloy or mixture with the iron or steel, I prefer to
introduce such salts or oxides in the form of powder at the tuytres, or to put them into the
vessel previous to running in the fluid metal. I would observe, that I am aware that zinc,
copper, silver, and other metals have before been combined with iron and steel otherwise
manufactured, I therefore make no general claim thereto.
This paragraph clearly points out how such alloys are to be made,
and I mention as examples, silver alloys, once used and greatly esteemed
as " silver steel "; also alloys of zinc, patented as a detergent to carry
off phosphorus from steel ; I also mention copper as used in stereo
metal for the manufacture of guns in Austria, and other metals
heretofore used in steel-making. Surely, after I had thus published
and disclaimed the use of any alloys previously used, no one could
obtain a valid patent for alloying steel in my process with metals used
to alloy steel then in common use.
The result of my early experiments in re-carburising confirmed the
view I had taken from the first, viz., that it was best to stop the
process as soon as steel of the proper quality was arrived at, for the
continuation of the blowing process until malleable iron was obtained,
had the disadvantage of consuming from 2 to 3 per cent, more
iron than when steel was made ; and, what was still worse, the metal
got very much overcharged with oxygen, causing violent ebullition in
the mould. I had an idea that this occluded oxygen could be got
rid of without any addition to the metal. I had noticed that when super-
FLUID COMPRESSED STEEL 269
oxydised molten malleable iron came in contact with the cold-iron mould, it
boiled and threw off large quantities of gas, as its temperature was reduced,
the action being similar to that which takes place in the cooling of large
masses of molten silver, which sputter and make a sort of little volcanic
mound on the top of the ingot, owing to the spontaneous disengagement
of occluded oxygen. In the case of steel, this throwing off of carbonic
acid, or carbonic oxide, gas was a source of great unsoundness in ingots,
and appeared to be a very important subject for investigation. I
consequently had a small apparatus constructed, with a view of seeing
how far this gaseous matter could be prevented from escaping in the
form of bubbles by being surrounded with a dense atmosphere, to
suppress ebullition ; and also how far it could be removed by con-
siderably lowering the pressure of the surrounding atmosphere, thus
favouring ebullition and the removal of the gas from the metal.
I may here mention, incidentally, that these experiments were the
starting-point of my patents for casting under gaseous pressure, and
also under the pressure of an hydraulic plunger, acting direct on the
fluid metal. Under this latter patent, I granted a license to Sir Joseph
Whitworth to make his compressed steel. The experimental apparatus
for removing gas in vacuo just referred to, was simply a short cylindrical
vessel, on to which a conical cover was fitted ; the flanges which formed
the junction between the two were accurately surfaced, and formed an
air-tight joint. At the top of the apparatus a small circular piece of
plate glass was inserted, through which the eye could, by means of
the light emitted by the incandescent metal, see distinctly whatever
was going on inside the chamber.
This apparatus is shown in section in Fig. 76, page 270. Having
converted some pig iron into highly-carburised steel by means of a fire-
clay blow pipe, a crucible about half filled with this steel was put into the
chamber. The pipe and stop-cock shown on one side of it were made
to communicate with an exhaust pump, or with an exhausted vessel, the
effect of which was at first to cause a few bubbles to rise to the surface
of the metal ; but only a comparatively gentle ebullition was produced,
however high a vacuum was attained. If mild steel, however, was so
treated a much more violent ebullition took place ; and if a 20-lb.
270
HENRY BESSEMER
crucible containing about 10 Ib. only of wholly decarburised pig iron
was put into the chamber, and a high vacuum was produced, the
ebullition set up by the rapid escape of gas caused the steel to boil
over the top of the crucible, and occupy the lower part of the chamber,
as shown in the engraving.
Many experiments were made with this simple apparatus, and they
convinced me at the time that it was far preferable to blow the metal
only to the condition of steel, using the recarburising process to as
small an extent as possible. Thus it happened that in my early patent*
FIG. 76. EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS FOR EXPOSING MOLTEN STEEL
TO THE ACTION OP A VACUUM
of October 17th, 1855, I described the recarburising process in the
words which I reproduce from my printed specification, which dates
more than one year prior to Mr. Mushet's patents.
During the decarbonizing process, the state of the metal may he tested by dipping out
a sample with a small ladle, as practised in refining copper; if too much carbon is retained,
the pipe G may be again introduced for a short time, or a small quantity of scrap iron may
be put into it; but if too much carbon has been driven off, an addition may be made of
some melted iron from the finery or cupola furnace : a little experience will, however, enable
the workman to regulate his process so as to produce the different qualities of steel which
he may require.
This quotation shows that, from the earliest date, I fully understood
THE DISADVANTAGES OP SPIEGELEISEN 271
and appreciated the facility which molten carburet of iron gave for
regulating the state of carburation of the converted metal ; and if I
used any kind of manganese pig iron for converting into steel, as I
had a perfect right to do, the addition of some of this molten iron
" from the cupola furnace " to my converted metal, would of necessity
involve the recarburising, by the use of a " triple compound of iron,
carbon, and manganese."
Now the particular manganese pig iron, called in Styria spiegeleisen,
the use of which Mr. Mushet claimed by his patent, may in round
numbers be fairly stated to consist of 4 per cent, carbon, 8 per cent,
manganese, 2 per cent, of some half a dozen other elements, and 86 per
cent, of iron. These proportions are by no means well adapted for
the deoxydation of mild steel, and it is impossible to use such a metal
when soft decarburised iron is desired, as steel, and not malleable iron,
would be produced.
I have before stated, that in my earliest experiments the quantity
of oxygen taken up by the metal was but small, if the process was
stopped when the desired quality of steel was arrived at. But if I
continued the blowing process until soft iron was produced I had a
double disadvantage : I burnt and destroyed — as I have already stated —
from 2 to 3 per cent, more of the iron than was lost when making steel,
and I immensely increased the quantity of oxygen absorbed. It was
this fact that induced me to persevere in decarburising only to the
extent necessary to make steel of the precise quality desired ; and
where this system has been pursued in Sweden and in Austria, it
has proved commercially a great success.
It will at once be seen how ill-adapted are the proportions of carbon,
manganese, and iron, in spiegeleisen, because enough of the per cent, of
manganese present cannot be put into the converter to deoxydise the
malleable iron, without introducing at the same time so much of the
4 per cent, of carbon present as would make the whole of the malleable
iron treated, into cast steel. For this reason the very soft or mild
quality of steel required for ship and boiler-plates should be recarburised
with an alloy of something like the following proportions : 60 per cent,
of manganese, 4 of carbon, and 36 of iron.
272 HENRY BESSEMER
Now, if Mr. Mushet had invented a new triple compound of iron,
carbon, and manganese, in somewhat about the proportions indicated,
and had shown a cheap and ready way of producing it on a commercial
scale, he would have been entitled to a patent for his mode of producing
such an alloy, and also for the use of such an artificial compound
in any other process to which it might be applicable. But it was
not new to improve steel by alloying it with manganese : a method long
before known to, and daily practised by, hundreds of workmen in the
steel trade.
This patent of Mr. Mushet, claiming the sole use of manganiferous
pig iron, had simply the effect of calling the attention of steel-makers
to a makeshift alloy, and thus diverted for some years my attention,
and doubtless that of many other persons, from the pursuit of a
ready means of producing such an alloy of manganese as would be
better suited for the purposes for which spiegeleisen had been
employed. All the difficulties in making boiler and ships' plates
of the degree of mildness necessary to ensure their safety under
the severe strains to which they are subjected, arose from the
excess of carbon and the deficiency of manganese in the natural alloy
spiegeleisen.
I may here state that, very soon after commencing the manufacture
of steel at my Sheffield works, this difficulty about mild steel plates was
strongly felt when using British coke-made iron. I attained complete
success with Swedish charcoal iron, and thus could make tool steel and
gun steel as good as, or better than, any in the market. On these
steels there was a large profit, and the cost of the material was
not important. But when the steel had to be sold in competition
with iron plates, it was necessary to use cheaper pig iron, and it
was with this iron that the difficulties arose. However, I found
that another of Nature's compounds, wholly differing from spathose
ore, or white carbonate of iron, from which spiegeleisen is obtained,
existed in large quantities in New Jersey, in the United States. The
mineral referred to is a ferriferous oxide of zinc, and on its discovery
it was given the name " Franklinite," in honour of Dr. Franklin. When
the zinc is driven off, in the form of vapour, there results an alloy
THE MANUFACTURE OF FERRO-MANGANESE 273
of iron and manganese, usually containing from 11 per cent, to 11^ per
cent, of manganese, which is far better adapted for the deoxydation
of mild steel than spiegeleisen, containing only 8 per cent, of that
metal. Consequently, " Franklinite " was much used at my works in
Sheffield, pending my introduction of ferro-manganese into the trade.
This, unfortunately, from a variety of circumstances, was delayed
until 1862, when I induced a Glasgow firm to go into the manufacture
of ferro-manganese, both for our own use at Sheffield, and for the
benefit of my licensees. The subjoined extract will show how valuable
this ferro-manganese was, more especially for plate-making, and how much
the Bessemer mild steel plates of that early date suffered in reputation
by the undue introduction of carbon into the metal from the use of
spiegeleisen, so rich in carbon, and so poor in manganese. I quote
one of the highest living* authorities, a gentleman who enjoys both
an American and a European reputation as an iron and steel manu-
facturer and metallurgist. I refer to Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, the United
States Commissioner to the Universal Exposition at Paris in 1867, who,
in his able report to the American Government, commented on the
Bessemer process and its application to the manufacture of plates as
follows : —
MANUFACTURE OF BESSEMER PLATES.
The application of the Bessemer process to the production of plates either for boilers
or for ships, girders, etc., is one of the most important that could be made. Nevertheless
the amount of metal used for this purpose in England falls much below that employed
for other purposes. This is due to a certain amount of distrust of steel plate, doubt as
to its reliability under varying strains of tension and compression, its capability of being
punched and sheared without injury to itself, and of its action under the influence of heat
and water as in the fire-box of a boiler. In other countries, as for example Austria, as
will be shown when we come to speak of the manufacture as carried on in that country,
this has not been the case, and large quantities of plates have been produced and successfully
applied to a variety of uses.
The secret of the distrust in regard to Bessemer plates in England is that in nearly
all cases the percentage of carbon contained in the metal has been too large. The spiegeleisen
used in England is not particularly rich in manganese — seldom exceeding nine per cent, of
that element, while it generally contains from four to four and a half per cent, of carbon.
It is difficult, therefore, with such materials to deoxygenate the metal sufficiently without
* Living, 1896; died, January 18th, 1903, in his 81st year.
N N
274 HENRY BESSEMER
introducing also a considerable percentage of carbon. About 0.4 per cent, of the latter is
as large an amount as is proper for plates which are to resist severe strains, and though a
greater proportion adds materially to the tensile strength of the metal when measured simply by
a direct pull, it renders it also much harder and more liable to crack under the treatment
to which it is exposed in the ordinary methods of construction. The difficulty in the way
of producing good soft plates for boilers or other uses appeared at one time to have been
satisfactorily overcome by the substitution of ferro-manganese in the place of the ordinary
spiegeleisen. The manufacture of this substance was commenced by a firm in Glasgow as
a branch of another business in which they were engaged, and plates made with it as a
deoxygenator gave most excellent results. Unfortunately, however, the firm who had undertaken
the manufacture shortly afterward became insolvent, and the patentee of the process has
not as yet re-established the manufacture (which requires a considerable expenditure for
suitable furnaces) elsewhere in England. Had the use of this substance continued for a
longer time, so as to make the excellence of the steel produced with it fully appreciated by
the public, there would have been a demand for plates urgent enough to have immediately
secured the re-establishment of the manufacture.
This unbiassed judgment of the United States Commissioner amply
endorses my views on the subject, and shows how much my process
suffered by the adoption of a rough-and-ready mode of supplying a want,
which scientific inquiry into the relative proportion of the elements
present in spiegeleisen would have at once condemned.
Before dismissing Mr. Hewitt's report, it will be interesting to
briefly notice what he had to say to his Government as to the carrying
out of the Bessemer process both in Sweden and in Austria.
Under the head of Sweden, Mr. Hewitt made the following
remarks : —
SWEDEN.
An examination of the specimens of Bessemer steel from Sweden in the Exposition
shows us that the metal there produced is of a far superior character to that made in England,
and naturally leads to inquiry as to the cause of the difference, and whether we may hope
to attain the same success in the United States. First, we observe coils of wire of all sizes,
down to the very finest, such as No. 47, or even smaller. This they have not been able
regularly co produce in England. In the next place we notice a good display of fine cutlery,
and the writer is informed by a competent authority that this metal answers so well for this
purpose that it is now used almost to the exclusion of any other. This statement is corroborated
by the fact that in the miscellaneous classes of the Swedish department, where cutlery occurs
not as an exhibition of steel, but merely as a display of workmanship by other parties in the
same manner as other articles of merchandise, cases of razors are exhibited with the mark of
the kind of steel of which they are made stamped or etched upon them as usual, and these
are all " Bessemer," but from a variety of different works, viz. : — Hogbo, Carlsdal, Osterby
SWEDISH BESSEMER STEEL 275
and Soderfors. The ore used in Sweden for producing iron for the Bessemer process is
exclusively magnetic, and of a very pure quality. An analysis of a mixture of those used for
the iron employed at the Fagersta works before roasting gives the following composition : —
Garb, acid . .... 8.00
Silicium ...... 17.35
Alumina ...... 0.95
Lime. ...... 6.50
Magnesia . . . . . .4.35
Protoxide of manganese . . . . .3.35
Magnetic oxide . . . . . .32.15
Peroxide of iron 27.40
100.05
Phosphoric acid. . . . .0.03
All the pig made from this mixture of ores, the exhibitors state, will give a steel without
the use of spiegeleisen, which is not at all red-short.
The analysis of gray iron from the same works, used for the Bessemer process, is given
as follows : —
Carbon combined . . . . .1.012
Graphite ...... 3.527
Silicium . . . ... . 0.854
Manganese ...... 1.919
Phosphorus ...... 0.031
Sulphur ...... 0.010
The analysis of mottled pig (la fonte truiti), consisting of two-thirds gray and one-third
white, is —
Carbon combined . . . . .2.138
Graphite ...... 2.733
Silicium ...... 0.641
Manganese ...... 2.926
Phosphorus ...... 0.026
Sulphur ...... 0.015
Of each of these it is stated that the steel produced without the employment of
spiegeleisen is not at all red-short (cassant h chaud). The most noticeable feature in the
composition of these irons is the large percentage of manganese which they contain, together
with the extremely minute proportion of sulphur.
In the process of conversion, from motives of economy, a fixed form of vessel is
employed, instead of one mounted on trunnions, as in England and elsewhere. The tuyeres,
about nineteen in number, are placed horizontally just above the bottom of the vessel, and are
inclined a little from a radial direction so as to give a rotary motion to the mass of
molten metal.
276 HENRY BESSEMER
Here we see that fine cutlery was exhibited in 1867 with the
name "Bessemer steel" conspicuously stamped upon it as a mark of
superiority. Wire of the finest numbers had been produced of superior
quality, etc. ; the crude metal was run direct from the blast furnace
and blown to steel in a fixed converter ; no spiegeleisen or re-carburation
was needed. This was precisely my original mode of operating, as
described in my Cheltenham paper.
Again, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, in his report, gives an interesting
account of the manufacture of Bessemer steel as represented by exhibits
in the Austrian Department of the Paris Exposition of 1867, and from
this account I give the following quotation : —
AUSTRIA.
The conditions under which Bessemer metal is produced in Austria are in many respects
similar to those existing in Sweden. The iron employed is smelted with charcoal, is nearly
free from sulphur and phosphorus, and contains a large percentage of manganese. There are
differences in the manner of conducting the process, but these important conditions insure
the production of a metal of similar excellence to the Swedish, and, like this, much superior
to the ordinary metal produced in England.
The principal works in Austria are at Neuberg, in the province of Styria, and are carried
on by the government. The iron is obtained from spathic ores smelted in two furnaces
43 feet high, and yielding from 100 to 150 tons per week. The iron produced is found by
analysis to contain 3.46 per cent, of manganese, and, as in Sweden, it is used for recarbonizing
in the place of the usual spiegeleisen. Originally a fixed vessel was erected at these works similar
to those used in Sweden, but this has been superseded by a pair of three-ton vessels of
the ordinary construction. Fixed or Swedish vessels are, however, still in use at other
Austrian works. The metal is run directly from the blast furnaces into the converters.
Here we have a full confirmation of the successful working of the
original fixed vessels in Austria, the metal being used direct from
the blast furnace. In those cases where it was recarburised, this
was not done with spiegeleisen, but by using the same metal as that
used for conversion, as described in my patent of 1855. If my
invention had gone no further than this, and I had never introduced any
of the mechanical improvements, which together constitute an entirely
new system of steel manufacture, the accomplishments of such results
as Mr. Hewitt saw and described would have been by itself a new
departure in steel-making, and would have profoundly altered the condi-
THE BESSEMER PROCESS IN AUSTRIA 277
tion of the crucible steel trade of this and other countries. Also, the
facts recorded show how far the Bessemer converter and the Sheffield
crucible are in one essential feature in perfect accord, viz., the Sheffield
crucible process can make excellent cutlery steel from Swedish charcoal
pig iron without the use of manganese in any form.
But the Sheffield crucible process cannot make good steel from
British iron smelted with mineral fuel without the employment of
manganese in the steel pot. Nor can the Bessemer converter make
good steel from British iron smelted with mineral fuel without the
employment of manganese in its converter.
Nothing can more clearly show that the application of manganese
to Bessemer steel was not a discovery or novel invention, for with what
kind of iron it was necessary to use manganese, and with what kind
of iron it was not required, was perfectly well known to Sheffield steel-
makers many years before Mr. Mushet claimed the use of it.
The perfect success that was obtained from the very first working
of my process*, both in Sweden and in Austria, excited the greatest
* Referring to the development of the Bessemer process in Europe, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt
said, in his Report on the 1867 Exhibition: — "It will be interesting to those who are
watching the advancement of the new process, to know that it is already rapidly extending
itself over Europe. The enterprising firm of Daniel Elfstrand and Co., of Edsken, who
were the pioneers in Sweden, have now made several hundred tons of excellent steel
by the Bessemer process. Another large works has since started in their immediate
neighbourhood, and two other Companies are making arrangements, to use the process.
The authorities in Sweden have most fully investigated the whole process and have
pronounced it perfect. The large steel circular saw-plate exhibited was made by Mr.
Goranson, of Gefle, in Sweden; the ingot being cast direct from the fluid metal, within
fifteen minutes of its leaving the blast furnace. In France, the process has been for some
time carried on, by the old established firm of James Jackson and Son, at their steel works, near
Bordeaux. This firm was about to go extensively into the manufacture of puddled steel,
and indeed had already got a puddling furnace erected and in active operation, when their
attention was directed to the Bessemer process. The apparatus for this was put up at
their works last year, and they are now greatly extending their field of operations, by putting
up more powerful apparatus at their blast furnaces in the Landes. There are also in course
of erection four other blast-furnaces in the South of France, for the express purpose of
carrying out the new process. The long and well-earned reputation of the firm of James
Jackson and Son is, in itself, a guarantee of the excellent quality of the steel produced by
this process. The French samples of bar steel exhibited, were manufactured by this firm.
Belgium is not much behind her neighbours in the race, as the process is being put into
278 HENRY BESSEMER
interest in those countries. My first licensee in Sweden, Mr. Goran sen,
of Gefle, came over to England as soon as the printed notice in the
press of my Cheltenham paper had reached him. He was a man
possessed of great energy as well as practical knowledge ; he saw the
converting process at my experimental works in London, and he erected
a fixed vessel like the one he saw. In this he used the molten iron
direct from his blast furnace, and converted it into steel without recar-
burising ; in fact, he kept strictly to the mode of operating described
in my Cheltenham paper. In a very short time he had his steel works
in operation, and sent over some ingots to show me what splendid
steel he was making. One of these ingots was rolled in Sheffield into
a circular saw -plate, T\ in. thick and 5 ft. in diameter. So great
was the interest excited in Sweden by the successful production of
high-class steel by the Bessemer process, that Prince Oscar took a
journey of over 200 miles to see it in operation at the works of
Mr. Goransen, and the impression made on the Prince's mind was so
favourable that it resulted in my being made an honorary member
of the Iron Board of Sweden, in recognition of the value of my
invention : a compliment which I shall ever highly esteem.
The circumstances attending the introduction of my process into
Austria were very different, but were equally satisfactory.
I had no Austrian patent, and therefore did not take any steps
to introduce my process into that country. The principal iron works
are at Neuberg, in Styria, and belong to the Government. The intelligent
managers of those works early applied to me for information regarding
my steel process, and, as I had no patent, they desired to know under
what terms I would supply all such plans as would enable them to put
it in operation. I offered them detailed drawings of all the apparatus,
a written description of the process, and a trial of their pig iron at the
Sheffield Works, in the presence of one of their own employes, for which
I asked a fee of £1000. This offer was at once accepted, and the
operation at Liege. While in Sardinia preparations are making to carry it into effect, Kussia
has sent to London an Engineer and a Professor of chemistry to report on the process, and
Professor Miiller of Vienna, and M. Dumas and others from Paris, have visited Sweden,
to inspect and report on the working of the new system in that country."
THE NEUBERG WORKS IN AUSTRIA 279
agreement thus entered into was carried out to our mutual satisfaction ;
in due time, the works at Neuberg were got into active operation, and
were entirely successful. In fact, with their splendid pig iron, it would
have been difficult to have made a failure. Prince Demidoff inspected
the works, and gave such a favourable report to the Emperor that His
Majesty conferred on me the honour of " Knight Commander of the
Order of His Imperial Majesty Francis Joseph," which, with the scarlet
collar and gold and enamelled cross of the Order, was presented to
me by His Excellency the Austrian Ambassador in London. This
decoration I highly prize, and I have worn it on many public occasions.*
* The following extract from Men and Women of Our Time (Koutledge and Co.),
summarises the many distinctions conferred on Sir Henry Bessemer : —
" The first honorary recognition of the importance of the Bessemer process in this country was
made by the Institution of Civil Engineers about 1858, when that body awarded Mr. Bessemer
the Gold Telford Medal, for a paper read by him before them on the subject. A knowledge
of the new process soon spread to Sweden, Germany, Austria, France and America, and the
inventor has received from these countries many honours and marks of distinction. In
the early days of the invention, Prince Oscar of Sweden travelled many miles to witness
the process in operation, and, as a mark of his approval, made the inventor a member of
the Iron Board of Sweden. In Austria, the honour of the Knight Commander of the Order
of his Imperial Majesty Francis Joseph was presented to him by the Emperor, together
with the gold and enamelled cross and ribbon of the Order. The Emperor Napoleon desired
to present him with the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, but the British Government
would not allow him to accept it. The Emperor in person presented him with a superb
gold medal instead. He also received the Albert Gold Medal, which was awarded by the
Council of the Society of Arts, presented to him by the Prince of Wales at Marlborough
House. The King of "Wurtemburg also presented to the inventor a handsome gold medal,
accompanied by a complimentary testimonial. His Majesty the King of the Belgians, who
has always taken a deep interest in the Bessemer process, has on several occasions honoured
the inventor by personally visiting him at his residence on Denmark Hill. The Freedom
of the City of Hamburg was also presented to him in due form. He was also made a member
of the Koyal Academy of Trade in Berlin, and a Member of the Society for the Encouragement
of National Industry of Paris ; and in England he was made a member of the Koyal Society
of British Architects, and a member of the University College, London, a member of the
Society of Mechanical Engineers of England and America. He succeeded the late Duke of
Devonshire as President of the Iron and Steel Institute of Great Britain, and during his
presidency he instituted the Bessemer Gold Medal, which has since been awarded annually
for the most important improvement in the iron and steel manufacture made during the year.
He also instituted the Bessemer Bronze Medal and five-guinea prize of books, annually presented
to the most successful student at the Koyal School of Mines at South Kensington. The
280 HENRY BESSEMER
In the latter part of 1856 and the commencement of 1857, I
steadily pursued my experiments, with a view to improve the quality
of the steel I was making, and to get rid of red-shortness. I
sought for information on this point in old books and encyclopaedias,
where very little information could be gained. I also re-perused such
metallurgical works as I possessed, and had already skimmed over too
lightly, and in one of them I found some most valuable information,
which I at once saw was applicable to my case. It related to an invention
that had been introduced into the Sheffield steel trade, about sixteen
years previously, by means of which iron of inferior quality was made
to produce excellent steel, and to receive the property of welding. The
article referred to was written by my old and esteemed friend, Dr. Andrew
Ure, and appeared in a supplement to the third edition of his Dictionary
of Arts, Manufactures, and Mines, published by Longmans and Co.
in 1846.
It has many times been remarked that some of the most important
events which shape and control our lives or fortunes, arise from fortuitous
circumstances which apparently have no possible connection with the
Institution of Civil Engineers awarded him a splendid Gold Cup, being the Howard
Quinquennial Prize. He was also presented with the Freedom of the Cutlers' Company of
London, and the Freedom of the Turners' Company; and, at a specially-convened meeting
at the Guildhall, on May 13th, 1880, Sir Henry Bessemer was presented with the Freedom
of the City of London, beautifully illuminated, and contained in a massive gold casket, " in
recognition of his valuable discoveries, which have so largely benefited the iron industry
of this country, and his scientific attainments, which are so well known and appreciated
throughout the world ; " the same evening he was entertained at a banquet given in his
honour, at the Mansion House, by the then Lord Mayor, Sir Francis Wyatt Truscott. But
it may be truly said that in no part of the world has the Bessemer process been developed
to the extent and with the energy that has marked its progress in America. In several
different parts of the United States, where nature has richly endowed them with those
aids to civilisation, coal and iron, manufacturing cities have been established, to which,
by common consent, they have given the name of Bessemer. Thus we have the rapidly-
increasing and important City of Bessemer, Gogebec County, Michigan ; the City of Bessemer,
chief town of the County of Bessemer, Alabama, with its Mayor and Corporation, its street
tramways and electric lighting, and its large manufacturing works, public schools, and numerous
churches. There is also the City of Bessemer, Lawrence County, Pennsylvania, the seat
of the great Edgar Thompson Steel Works, the largest in America. There is also the City
of Bessemer, Botetourt County, Virginia; the City of Bessemer, Natrona County, Wyoming;
and the City of Bessemer, Gaston County, North Carolina."
PLATE xxxiv
234
STEEL.
161
solid iron end ol the press, made to resist great pressure ; it is strongly bolted to the
cylinder a, so as to resist the Force of the ram ; g, g, iron rods, for bringing back the
ram b, into its place after the pressure is over, by means of counter weights suspended
to a chain, which passes over the pulleys h, h ; i, i, a spout and a sheet-iron pan for re-
ceiving the oily fluid.
STEEL. One of the greatest improvements which this valuable modification of
iron has ever received is due to Mr. Josiah M. Heath, who, after many elaborate and
costly researches, upon both the small and the great scale, discovered that by the
introduction of a small portion, 1 per cent., and even less, of carburet of manganese
into the melting-pot along with the usual broken bars of blistered steel, a cast steel was
obtained, after fusion, of a quality very superior to what the bar steel would have
yielded without the manganese, and moreover possessed of the new and peculiar pro-
perty of being weldable either to itself or to wrought iron. He also found that a
common bar-steel, rmde from an inferior mark or quality of Swedish or Russian iron,
would, when so treated, produce
an excellent cast steel. One im-
mediate consequence of this dis-
covery has been the reduction of
the price of good steel in the
Sheffield market by from 30 to 4O
per cent., and likewise the manu-
facture of table-knives of cast
steel with iron tangs welded to
them ; whereas, till Mr. Heath's
invention, table-knives were ne-
cessarily made of shear steel, with
unseemly wavy lines in them,
because cast steel could not be
welded to the tangs. Mr. Heath
obtained a patent for this and
other kindred meritorious inven-
tions on the 5th of April 1839 ;
but, strange and me)anc.holy to
say, he has never derived any
thing from his acknowledged im-
provement but vexation and loss,-
in consequence of a numerous
body of Sheffield steel manufac-
turers having banded together to
pirate his patent, and to baffle
him in our complex law 'courts.
J hope, however, that eventually
justice will have its own, and the
ridiculously unfounded pretences '
of the pirates to the prior use of
carburet of manganese will be set
finally at rest. It is supposed
that fifty persons at least are em-
barked in this pilfering conspiracy.
The furnace of cementation in
which bar-iron is converted into
bar or blistered steel is represented
in figs. 161, 162, 163. It is rect-
angular and covered in by a
groined or cloister arch: it con-
tains two cementing chests, or
sarcophaguses, c, c, made either
of fire-stone or fire-bricks : each
is 2£ feet wide, 3 feet deep, and
1 2 long ; the one being placed on
the one side, and the other on the
other of the grate, A B, which
occupies the whole length of the
furnace, and is from 13 to 14 feet
long. The grate is 14 inches
broad, and rests from 10 to 12 inches below the inferior plane or bottom level of the
chests; the height of the top of the arch above the chests is 5* feet; the bottom of the
FIG. 77. KEPRODUCTION OF PAGE FROM THE SUPPLEMENT TO DR. URE'S "DICTIONARY OF
ARTS, MANUFACTURES, AND MINES"
THE EFFECT OF MANGANESE ON STEEL 281
events they have in reality brought about. My readers will remember
that in the early part of this volume (page 13) I gave an account of my
acquaintance with Dr. Ure, and related how I had shown him some
medallions which I had coated with a thin deposit of copper from its
acid solution. I told of the great interest Dr. Ure had taken in my
discovery, and how, in November, 1846, he published a supplement
to his work, in which he gave an account of my invention under the
article " Electro-Metallurgy." Hence, I naturally purchased a copy of
this, to me, most interesting volume. It was an article on the manu-
facture of steel, contained in this supplement, which first enlightened
me on the subject of manganese and Heath's invention ; this culminated
in the production of ferro-manganese.
I read this account of Heath's invention with deep interest, and
at the same time I scored a line under a few of the sentences which very
forcibly struck me ; in order that my readers may see precisely the
kind of information this article furnished, I have had the whole page
photographed, and I reproduce it in Fig. 77, Plate XXXIV.
On reading this well-authenticated account of Heath's invention, I
at once saw that red-shortness would be cured by its use, for I had
found that my red-short steel crumbled away under the hammer if
raised to a welding heat. Here, in the book of my old friend, Dr. Ure,
was ample proof that inferior brands of iron could be made into weldable
cast steel simply by alloying them with 1 per cent, of carburet of man-
ganese. This fortunate discovery of what had already been practised for
years came like a revelation to me ; and as this patent of Heath's had
long expired, and his invention had become public property, I at once
investigated the whole subject, commencing with inquiries into the law
proceedings referred to by Dr. Ure, where I gained much additional
information. In the reports of " Noted Cases on Letters Patent for
Inventions," by Thos. Webster, barrister-at-law, published in 1855, I
found the complete specification of Heath's patent, and also much
evidence given in the Exchequer Court, in the case of "Heath v. Unwin,"
Hilary Term, 1844, by experts who had studied the subject both
theoretically and practically. From these reports I subjoin the following
extract : —
o o
282 HENRY BESSEMER
Evidence was given on behalf of the plaintiff by manufacturers of steel, and of long
experience in the trade, to the effect that cast steel suitable for the manufacture of
cutlery, before the introduction of the plaintiff's process, could only be made from high-priced
foreign iron, that the use of carburet of manganese in the manufacture of welding cast steel
was new at the date of the plaintiff's patent ; that the introduction of the plaintiff's
invention caused a revolution in the trade; that the plaintiff had, after long investigation
and experiments, discovered that when black oxide of manganese was combined in such
proportions with carbonaceous matter as to form a carburet, it enabled the manufacturer to
produce a welding cast steel suitable for the manufacture of cutlery from low-priced British
iron, which had never been done before, and which reduced the price of the steel from about
701. to about 35£. per ton.
Here was the remedy I was in search of, clearly pointed out ;
experienced Sheffield steel-makers had testified on oath that the use of
carburet of manganese, added to the cast steel, enabled the latter to
produce welding cast steel suitable for the manufacture of cutlery from
low-priced British iron, which had never before been done. No sooner
had I ascertained these facts than I commenced experiments on the
production of Heath's carburet of manganese in crucibles, using the air-
furnace which I had many years previously successfully employed to
produce all the various alloys of metal required in my bronze-powder
manufactory at Baxter House.
I well remember how much trouble I had with the first few
experiments, in which I used charcoal and black oxide of manganese,
the charcoal, ground to a very fine powder, being much in excess of the
quantity actually required. This was a great mistake, as the reduced
oxide remained in minute metallic particles, intermixed with the
overdose of charcoal powder. This mistake was afterwards remedied,
coarse granular charcoal in suitable proportion being used. I have
never publicly referred to these early experiments, simply because I was
unaware that I had, or could show, any evidence of the fact; and, as is
my rule in all such cases, I preferred to remain absolutely silent, not
only in reference to these early experiments to produce carburet of
manganese, but also as to my initiation of the manufacture of alloys
of iron rich in manganese, which are now so well known under the
name of ferro-manganese. But a purely accidental circumstance has,
within the last few years, furnished me with such conclusive evidence of
CARBURET OP MANGANESE 283
the fact as to make me no longer hesitate to show how far I was
instrumental in the production of that valuable alloy, ferro-manganese.
In searching through the contents of an old box I had brought to
Denmark Hill from Queen Street Place on my retirement from business,
I came upon six old pocket-memorandum books, in which I, from time to
time, had recorded many experiments on alloys, mechanical contrivances,
suggestions for new patents, etc. In one of these old books, bearing
on its flyleaf the date January 8th, 1852, written forty-five years
ago by my deceased partner Longsdon, I found several memoranda
relating to my first attempt to make Heath's carburet of manganese,
which were the direct outcome of the information I had obtained
from Dr. Ure's book. These researches were made about a month
before any one of Mr. Mushet's patents was published or could
possibly be known to the world. It will be seen that these memo-
randa were roughly made on the spur of the moment, and were
simply for my own guidance, or to prevent ideas and experiments
from being forgotten.
I give a facsimile of some of them in Fig. 78, page 284.
It will be remembered by many members of the Iron and Steel
Institute that it was in one of these old memorandum books that
I came upon my notes relative to the manufacture of what were
designated "Meteoric Guns," to be made by alloying malleable iron or
steel with 3 per cent, of nickel; a photograph of these notes was com-
municated by me to the Institute, and published in their Journal,
Vol. 18. Had it not been for this accidental discovery of memoranda
made at the time, and the existence of which had been entirely for-
gotten, I should never have reverted to this subject, since the mere
adoption of Heath's process could in no way add to whatever credit
I may be entitled to for the discovery and development of the
Bessemer process.
These old records of experiments will serve to show the difficulties
that one meets with from the most trivial circumstances. The fact
was that my air-furnace, which was designed for making bronze alloys,
was deficient in temperature when treating such a refractory ore as
oxide of manganese, and produced only a few buttons of reduced metal.
284
HENRY BESSEMER
I had found, in making alloys of copper and tungsten for bronze
powders that the mineral wolfram was most difficult to bring to
OjA,*i**Ji£ M £*W0*.
FIG. 78. FACSIMILE KEPRODUCTION FROM BESSEMER'S NOTE-BOOK
the metallic state, but was reduced easily if crushed and mixed with
oxide of copper, or with refuse "copper-bronze," that is, a fine powder
with pure copper. Thus copper, alloyed with tungsten, was readily
obtained. This fact of the union of metals in the act of simultaneous
OF THF
UNIVERSITY
PLATE XXXV
^//u* ^
tx
xx / Cv^
r//
(O
4 V
i .fit,
wf
/A^;/i y^/ (ty/fj?S/*^>,i!;^ r
FIG. 79. FACSIMILE OP PAGES PROM BESSEMER'S NOTE-BOOK
•* • * • • , v
C*a*U. /U?
ALLOYS OF IRON AND MANGANESE 285
reduction from their oxides, of which I had some practical experience,
at once suggested to me that the difficulty in reducing oxide of
manganese would be removed, by combining it in the form of powder
with oxide of iron, which is so easily fused, and then reducing
the two metals simultaneously. I clearly saw, at the same time, that
this system of alloying the manganese with iron would prevent the
spontaneous decomposition of pure metallic manganese when exposed to
ordinary atmospheric influence, as the manganese would be protected
by the iron present. This mode of producing an alloy of iron and
manganese, in almost any assignable proportions, appeared to me to be
such an important step in advance as to render all further experiments
in making Heath's pure carburet of manganese quite unnecessary ; these
ideas were at once jotted down in my pocket-book, and simply embody
the first rough views taken of this important manufacture. The
memoranda referred to are photographically reproduced in Fig. 79,
Plate XXXV.
With reference to Bethel's patent coke, I may mention that this
coke is made by the destructive distillation of coal-tar in closed retorts,
which leaves a porous hard coke which is almost pure carbon. This
process would have been excellently adapted for the reduction of oxide
of manganese on a large scale, and such a system of coke-making in a
retort would have been far less expensive than Heath's crucible process.
What I wanted to obtain, however, was the substance I had designated
"artificial ore of manganese and iron." Such artificial ore could be
smelted like other iron ores, and thus offered all the prospective
advantages of quantity and cheapness. This particular scheme I never
lost sight of until it culminated in the production of ferro-manganese
at Glasgow. Since my invention was kept in abeyance, so far as
steel-making from British iron was concerned, I was desirous of making
a series of experiments on all the rich alloys of iron and manganese.
I, therefore, had my furnace enlarged and the draught improved.
I then applied to Messrs. Bird and Company, of London, who were
agents for the Workington Hematite Iron Company, to obtain for
me some of their pure hematite ore for my experiments. There was
some delay in getting this ore, and in the meantime both Mr. Martien's
286 HENRY BESSEMER
and Mr. Mushet's patents were published. Then, for the first time,
I realised that an obstacle had been created, which might prevent
my using manganese in my process in any and every form in
which that metal was known, or had previously been in public use.
Nevertheless, I felt not the slightest hesitation in making use of
spiegeleisen, or any other manganesian pig-irons, which were covered by
my prior patents. I was, however, unfortunately diverted for the time
from the pursuit of the richer alloys of manganese which would have
prevented all those troubles met with in producing steel of sufficient
mildness for plates, so deeply engrossed did I become in the introduction
of my process to the trade, and in keeping watch against the many
attempts to encroach on my rights. Coupled with these there was
constant and laborious work at the drawing-board in making the original
drawings for my own further improvements, and in the development
of the many mechanical devices necessary to the commercial use of my
invention on a large scale. With all these imperative calls on my
time, something had to go to the wall, and the rich manganesian
alloys were for the time crowded out. In this busy year — that is, from
September 1856 to November 1857 — I had taken out eleven new patents.
I had settled the mechanical details of each one, and had personally
made the whole of the drawings for the eleven specifications. Every day
had its new labours, and every day the need for these rich alloys of
manganese became more evident.
About this time I had a long conversation on this subject with
Mr. William Galloway, one of the partners in our Sheffield firm, and
we seriously thought of putting up a blast furnace for making rich
manganesian pig-iron. Mr. Galloway had some land at Runcorn, on
the Mersey, which he suggested should be utilised for this purpose
as a private speculation of our own. I made many inquiries about
manganese mines at the " Mining Record " Office, and got a good deal
of useful information from Mr. Robert Hunt, the indefatigable head
of that most valuable institution. My inquiries and numerous visits
on the subject awakened a deep interest in Mr. Hunt, and before
the summer was over it was arranged that I should accompany him
in his usual annual visit to the principal tin and other mines in
OF
PLATE XXXVI
FIG. 80. STATUARY AND CLOCK IN SIR HENRY BESSEMER'S HALL AT DENMARK HII.L
VISIT TO CORNWALL 287
Cornwall. I much needed this little holiday, and Mr. Hunt drove me
nearly all round the county of Cornwall in an open phaeton, a journey
full of deep interest to me. My friend — for so I am proud to call him —
was a positive living encyclopaedia, and neither the longest journey, nor
the lonely parlour of the village inn, was ever dreary with such
an agreeable companion. We visited some of the manganese mines,
which were not very promising, being situated in localities far removed
from shipping ports, to which their output must have been transported
by horse and cart over bad roads.
While Mr. Hunt pursued his professional duties, I made a short
halt at Penzance, and rambled over the enormous granite rocks
leading down to Land's End. At some works in the district I found
a pair of dwarf serpentine columns of great beauty, which I purchased as a
memento of this most interesting journey. They are at present (1896) in
good company, for between them stands a massive pedestal, 4 ft. high,
made of Algerian onyx, forming the base of a large Parisian clock,
with a life-sized bronze figure holding a revolving pendulum. The
serpentine columns support busts of Enid and Prince Geraint from the
" Idylls of the King," sculptured in white Carrara marble. This group
stands on one side of the entrance-hall of my residence (see Fig. 80,
Plate XXXVI.).
On my return to London a plain, business-like review of all the
circumstances connected with the supply of manganese ore from Cornwall
was unsatisfactory. My old friend Galloway was getting on in years,
and not over-anxious to embark in new undertakings, while the pursuit
of my own business, and the spread of the process throughout Europe,
engrossed my whole attention. Thus time rolled on ; we made shift
with Franklinite, which was 40 per cent, richer in manganese than
spiegeleisen, but it was not all we could desire. A little later, it occurred
to me that oxide of manganese was a waste product in the manufacture
of chlorine and bleaching powder, and I knew that the firm of Tennant
and Co., of St. Rollox, Glasgow, were most extensive manufacturers
of this article. At that time Mr. Rowan, of Glasgow, was making
Bessemer steel under a license from me, and I wrote to him saying
that I was coming down to Glasgow, and hoped that he would be
288 HENRY BESSEMER
able to get me an introduction to Messrs. Tennant. In reply, Mr. Rowan
invited me to come to his house and stay a week. I did so, and, in
talking over the matter, he said : "I know a Mr. Henderson, who is
a good chemist, and is carrying out a scheme of his own at the works
of Messrs. Tennant and Co., where he is operating on iron pyrites, and
one of his waste products is pure iron in the form of powder. I will,
if you wish it, ask him to come and dine with us to-morrow."
The next evening I explained to Mr. Henderson how I proposed
to manufacture an artificial metallic ore, consisting of iron and manganese,
by combining hematite, or white carbonate of iron, with oxide of
manganese, in equal proportions. These materials were to be held
together with clay, or with clay and lime, to form a fluid cinder,
either with or without the addition of carbonaceous matter. I proposed
to mix these materials in a common brickmaker's pug-mill, to dry the
mixture in moderate-sized lumps, and to convert this artificial ore into
the metallic state in an ordinary blast furnace. I told Mr. Henderson
that I wanted some large firm to take up the manufacture, as I had
no time to attend to it, and did not wish to make such manufacture
a source of profit. All I wanted was to be supplied with a manganesian
alloy of iron, of not less than 50 per cent, of manganese, for my own
use and that of my licensees, who would most assuredly become large
purchasers. Mr. Henderson was very anxious to take the matter in
hand, but he feared to encounter the large cost of erecting a complete
blast furnace plant. He said that he had no doubt he could produce
the alloy in a less expensive furnace, and was willing to risk the cost
and trouble of doing so. I, on my part, gave up the idea of pressing
it upon Messrs. Tennant, as I originally intended, and left the whole
matter in Mr. Henderson's hands. The result of this was that he
took out a patent for manufacturing these rich manganese alloys in a
reverberatory gas - furnace, and so far succeeded as to produce alloys
containing from 20 to 25 per cent, of manganese, with which he supplied
our Sheffield firm until his works were, unfortunately, closed, owing to
the insolvency of the iron-founder on whose premises his furnace was
erected.
Thus was inaugurated the manufacture of ferro-manganese, the
THE PRODUCTION OF BESSEMER PIG IRON 289
production of which I had followed up as closely as my many engage-
ments permitted, from the very first inception of the idea, dating from
the reading of a chapter on steel in Dr. lire's Dictionary of Arts
and Manufactures; followed by the perusal of Heath's patents, and
the evidence of the Sheffield steel-manufacturers given in one of Heath's
law suits, as published in Webster's Law Reports. I never lost sight
of the object, so successfully arrived at, which would have been
attained long before had not the inferior alloy, spiegeleisen, been an
article of commerce at once procurable ; this delayed the production
of an alloy specially suitable for the purpose. But, valuable as this
ferro-manganese really was, neither that, nor spiegeleisen, could make good
steel from the ordinary quality of pig iron used for the manufacture
of iron bars, nor from the hematite iron as then made, since the hematite
pig iron, like all other British pig, was greatly contaminated with
phosphorus, owing to the use of puddler's tap cinder to flux the hematite
ore in the blast-furnace, and thus obtain a fluid cinder. It was not
until I had, with the assistance of my own chemist, prescribed new
furnace charges, omitting tap cinder and substituting shale, and thus
producing Bessemer pig, that any British coke-made iron could be con-
verted by my process into good steel. The universal presence of
phosphorus was the primary barrier which stopped my way; and when
this difficulty was removed, by the absence of tap cinder from the hematite
furnaces, we could obtain pig iron which was as free from phosphorus
as the puddled bar iron used in Sheffield for conversion into steel ;
and with this Bessemer pig good steel could readily be made by my
process, when there was used in conjunction with it the well-known
remedy for red-shortness, carburet of manganese.
In the meantime, our Sheffield works had commenced commercial
operations, and we made no secret that we used spiegeleisen for recar-
burising the converted metal. We patiently waited for the injunction
in Chancery that was to stop its use. But neither Mr. Mushet nor
others took any steps to enforce their patent rights. Another year or
two passed quietly by, and our steel works at Sheffield, and those of
our licensees, were daily increasing the quantity of Bessemer steel
placed upon the market. No attempt was made to prevent us using
p P
290 HENRY BESSEMER
manganese ; but, nevertheless, for some months the air was filled with
vague reports of legal proceedings. A " round-robin " had, it was said,
been filled up with subscribers to the extent of £10,000, and even high
legal luminaries and eminent engineers and experts in Great George
Street were supposed to be definitely retained. These rumours were
very vague ; nevertheless, they cropped up in various different quarters
over a period of many months. I personally took very little heed of
them, feeling absolutely secure in my patent claims ; no doubt a careful
search through a thousand old iron patents might unearth a few vague
expressions to which legal ingenuity, under the new light thrown upon
the subject by me, might give an outward appearance of similarity with
my invention ; but I had always remembered that my claim was " to force
atmospheric air beneath the surface of crude molten iron until it was
thereby rendered malleable, and had acquired other properties common
to cast steel, while still retaining the fluid state." This I felt absolutely
certain no man but myself had patented, and so I slept soundly in spite
of rumour, which, however, I did not doubt had some foundation.
For a period of more than two and a-half years (1857-60) after
the date of Mr. Mushet's three manganese patents, I had no intimation
of any kind that either I, or my licensees, were infringing any of these
patents. But about three or four months prior to the date when a
further £100 stamp was required to be impressed on them, to prevent their
forfeiture, I received a letter from a Mr. Clare, of Birmingham, calling
himself Mr. Mushet's agent for the sale of steel, and requesting an
interview with me and my partner at my office in London on the
following morning. On his arrival, he explained the object of his
visit ; it was simply to say that Mr. Mushet was prepared to grant
me a license to use his manganese patents for a nominal sum ; he
merely wanted his rights acknowledged. I then told Mr. Clare that we
considered that Mr. Mushet had acquired no rights under either of his
three manganese patents, and that we entirely repudiated them. I
also told him that we were anxious to meet any claims legally preferred ;
that we were prepared, on any day to be mutually arranged, to receive
Mr. Mushet and his solicitors and witnesses at the Sheffield Works ;
that we would allow them to see the crude iron converted and
EAELY EXPERIMENTS AT EBBW VALE 291
re-carburised with spiegeleisen, made into an ingot and forged into a
bar, and that I would personally take that bar to one of my customers
and sell it to him in their presence ; and then the prosecution of our
firm for infringement would be a very simple matter. This offer resulted
in Mr. Clare's retirement from my office, and after that interview we
never heard from him, or from Mr. Mushet, on the subject.
It will be within the memory of my readers that when we had
got into full swing with the new process at Sheffield, and had been
successful not only in making high-class tool steel from Swedish charcoal
pig iron, but also mild steel for constructive purposes from Bessemer
pig, I read a paper at the Institution of Civil Engineers, on which
occasion many beautiful samples of steel were exhibited, made by my
process in France, in Sweden, and at Sheffield. At the reading of this
paper Mr. Thomas Brown, of whom I have frequently spoken, was
present.
Referring to my process, Mr. Brown said that he had been
sanguine of its success, and had spent £7000 in endeavouring to carry
it out ; but he did not say that he had no license from me to make
this secret use of my invention. The annexed extract from the
Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers furnishes a report
of his remarks : —
Mr. T. Brown said he had taken great interest in this process, when it was first
brought forward, after the meeting of the British Association, at Cheltenham. He had
been sanguine of its success, even in opposition to the opinion of others, who had no faith
in it from the commencement; and he had spent £7,000 in endeavouring to carry it out.
It appeared to be thought that the quality of the iron ore had an important influence
upon the success of the operation. Now, he had succeeded in making samples, equal
perhaps to those exhibited, from spathose ores from the mines of the Ebbw Vale Company, in
the Brendon Hills, Somersetshire, with a mixture of Pontypool iron. But the difficulty
he experienced — amounting, indeed, to an impracticability — was in finding a completely
refractory material for the furnace. He was astonished at the price which had been stated
as that at which the article could be produced. He thought a very simple calculation was
sufficient to disprove it ; for the iron and the material, without manipulation, made up
the amount ; in fact, the article in its first state, supposing Indian pig-iron to be used, cost
£6 10s. per ton. He did not wish to say anything which could be looked upon as dis-
couraging, because he had originally been one of the warmest supporters of the invention;
but he believed Mr. Bessemer was now falling into the same error as to cost as he had
done at Cheltenham. With regard to waste, under the most favourable circumstances, there
292 HENRY BESSEMER
was a loss in the manufacture of nearly 40 per cent, of metal ; and on one occasion his
agent informed him that the whole of the metal was consumed, and that nothing but cinder
remained.
In 1862 I thought I had reason to fear the advent of a rival process
brought forward by Mr. George Parry, of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works,
whose name figures in a patent for the manufacture of iron and steel,
bearing date November 18th, 1861.
Before making any further reference to this patent, I would
remind those of my readers who are not practically acquainted with
the details of my steel process, that it consists in decarburising iron
which contains too much carbon to constitute steel, and in some cases
this process of decarburisation is carried through every grade of steel until
the carbon element is wholly removed, and soft malleable iron is the material
arrived at. Now, in describing this operation in my patent, I made
use of the well-known and ordinary terms by which iron in its various
states of combination with carbon is commercially known ; thus, I claimed
to force air into and beneath the surface of molten crude iron (that is,
molten iron as it leaves the blast furnace), or re-melted pig or cast iron
(that is, re-melted, broken or useless castings). If, instead of using these
trade terms, I had said that I claimed forcing air beneath the surface of
carburet of iron, this would, in scientific language, not only have included
these three ordinary qualities of iron, but it would have embraced any
and every compound of iron and carbon from which I desired to eliminate
the latter, and which was, in fact, the real object, meaning, and intention
of my invention.
It must be remembered that my royalty of two pounds per ton
on all ingots of iron or steel made by my process was holding out a
great premium for the production of a carburet of iron for conversion
into steel, which, from the nature of its manufacture, might so far differ
from ordinary crude or pig iron as to remove it from the actual trade
class of iron which I claimed to convert ; such iron, even if it cost
£1 per ton more than commercial pig iron, would avoid my royalty
of X2, and save the patentee £1 per ton. The ostensible object of
this patent of Mr. George Parry for the manufacture of iron and steel
was to produce a superior quality of steel by the employment of malleable
INTERVIEW WITH MISS MUSHET 293
scrap iron in lieu of pig, or crude iron ; for this purpose the scrap iron was
melted with coke in a small blast furnace, from which it was run into
a converter similar to mine, and blown with air forced upward through
it by tuyeres, the orifices of which were beneath the surface of the metal ;
all this was a pure and simple copy of my decarburising process. But
the malleable iron scrap could not be fused when distributed and mixed up
with lumps of coke in the blast furnace, without its absorbing about two
per cent, of carbon, and thus producing white iron or forge pig ; it would
also absorb some sulphur from the coke, and would contain that amount of
phosphorus which is always present in ordinary British bar - iron, and
which is an inadmissible quantity in cast steel. The metal thus produced
would, in fact, be crude iron, although the various impurities present
might differ in proportion from those in ordinary blast furnace iron.
Such iron would, further, be deficient in that necessary heat-producing
element, silicon, which is always present in considerable quantity in all pig-
iron suitable for the converting process ; and this, combined with the
deficiency of carbon, would form an absolute barrier to its conversion
into fluid mild steel, as the necessary heat could not be produced from such
a quality of carburet of iron. This process, as might have been expected,
proved unsuccessful.
One more incident referring to my relations with Mr. Mushet
remains to be chronicled before I close this Chapter. In December,
1866, one of my clerks announced the visit of a young lady, who did not
send in her name, but wished to see me personally. She was asked
into my private office, and, on my going to her, she gave the name
of Mushet. She told me that the gravest misfortune had overtaken
her father, and that without immediate pecuniary help their home would
be taken from them. She said : " They tell me you use my father's
invention, and are indebted to him for your success." I said : " I use
what your father had no right to claim ; and if he had the legal
position you seem to suppose, he could stop my business by an injunction
to-morrow, and get many thousands of pounds' compensation for my
infringement of his rights. The only result which followed from your
father taking out his patents was that they pointed out to me some
rights which I already possessed, but of which I was not availing
294 HENRY BESSEMER
myself. Thus he did me some service, and even for this unintentional
service I cannot live in a state of indebtedness ; so please let me know
what sum will render your home secure, and I will give it you." She
then handed me a paper setting forth the legal claim against him ; I
at once took out my cheque-book and drew for the amount, viz.,
£377 14s. 10d., and handed it to her. She thanked me in a faltering
voice as I bade her good afternoon.
On joining my partner after this interview with Miss Mushet, I
explained to him what had occurred ; he listened to me with surprise,
and with more impatience than I had ever seen him evince. He
thought that what I had done was most unfortunate and imprudent,
since from Miss Mushet's words it was evident that the idea was abroad
that I had in some way taken advantage of her father. He feared
lest my cheque should be considered evidence of my indebtedness. I
was much distressed to find my friend Longsdon so much annoyed,
for a more conscientious and just man I never knew ; he was, however,
somewhat reassured when I told him that I considered it a purely
personal matter, and had, of course, drawn the cheque on my private
bankers. He said he was glad it could never appear as an act of the
firm, though he thought it would be long before I should hear the
last of it.
Events proved that he was right, for not many months elapsed
(about 1867) before a friend — I believe a relation of Mr. Mushet—
wrote asking me to make Mushet a small allowance. I objected to do
this at first, but afterwards yielded, though I did not then care to give
my reasons for doing so. There was a strong desire on my part to
make him my debtor rather than the reverse, and the payment had
other advantages : the press at that time was violently attacking my
patent, and there was the chance that if any of my licensees were
thus induced to resist my claims all the rest might follow the example,
and these large monthly payments might cease for such a period as the
contest in the law courts might last. The annoyance, if nothing else,
would have been very great, and I had neither time nor patience to
wage a paper war from year's end to year's end with unscrupulous
writers. In the hope that an allowance to Mr. Mushet might have the
THE DEATH OF MR. MTJSHET 295
effect of restraining these attacks on me, I offered to pay him £300 a
year, aiming at abating an intolerable nuisance which I had no other
means of preventing. While we were paying over £3000 per annum
in the form of income tax, the £300 was but a small additional tax on
my resources, so I allowed it to drag on until Mr. Mushet's decease, in
1891, having thus paid him over £7000. So, naturally, ends this part
of the history of my invention, as far as Mr. Mushet is concerned.
CHAPTER XIX
EBBW VALE
~TN the preceding Chapter I have referred to Mr. George Parry,
-*- who was furnace manager at the Ebbw Vale Works in 1857. In
that year he applied for a patent having for its object the decarburation
of crude iron, by blowing forcibly down upon it in a closed chamber
without fuel, instead of blowing up through it, as in my process ; this patent,
however, was not completed. In 1861, as already stated, Mr. Parry took
another patent for making carburet of iron in a small blast furnace, the iron
so produced containing some portion of all the ordinary constituents
of pig iron, but differing in their proportions ; in consequence of this
difference it was proposed to convert this iron into steel by blowing
air up through the fluid in a closed vessel, and to make it into ingots
precisely in the manner directed in my patents. I think it was quite
natural that efforts at competition on these and other lines should be made
persistently; my process was advancing with rapid strides in every State in
Europe, and immense profits were being realised in this country by the
proprietors of ironworks who had taken licenses under my patents ;
in fact, thousands of tons of Bessemer steel rails had been sold at £18
to £20 per ton. Some two or three years had glided away after the
date of Mr. Parry's second patent, which had been quite forgotten by me.
I had at this time (about 1864) occasion to go to Birmingham on business,
and had left Euston at 9 P.M. I was quietly reading my newspaper in
the snug corner of a first-class compartment, containing only two other
occupants beside myself. These were two young gentlemen, who appeared
much elated at some success, or contemplated success — it might be a
race, a Stock Exchange bargain, or any other matter of ordinary
interest. Being quite young men they were naturally very enthusiastic,
and somewhat loud in their conversation, which rather disturbed
A MOMENTOUS JOURNEY 297
my reading. After some remarks by one of them, the other
exclaimed, in a very loud tone, " I wonder what the devil Bessemer
will say?" There could be no mistake as to this plain reference to me,
since, with the exception of the members of my family, I alone answered
to that name. It then occurred to me for the first time that all this
excited language and jubilation had some reference to me ; I had not
the remotest idea as to what had previously been said, or to what it
referred. By this time we had reached Watford, and as the train went
on I kept my paper before me, but could not prevent my attention
being directed to the lively sallies of these young men. Little by little,
I became conscious that the exciting cause of this boisterous hilarity
was some new joint-stock company that was to be floated in two
or three days. It might be a gas company, a brewery, or anything
else, for up to this point I had no indication of its nature, and only
wondered why they should question as to how Bessemer would
receive the news. But one at a time words were dropped that startled
me not a little, and riveted my attention to their conversation, which was
very much veiled, as though the scheme, whatever it might be, were
to be kept a profound secret at present from the outer world. But
here and there some casual word or two was dropped, about mines and
works, and a journey up from Wales, and what David Chadwick had
said about all the shares being taken up in two days for certain. Thus
I soon began to grasp the meaning of the fragments I had heard, and
to fit these disjointed sentences together ; but there was no absolute
certainty that I had guessed the true meaning.
We had by this time arrived at Leighton, and my fellow-travellers got
out, as I supposed, to take some refreshment, but the train went on without
them, and I was left alone to think over this curious incident. Then I
remembered that Mr. Joseph Robinson, the manager of the Ebbw Vale
Company's London offices, lived at Leighton. These young men might
probably be his sons ; and this formed another startling confirmation of the
theory I had arrived at, viz., that the Ebbw Vale Iron Works were
going, in a few days, to be formed into a joint-stock company, to take over
the works and mines and the other property of the present owners, and that
Mr. David Chadwick, whose name I distinctly heard, was the financial
QQ
298 HENRY BESSEMER
agent employed to form the company. I was not long in realising all that
this meant to me, and I saw that it was necessary to take immediate
steps to protect myself. Hence I became very impatient to arrive at the
next station, which was Blisworth, and there I got out. It was now
about 11 P.M., and the next up train was nearly due. I had by this
time worked myself into a considerable state of excitement, and paced
the station platform so rapidly as to attract the attention of the station-
master, who asked me if anything were wrong, or if he could do any-
thing for me. I said, " No ; I have heard some news on my way down
which renders my immediate return to London advisable." The up
train soon arrived, and conveyed me back to Euston. I took a cab to
Denmark Hill, where I arrived about 2 A.M., and somewhat alarmed my
wife by my return home at such an unseemly hour. Sleep did not
come readily that night, my mind was too much disturbed ; but in the
quiet hours of the early morning I calmly reviewed the whole situation,
and rehearsed every detail of the plan of campaign. Then I got a
couple of hours' sleep, and by the time breakfast was over I felt
sufficiently refreshed, and fully nerved, to carry out the plan which,
after renewed consideration, I had determined to follow. I now fully
realised the disadvantageous position I should be placed in if this
company, with a couple of millions capital, was formed and I was
left to fight them single-handed. Even now, after the lapse of so
many years, this marvellous revelation, coming as it did at the precise
moment necessary to be effective, seems more like an act of eternal
justice than one of the ordinary affairs of life. I was startled by it at
the time, and, momentous as were the interests involved, I was not
unnerved, but, on the contrary, felt greatly encouraged ; for though not
possessed of that very great physical courage natural to more robust
men, I have ever stood firmer in the face ot a great, an appalling
danger, than when encountering some of the smaller risks we all have
to run at times.
On the morning following my unexpected return to London, I paid
a visit to Mr. David Chadwick, at 1 1 A.M. ; I said I had called to discuss
an important question in relation to the great iron and steel company
that was to be formed to purchase and take over the Ebbw Vale
INTERVIEW WITH MR. DAVID CHADWICK 299
Ironworks and Mines. He started with surprise, but I had so directly
assumed the fact that he made no effort to conceal it. I said : " I
wish to call your attention to some facts with which you are pro-
bably wholly unacquainted, but which most nearly concern your personal
interest, as well as that of myself and of your Ebbw Vale clients."
I then told him, as briefly as I could, of the attempts that had been
made to destroy the value of my invention by cornering manganese,
and thus to force me to sell my patents for less money than they were
worth. I also referred to Mr. George Parry's patents, neither of which
could be worked without directly infringing mine ; therefore that the
proposed company could not manufacture cheap cast steel without a
license from me, and, what was of still greater importance to him and
to them, was the fact that the New Ebbw Vale Steel and Iron Company
could not even be formed at all without my consent and permission.
Mr. Chadwick, not unnaturally, doubted this confident expression,
and said: "That's got to be proved." I said: "You must excuse my
plain speaking, and allow me to call a spade a spade ; I have but to
express what is my determination, unless my terms of surrender are
accepted. Do not suppose me weak enough to calculate on gaining a
single point by mere bluff ; I know, by reputation, that you are a
very unlikely person to be led away by such means. I also know, on
the other hand, that you might readily enough in your own mind
come to this conclusion : ' Well, let Bessemer do what he likes in law ;
it will take him some months, but we shall have got our capital
in a few days, and shall be in good fighting trim, with £2,000,000
to back us, and can thus afford to laugh at any threat from him.'
Now this is just the very thing I have set myself to frustrate. I can
fight the question now with £100, and obtain a victory in two or three
days, but if I once let you get your capital, it might cost me £10,000,
and a couple of years' struggle in the Law Courts ; so you see I must
choose this very day to fire the first shot, unless your clients make an
immediate and unconditional surrender ; or unless you hold out a flag
of truce for two days to enable you to communicate with your clients."
" Now there are two ways of carrying on such a war. If I were
bent on fighting, I should mask my batteries, and so fall upon you
300 HENRY BESSEMER
unawares, you thinking that my armament was very small ; but I have
no desire to fight unless I am driven to do so, in which case I should
know how to defend myself. There is a great disadvantage in some
cases in allowing your enemy to underrate your strength and to rush
headlong into war, hence it is my policy just now to show you how
completely I have you in my power. What I want, and must have,
is the giving up by the Company of all obstructive patents in their
possession, and the immediate taking out of a license from me to use
my patents instead."
" If this is refused, what is my inevitable course ? I go from here
direct to my solicitor, who can readily, in two hours, make a formal
written application for an injunction in the Court of Chancery to
restrain the company owning these patents, or any new company formed
for that purpose, from using them. Meanwhile, I get a thousand blue
and red posters printed, announcing the fact that I, Henry Bessemer,
have applied for four separate injunctions in the Court of Chancery
to restrain the Ebbw Vale Companies using certain patents for making
steel, which they are in possession of; and, further, that I have abso-
lutely refused to give a license to the present — or any future — Ebbw
Vale Company to use any of my patent processes for the manufacture
of cast steel. These facts I can legally publish ; I could, before the
day was out, cover every hoarding in the City with these staring
placards, and before the members of the Stock Exchange arrive at
their offices to-morrow morning, I could have fifty cabs perambulating
Cornhill and the principal City thoroughfares with similar placards
posted on them, as practised at election times, and distributing hand-
bills by the thousand ; if you are of opinion that under these conditions
you can get £2,000,000 capital subscribed for a New Ebbw Vale Steel
Company, you may try and do so.
"On the other hand your clients, if this altered state of things
is communicated to them in a quiet, businesslike way by their own
financial agent, will never be mad enough to lose such a chance of realising
so vast a sum in ready cash for their old works and plant.
" Iron-making, as far as rails are concerned, is played out. The
company must make steel or shut up the works, and they have already
ULTIMATUM OFFERED TO THE EBBW VALE COMPANY 301
put it off too long. My process has rendered large buildings filled with
long rows of puddling furnaces of little value ; and weak old-fashioned
rolling-mills, that would do for iron, must all be replaced by stronger
and more modern mills for rolling steel. Your clients must be fully
aware of these facts, and they will never risk their present chance of
selling the works for the mere pleasure of opposing me. I know this
as well as they do, and there lies my source of power. Whereas
their unconditional surrender would make everything smooth, their own
best interests would be secured, you would get your commission for the
formation of the company, and I should get my royalty for all the
steel they make. Such is the brief outline of the steps I am bound
to take if my offer is rejected."
" What, then, do you propose that I should do ? " said Mr.
Chadwick.
" Simply this. Go and see your clients, show them clearly their
altered position, and absolutely refrain from taking one single step in
advance until I have been brought face to face with the owners ot
the property, or their fully-authorised delegates ; and if you pledge
yourself to this course of action, I will, on my part, remain absolutely
quiescent ; but, please remember, that a single word in the public press
will bring me into full activity."
Mr. Chadwick was much too keen a man of business not to recog-
nise to its fullest extent the imminent peril in which the prosperity of
the new company was involved, and said : " I will at once see my clients
on the subject, and will wholly abstain from any further steps for the
formation of this company until they have consented, or refused, to
discuss the matter with you. But I have little doubt that they will
come up to London, probably the day after to-morrow." Thus far we
were mutually pledged, and at parting, I suggested that it would be
far more agreeable to all parties concerned if they would meet me with
a plain " Yes " or " No " to my demands, and so avoid a discussion that
might easily terminate in many unpleasant words. I was the more
anxious to do this, as every member of the then Ebbw Vale Company
was wholly unknown to me, even by name, except Mr. Abraham Darby
and Mr. Joseph Robinson ; and, although very plain speaking had
302 HENRY BESSEMER
been necessary in the case of Mr. Chadwick, in order to fully impress
him with the gravity of the crisis, it was most desirable that the
vendors should be put in possession of these facts in a quiet businesslike
manner through their own financial agent, and be thus able to calmly
review their position from this new standpoint, make up their minds
what course they intended to pursue before seeing me, and thereby avoid
any heated discussions on the subject.
On the second day after this interview with Mr. Chadwick, I met
by appointment at his offices, Mr. Abraham Darby, who was, I believe,
the chief proprietor of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works ; his partner,
Mr. Joseph Robinson, was also present. We met on a friendly business
footing ; my terms as given to Mr. Chadwick had been accepted, and
we had merely to discuss the few details that were necessary. They
laid great stress on the large sums of money their patents and their
experiments had cost them, setting it down, if I remember correctly, at
£40,000. Then this difficulty arose : Mr. George Parry's patent was
not in their hands, and £5,000 must be paid to give them an absolute
control over it. This I undertook to pay, and on their arranging to go
largely into the manufacture of Bessemer steel, I agreed to deduct
£25,000 from their first royalties, in lieu of paying money for the
purchase of all their patents. After this deduction was made, they
were to pay me the same royalties as I charged to other licensees on all
the steel they produced.
Thus the two great objects I had in view were accomplished. The
signing of my deed of license took the sting out of my opponents, for
it contained what lawyers call an " estoppel clause," in which they, under
their hands and seals, acknowledged the perfect validity of all my patents :
" That they were new and useful," and " were sufficiently described in my
specifications," and that " they were all duly specified within the time
prescribed by law." This clause deprived them of the possibility of
attacking my patents, or refusing to pay the royalties agreed upon in
their deed of license.
It was also important that I should get the assignments of all their
patents. Not that these patents were in themselves worth the paper
they were written on, but so long as they existed and were the property
AGREEMENT WITH THE EBBW VALE COMPANY 303
of some other persons, they were fighting material, and could be utilised
to keep me in the Law Courts possibly for a couple of years. This might
have cost me an amount of money immensely greater than the loss I should
sustain by the Ebbw Vale Company's not paying me a royalty on their
first year's production of steel ; which was, in fact, only the loss of what
never would have been mine if I had let them go on their own way
unopposed. Under these conditions I withdrew all opposition to the
formation of the new steel company, and after a not very long interval
I began to receive from the Ebbw Vale Company large sums quarterly
in the form of royalty. I cannot, at this distant period, find all the
returns of the sums they paid me, but I am under the impression that
I received from them altogether in royalties between £50,000 and £60,000;
added to this they had given up all the patents which had been held
for years suspended over me.
Thus happily was removed the last barrier to the quiet commercial
progress of my invention throughout Europe and America — an invention
which from its infancy has steadily grown in extent and importance, until
the production of Bessemer steel has reached an annual amount of not
less than 10,500,000 tons, equal to an average production of 33,500 tons
in every working day of the year, and having a commercial daily value
of a quarter of a million sterling.
CHAPTER XX
THE BESSEMER SALOON STEAM-SHIP
T71EW persons have suffered more severely than I have from sea-
sickness, and on a return voyage from Calais to Dover in the
year 1868, the illness commencing at sea continued with great severity
during my journey by rail to London, and for twelve hours after my
arrival there. My doctor saw with apprehension the state I was in. He
remained with me throughout the whole night, and eventually found
it necessary to administer small doses of prussic acid, which gradually
produced the desired effect, and I slowly recovered from this severe
attack. My attention thus became forcibly directed to the causes of
this painful malady, which I, in common with most other persons,
attributed to the diaphragm being subjected to the sudden motions
of the ship. Hence, as a natural sequence, its cure appeared only
to require that some mechanical means should be devised whereby
that part of the ship occupied by passengers should be so far isolated
as to prevent it from partaking of the general rolling and pitching
motions. In this way I entered, almost without knowing it, into an
investigation of the subject ; and gradually, as my ideas were developed,
I determined to make a model vessel, small enough to be placed on
a table, and to which the usual pitching motion of a ship was imparted
by clockwork.
On this model was arranged a suspended cabin, supported on separate
axes, placed at right angles to each other. I obtained a patent in
December, 1869, for this invention, which is represented in two sectional
engravings, Figs. 81 and 82, on Plate XXXVII. The cabin, shown in
the illustrations, is circular in form, with a hemispherical ceiling or roof,
whose centre coincides with the axis of suspension. Seats are arranged
all around its circumference, with a gallery above, provided also with
PLATE XXXVII
FIG. 81. SECTION THROUGH EARLY FORM OP BESSEMER SALOON, IN STILL WATER
FIG. 82. SECTION THROUGH EARLY FORM OF BESSEMER SALOON, WITH VESSEL ROLL (NO
FIRST DESIGN OF THE BESSEMER SALOON 305
seats, while the circular floor is large enough to serve as a promenade.
A heavy counterbalance weight is suspended vertically below the floor
of the cabin, to retain it in a horizontal plane. In Fig. 81, the cabin is
shown in the position it would naturally assume when the ship is in
dock, and in Fig. 82 in the position it would maintain when the ship is
rolling, that is, with its floor quite horizontal. Immediately beneath
the large pendulous mass which controls the cabin is shown a concave
iron surface, turned quite smooth, and fixed to the ship. This surface
is made with a curve, the centre of which coincides with that of the
axis of the cabin, and the pendulous mass has a heavy cylindrical weight
within it, which is shod with wood. This can be let down so as to
come lightly in contact with the concave dish or surface, or be pressed
down upon it by a screw, if desired, thus acting as a friction brake to
prevent the cabin from acquiring a swinging motion, or when required,
to lock it fast to the ship. There were many other details planned,
which need not be now entered into, as the description I have already
given will serve to show what were the crude ideas presented to my
mind in the early stages of the investigation of this subject. All this
was hurried on in a short time, and I felt determined to put the general
scheme to the test of actual experiment at sea, trusting to remove
defects in the details as experience showed them to be necessary. I
therefore planned a small steamer suitable for carrying this circular
saloon, and entered into a contract with Messrs. Maudslay, Sons and Field
to build it for me for £2,975. This sum was further augmented
by slight alterations of the original plan, bringing up the net cost
of the vessel to £3,061, which was duly paid on the delivery of the
ship to me at Greenwich.
While this small steamer was being built, I continued to study the
subject more deeply, and in doing so, I felt some serious misgivings
as to the motions of translation of certain parts of the ship, depending
on the distance of such parts from the centre about which the vessel
rolled and pitched, and which would tend to set up an oscillating motion
of the cabin. I saw it was necessary to place the axis of the cabin as
near as possible to the point about which the vessel pitched and rolled,
and then the question of absolute personal control of the cabin by a
it R
306 HENRY BESSEMER
steersman arose in my mind. This gradually shaped itself into a necessity,
if perfect quietness in the cabin was to be ensured. These improvements
were of vital importance, and I could not hide from myself the fact
that the small steamship which was then being built for me by Messrs.
Maudslay, Sons and Field could not be so altered as to give these
ideas a fair trial. I therefore abandoned all intention of fitting up my
suspended saloon in it, and I eventually sold it in an unfinished state
for what it would fetch, so I lost about £2,000 by the first move. I was
not, however, discouraged, but on the contrary I felt more confidence
than ever in the success of the plans that time and study had so far
developed.
The fact that I could not venture out to sea to try my experiments
was a great drawback to me, and to meet this difficulty I determined
to make a large working model, to try the mechanical motions and other
details of my plans, on land. For this purpose I constructed the central
part of a fair-sized vessel, omitting the bows and stern portions, which,
as will be hereafter shown, had nothing to do with the trials to be made.
This model had 20 ft. beam and was 20 ft. long ; that is, it represented
a slice cut, as it were, out of the central part of a vessel as large as the
Thames above-bridge passenger steam-boats. It was fitted into a square
opening or pit, formed in the ground to such a depth as to represent
its natural immersion had it been placed in water, the level of the land
surrounding it consequently representing the level of the water in which
the model was assumed to be floating. This structure was erected in
a meadow at the rear of my residence at Denmark Hill, and was supported
on axes in the line of the keel ; it was made to roll by a steam engine
actuating a crankshaft and connecting-rod, so arranged as to give a gentle
motion to the whole fabric, which weighed several tons. The angle
of roll was 15 deg. on each side of a horizontal line ; that is, a complete
roll of 30 deg. In the central part, and on a level with the deck of this
model ship, was a small saloon 12 ft. by 14 ft. inside, with seats along
each side of it, and a row of small windows above them. This cabin
was large enough to conveniently accommodate a dozen persons at a time.
The ceiling was flat, and its upper surface formed a little promenade deck,
with a light iron hand-rail all round it. In the centre of the cabin
PLATE XXXVIII
CO
00
00
o
WORKING MODEL OF THE BESSEMER SALOON 307
a small sunk space, surrounded by a railing, permitted the steersman to
stand with his head and shoulders a foot or two above the floor, and
before him was a spirit-level placed in position at right angles to the
axis on which the model ship was made to roll. The steersman had
a small double handle immediately in front of him, very like the steering
bar of an ordinary bicycle ; this handle actuated an equilibrium valve,
so easy of motion that a mere child could work it. The valve admitted
water under pressure to one side of a piston, and allowed its escape from
the other side, thus silently and quietly controlling power capable of
holding in absolute check any amount of force tending to put the floor
out of a true horizontal plane. If twelve or fourteen persons walked
suddenly over in a body from one side of the cabin to the other, it made
no perceptible difference, for the steersman had only to watch the spirit-
level, and by gently moving the handle keep the bubble permanently
in the centre, and thus insure absolute steadiness. If the steersman took
his hands off the steering handle, the cabin immediately partook of
the motion of the model, which was fully equal to the roll of a small
ship in a heavy sea. This sudden transition from absolute quiet to a
most unpleasant roll generally resulted in loud shouts of " Stop her ! "
from the persons seated in the cabin : an order which, after well shaking
up the passengers, the steersman always attended to. He applied his
hand once more to the lever, when absolute quietness was restored, to
the relief of all. As the mechanical demonstration of my scheme, the
effect was perfect. This experiment was witnessed and the result admitted
by some of the first engineers and scientists of this country, many of
whom will recognise in the two illustrations, Figs. 83 and 84, on
Plates XXXVIII. and XXXIX.), a correct representation of the
apparatus they did me the honour to inspect at my house in 1869.
To facilitate entering and leaving the cabin at all times, notwith-
standing the continued rolling motion of the model, half a dozen steps
led to a small fixed staging supported by posts driven into the ground.
Between this platform and the moving hull were two stout circular steel
rods, working in sockets at each end, horizontally parallel to each other.
A number of flat oak bars, having a small round hole near each end,
were slipped on to these steel bars, a rubber washer between adjacent
308 HENRY BESSEMER
bars keeping them a short distance apart, and the whole forming a
sort of grille extending from the fixed stage to the moving hull, and
gradually partaking of the slope of the latter ; thus, any person could
walk with perfect ease from the fixed to the moving part, or vice versd.
My idea of an improved Channel service became generally known,
and I had the satisfaction of seeing that I was not alone in my opinions
as to its ultimate results. My plans were submitted to the judgment
of practical men of the highest mechanical ability. All was said that
could be said theoretically on the subject, pro and con., and the time
for action had now arrived. I therefore laid my plans before the well-
known financial agents, Messrs. Chad wick, Adamson, and Co., who
undertook the formation of a limited joint stock company, to run
steamships between England and France, provided with saloons steadied
by the hydraulic apparatus secured under my patents. The prospectus
was issued, and in due course the company was registered, with a nominal
capital of £250,000, the amount actually subscribed being much below
that required even to build the first ship : a fact to which I objected,
but which I was assured, was an everyday occurrence. My original
intention as patentee was to grant licenses to shipbuilders and passenger
steam companies to use my invention, charging a small extra sum for all
passengers booking for the saloon. But the company just formed insisted
on having the entire monopoly of the ships running between the English
and French ports, thus absorbing a great part of the value of the patent,
and shutting it up until after their first ship came into use. In order
to meet this sweeping demand, I consented to take 10 per cent, on the
cost of the ships, which was to be paid concurrently with the remittances
to the shipbuilders, and I further conceded to the company a share
of my half-crown per head royalty. I thus received no cash payment
for this share or participation in my patent, although I had already
spent considerably over £5,000 in the construction of a steam-ship and
other models, trials and patents, etc. Notwithstanding this, I was
among the first subscribers to the company's capital, and as soon as the
shares were ready for issue, I applied for £10,000 in ordinary shares,
which on allotment I paid for in cash, the best evidence I could give
of my entire confidence in the Bessemer Saloon Ship Company.
THE DESIGN OF THE HULL 309
At the time when the company was formed, I was much pressed
to become its chairman, but I declined to do so, or even to take the
position of director, because I had not only a great interest in the
Saloon Ship Company, but I had other interests as a patentee, which
might possibly come in conflict with those of the company. I felt well
assured that no man can serve two masters, and I emphatically declined to
place myself in so false a position. At the same time, I also declined
to make myself the servant of the company in any way ; but as they
desired my advice and opinion on matters connected with the saloon
and its machinery, I accepted the office of Consulting Engineer without
fees.
Mr. (afterwards Sir) E. J. Reed, who then held an important
position in Earle's Shipbuilding Company at Hull, was appointed Naval
Constructor to the Bessemer Saloon Ship Company, and we also had on
our Board of Directors, Admiral Sir Spencer Robinson, who was an
influential Director of Earle's Shipbuilding Company. It was understood
that the ship in all its details should be designed by Mr. Reed, subject
to such modifications as the necessities of the saloon imposed, and which
were few and simple, although they undoubtedly introduced important
structural difficulties.
First, I decided that the saloon, as far as hydraulic control was
concerned, should move on axes parallel with the line of the keel, and
that pitching in the short sea of the channel should be reduced, as far
as possible, by the great length of the ship. It occurred to me that the
bows of the ship would not be lifted so high in meeting a high wave,
or mound, of water, in front of her, if she had a low freeboard. The
forecastle would then receive part of the weight of the mound of water,
and not be floated upward to the same extent as if constructed with
high bows, which might be surrounded by a heavy rising wave. This
was simply a landsman's view of the conditions to be met, in which,
however, Mr. Reed concurred, and designed his ship with a low freeboard
at both ends, as she was intended to run in and out of the harbours
without turning round.
Secondly, to reduce the amount both of pitching and rolling of the
saloon, I required a space equal to 70 ft. in length and 30 ft. in breadth
310 HENRY BESSEMER
in the centre of the ship for the reception of the saloon, which was
to extend so low down as to bring its turning axis as near as possible
on the line about which the centre would roll. These conditions were
provided for by Mr. Reed, and it only remained for me to design
the saloon and the governing machinery required, all the drawings and
plans for which occupied many months of close application. Here it may
be desirable to refer generally to the means employed for governing the
motions of the saloon ; for this purpose I have given an engraved copy
from one of my old drawings (Fig. 85, Plate XL.), showing a cross-section
through the centre.
Two large A-shaped frames, shown partly by dotted lines, were
securely bolted to the main framing of the ship ; these frames were several
feet apart, and were held together by stretcher-bars, which passed through
curved slots in the webs of a horizontal pair of large " working beams."
There were strong angle-brackets formed on the upper side of these beams,
which supported the axis about which the saloon moved, similar axes
being provided at or near each end of the saloon floor coinciding in position
with the central axis, as shown on the engraving, thus firmly supporting
the weight of the saloon by strong axes and carrying frames at three
points in its length. It will be seen that at each end of the large working
beams, and coupled in the space between them, were two hydraulic
cylinders hanging vertically from massive girders connected with the main
deck frames, so that any movement or oscillation of the working beams
permitted these hydraulic cylinders and their piston rods to oscillate
slightly, and follow the radial motion of their beam ends. A suitable
set of hydraulic force pumps, driven by a separate steam engine, was
so arranged as to furnish a constant supply of water under any required
uniform pressure.
The " steersman," or controller, was provided with a handle controlling
a set of delicately-balanced equilibrium valves, forming a connection
between the water in the air vessel, or pressure chamber, of the force
pumps and the vertical hydraulic cylinders, which were always kept
full of water on both sides of their pistons by means of a loaded valve
at the discharge end of the exhaust pipe, but with a very much greater
pressure on one side of each piston than on the other. Things being thus
PLATE XL
W
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OQ
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THE CONTROL OF THE BESSEMER SALOON 311
arranged, it will be readily understood that if the ship were in harbour
and at rest, the steersman by moving his handle so as to admit water
under great pressure into the lower part of the left-hand cylinder, would
expel the water which was above the piston through the loaded valve. At
the same time the left-hand end of the beam would be forced downwards ;
and the valve would have admitted water under great pressure on the
upper side of the piston contained in the right-hand cylinder, thus forcing
or lifting up the right-hand end of the working beams, and so on. It
will be seen that if the floor of the saloon could be thus made to oscillate
on its axis by means of the hydraulic cylinders when the ship was in dock,
the reverse would take place when the ship was rolling at sea ; that is
while the ship rolled, the use of the hydraulic cylinders would enable the
floor of the saloon to remain horizontal. The distance through which a roll
takes place, and the time occupied in performing the roll, constantly vary ;
but by means of equilibrium valves under personal control, this variation
could be easily provided for. The spirit-level directly under the eye ol
the steersman instantaneously indicated to him any movement of the
floor from a true horizontal plane, by the travel of the bubble from the
centre towards one end. A slight turn of the handle by the steersman
prevented further movement. All he had to do was to keep the bubble
in the centre of the gauge ; and it was found in the working model
erected at Denmark Hill that, when going as fast as ten complete rolls
per minute, and rolling through an angle of 30 deg., a position of the
floor not deviating more than 1 in. or 2 in. from the horizontal was
maintained with ease, and with absolute freedom from jerks, a result
which the vis inertia of the heavy mass forming this large saloon would
tend to still more favourably secure. The larger the flywheel attached
to irregularly -moving machinery the more perfectly are these irregularities
controlled by it ; and it must always be borne in mind that all oscillating
motions in nature commence very slowly and acquire a maximum velocity,
gradually becoming less rapid, until motion absolutely ceases in that
direction. Then the infinitely slow reaction in the opposite direction
takes place, and goes on until a maximum velocity is again arrived at.
Let anyone for a minute or two watch the beautiful motions of the
pendulum of a common clock ; there is no jerk, it does not travel through
312 HENRY BESSEMER
its whole range at a uniform speed and then start back in the same way,
but, like the oscillations of all heavy bodies, obeys those laws which bring
the control of oscillations in such bodies within the sphere of applied
mechanics.
To prove the confidence felt by my colleagues in the certain success
of my scheme, I cannot do better than reproduce here a letter from that
eminent authority, Sir E. J. Reed ; this letter was published in The
Times on November 26th, 1872.
To THE EDITOR OP "THE TIMES."
SIR,
The discussion upon Channel steamers has proceeded so far and taken such a form
in your columns that it seems proper for me, as the designer of the vessels which are to
carry Mr. Bessemer's saloon, to submit the following observations upon the subject. I should
have said nothing about the Dicey project had not one of the directors of the Dicey
Company made it necessary for the proposers of the Bessemer vessels to defend their work ;
and even now I shall offer but a very few words upon it, as the able letter of Colonel
Strange, which you published on Saturday, contains nearly all that it is necessary to say.
I believe the " Dicey " ship to be wrong for the following reasons : — First, where one
of the primary objects is to secure small draught of water, and therefore lightness of structure,
the plan in question renders a very unusual weight of hull necessary, because it gives the
ship four sides instead of two, and introduces a heavy superstructure for the purpose of
yoking the two half ships together; secondly, unless this superstructure is extremely well
designed and very strongly built, it will not keep the two half ships effectually together in
a heavy storm ; and their separation would be fatal to both ; thirdly, there is great reason
to suppose that two half ships of equal size and large proportions, placed 30 ft. apart, and
yoked together, however propelled, would be circumstanced very unfavourably for high speed,
because of the interference with each other of the waves of displacement in retreating from
the inner bows ; fourthly, there is also much reason, and some experience, to suppose that
such a vessel, propelled by an interior wheel, would be under very great additional dis-
advantages as regards the obtaining of extreme speed — such vessels have, in fact, failed from
want of speed ; and, fifthly, the Dicey ship, being made (by the separation of the twin
portions) of very unusual breadth from stem to stern, is peculiarly unadapted for entering
the narrow harbours of Calais and Folkestone in bad weather. I will only further add that
the experiment which Admiral Elliot promises with a twin Dicey steamer no bigger altogether
than a " Citizen " boat will throw little or no light upon any one of the above questions ; and
the very fact that such a vessel is being prepared for the purpose of proving to the public
that the Dicey ship is right, when great size and speed are to be realized, strongly inclines
me to believe that its advocates have neither considered nor understood the real difficulties
that will oppose their success and frustrate their good intentions. In seeking to reduce rolling
they have looked past other equally important conditions. I know Admiral Elliot has attempted
to silence the objections of mere ship-builders and engineers like myself by telling us that
SIR E. j. REED'S LETTER TO "THE TIMES" 313
it is as a sailor that he contradicts us, and that it is in the name of sailors that he speaks ; but
I do not consider that a sailor is any better entitled than other persons to pronounce dogmatically
upon such questions as these, nor do I believe that Admiral Elliot has authority to speak
in the name of the naval profession in this matter.
I now come to the Bessemer ship, and will state as briefly as I can what she is to
be, and why she has been made so.
The present discomforts of the Channel passage are almost wholly due to the smallness
of the present steamers, which have been kept of small dimensions and light draught to
enable them to frequent the French harbours of Calais and Boulogne ; and being so small,
they knock about terribly in rough weather. I will not say that these vessels are the best
that can be produced of their dimensions, but some of them are well designed, and no
improvements without increase of size would make them even approximately fit for the Channel
passenger service. The first thing to be done, therefore, is to build much larger vessels, —
that is to say, vessels of much greater length and breadth, for the draught of water must
not be substantially increased. The limit of length has hitherto been fixed by the breadth
of the harbours, because the vessels, which must of necessity run in bow first, have had to be
turned round into the opposite direction, with bow seaward, before starting again.
"We must first, therefore, dispense with this necessity of turning the vessels round within
the harbours, and the only way to do this is to make them capable of steaming equally well
in either direction. Now, this, although not by any means so easy a thing to do as many
suppose, is nevertheless quite practicable. Both ends of such a vessel can be made quite
efficient as a bow, and equally efficient as a stern, provided the necessary steps are taken. This
has frequently been attempted, only to result in failure; it has less frequently been done
successfully. Those who underrate the difficulties fail ; those who truly estimate them and take
the necessary pains to meet them succeed. They occur in the hull, in the rudder, in the steering
gear, in the locking apparatus, in the engines, and in the paddle-wheels, and we believe
that in the Bessemer ship we have well considered and carefully met them all, and thug
have secured the power of leaving harbour without turning round. We have consequently
escaped from the limit of length hitherto imposed, and have been made free to go to larger
dimensions. This is the first important step.
The dimensions we have adopted are : length, 350 ft. ; breadth at deck beam, 40 ft. ;
outside breadth across paddle-boxes, 65 ft. ; draught of water, 7J ft. On these dimensions we
have been able to provide for the Bessemer Saloon (the extra weight of which, with all
its appliances, is, in fact, not great), and for engines and boilers which will deliver more
than 4000 horse-power. At this stage the Bessemer Saloon claims primary consideration, and we
have allotted to it the central part of the ship for 70 ft. in length. This splendid saloon, and
all connected with it, has been so well described already in your columns that I will not add a
word respecting it, except to say that if the mechanical difficulties of working it were far
greater than they really are, the mechanical genius of Mr. Bessemer would be fully equal
to their mastery. My chief duty is to make the ship thoroughly capable of sustaining the saloon,
and of giving ample support to its bearings. This duty has required, of course, novel and well-
considered structural arrangements ; but more difficult things have been done in our ironclads,
and I need not, therefore, dwell upon it. The saloon being in the centre, we had to place
the engines and boilers in some other position. They have been placed in duplicate portions
S S
314 HENRY BESSEMER
immediately before and abaft the saloon, the vessel consequently having two sets of paddle-
wheels. I anticipate some disadvantage in point of speed from this arrangement, and have
accordingly provided somewhat more steam power than would otherwise have been needed ; not
much, however, because the loss will not, in my opinion, be more than a small fraction. As a
compensation we have the great advantages of avoiding the risks that attend the use of very
large forgings in paddle engines, and of securing the ship against total disablement by engine
accidents. The importance of this latter advantage to the owners of such a vessel is great.
I now come to the low freeboard at the extremities. This feature was suggested during the
progress of the design by Mr. Bessemer, who considered that it would promote the longitudinal
steadiness of the vessel, or, in other words, reduce pitching. Now, had the vessel been intended
for ocean purposes, I should have altogether dissented from this proposal, had Mr. Bessemer
made it, as he probably would not in that case have done. I feel as strongly as Admiral Elliot
can possibly do that a low freeboard at the bow of a fast ocean steamer, or indeed of any ocean
steamer, is utterly wrong. In the case of the "Devastation" I incurred much odium because
I insisted on giving her a forecastle, and I carefully predicted that even with the forecastle she
would be deeply deluged forward by Atlantic seas I have seen the Holyhead packets, which
have additional rather than reduced freeboard forward, steam down the long slope of a great
wave in the Irish Sea until one-fourth of their length disappeared from view under the
succeeding wave. I am no advocate, therefore, for low bows in heavy seas ; but the case of
the steamer to run between Dover and Calais is a very different one. There the waves,
even in the worst weather, are comparatively short — so short as to present an altogether different
set of conditions. The pitching of a well-designed ship, 350 ft. long, could there never be great, and
the problem that Mr. Bessemer and I had to solve was, not to reduce extreme pitching motions,
but to make pitching motions, already necessarily small, still smaller. For this purpose I
believe the low freeboard will prove advantageous, or, to say the least, innocuous; and if
we should be mistaken on this point the low freeboard can easily be got rid of by prolonging
the upper deck and the sides to the extremities — an inexpensive addition. I do not, however,
believe this addition will prove desirable, and I hope it will not, because we have gained another
very great advantage indeed by adopting the low freeboard at the ends. That advantage is this :
although the ship is 350 ft. long in the water, she is only 250 ft. long above the water, where
she is exposed to the wind ; so that not only shall we escape the risk which other long ships will
be exposed to of being blown across the harbour entrance in a gale, but we shall positively be
better off than smaller vessels in this respect, because, while we shall have a comparatively small
surface exposed to the wind, we shall have a greatly-lengthened surface immersed in the water
to resist the leeway resulting from the wind's action. This is a great advantage which the
Bessemer ship will possess, and which no other competing vessel that I know of does possess.
I will not seek to further trespass upon your space by dwelling upon other features of the
Bessemer vessel. For my part, I do not put her forward as a perfect remedy for sea-sickness in
all cases, although I think she will be found a sufficient remedy in the Straits of Dover. Her
advantages seem to me to be that she will be large enough herself to escape all but very small
movements as regards lifting bodily and pitching. The moderate pitching which she would
otherwise experience will be diminished by the low ends, and what remains of it will scarcely
be felt at all in the centre saloon. The rolling of the ship, which is the only remaining
movement of importance, will be perfectly neutralised by Mr. Bessemer's hydraulic arrangements
PLATE XLI
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THE BUILDERS OF THE SHIP 315
In other respects the ship will be fast, capacious, well furnished, and well ventilated. I am,
therefore, of opinion that, although she may not fulfil every random prophecy that has been
printed respecting her, she will thoroughly fulfil the object which the travelling public desire —
namely, that of enabling us to cross to and from the Continent with health, decency, and
comfort, instead of being subjected, as we now are in bad weather, to conditions which
violate all these, and are in every respect disgraceful to the age we live in.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient Servant,
E. J. KBED.
The general appearance of the Bessemer saloon steam-ship is clearly
shown in Fig. 86, Plate XLI. Her low freeboard at each end is distinctly
seen, and the position of her boilers and engines fore and aft of the
long saloon, which is to a great extent hidden by a line of deck cabins
extending from one pair of paddle wheels to the other.
Separate tenders for the construction of the ship, and for the engine
and boilers, were issued, and that for the ship by Earle's Shipbuilding
Company, of Hull, was accepted. The contract for the engines and
boilers was given to Messrs. John Penn and Company, of Greenwich.
Knowing, as I did, what a light and compact class of engine this
firm turned out, I was satisfied that we should be sure of admirable
design and splendid workmanship. Here, unfortunately, began the first
of a series of antagonisms naturally arising from powerful dual interests.
Mr. Reed and Sir Spencer Robinson expressed the opinion that it would
be difficult to tow the saloon ship from Hull to Greenwich to be engined,
but they did not suggest that it would be easy to send Mr. Penn's
engines in parts to Hull, as steam-engines are sent all over the world.
Finally, the tender of Mr. J. Penn was, by his consent, given up, and
the construction of the engines and boilers was handed over to Earle's
Shipbuilding Company.
Unfortunately, financial difficulties and misapprehensions occurred at
this early stage ; some of the latter were so erroneous that I find
it impossible to pass over this subject (as I should have wished to do)
in silence, but will content myself by simply stating facts which the
Company's books, the list of shares issued, and my vouchers for
payment, render absolutely indisputable. Several months after the
316 HENRY BESSEMER
formation of the Company, the amount of cash in the bank was getting
very low, and I subscribed first £3,000, and then £2,000 more in the
purchase of shares, thus bringing up the amount of my ordinary shares
of the Company to £15,000. Very soon after this, and for the same
reason, I took a further sum of £5,000 in Debenture Bonds, raising my
investment to £20,000.
In the interim, I had received from the Company £3,000, being
10 per cent, on the early payments to the shipbuilders (Earle's Ship-
building Company, Hull) ; but for more than a year afterwards, the
Saloon Ship Company, although they found money to pay Earle's, could
not do so to fulfil their engagements with me. At last, I consented to
take £6,000 more in Debentures, in lieu of the cash then owing to me
on the 10 per cent, account. The Company were still short of funds,
and as none of the large capitalists connected with it would take any
more of the Debentures, I had again to put my hand into my pocket
for another £5,000, for which I accepted Debentures at par, bringing
up my investment to £31,000. This money was soon absorbed, and
tradesmen who had done work on the ship, or had supplied goods to
the Company, could not be paid, and they were becoming clamorous
for their money. I naturally felt much annoyed to find this state of
things going on in a concern with which my name was so intimately
connected, and, in spite of my knowledge of the embarassed state
of the Company, I offered to lend them £3,000 for a week or ten
days, as money was expected within that time. They accepted my
offer, but handed me a bill at three months' date for the amount ; and
having waited that time I was requested not to present it, as there
were no funds provided to meet it. I accordingly held it over, but
firmly determined not to allow my sympathy with the objects of the
Company to draw me into further risks.
But very soon after this prudent resolve there came a worse pinch
than ever. The boat was lying in the Mill wall Docks ; the London,
Chatham, and Dover Railway Company wanted to run it for the holidays ;
but it must be insured before it could safely be sent round to Dover.
There was the further difficulty that the debentures could not be legally
issued, for one of the conditions attached to them was that the boat
FINANCIAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE BESSEMER SALOON SHIP COMPANY 317
should be insured for £100,000, and the premium on this insurance was
no less than £7,000. There appeared to be no means of raising this sum :
all the shares were fully paid up, debentures could not be issued, for
no one could be induced to take them. I knew the Company was deeply
in debt, and wholly without the means of paying, and that, therefore,
they could give me no sound security for my further advances. But,
on the other hand, a collapse was imminent, and to prevent this
catastrophe I lent the £7,000 to cover the insurance and get the boat
round to Dover, thus bringing up my total investment and advances to
the Company to £41,000. This sum of £7,000 was borrowed from me
under promise of a special resolution of the Board, stating that the
two sums of £3,000 and £7,000 should be repaid as soon as £10,000,
which had been promised to be placed to the credit of the Company
on the security of £20,000 in Debentures, had been received. In due
course this £10,000 was placed to the credit of the Company, and a
cheque was drawn for me — not, however, for the £10,000 owing me,
but for £7,000 only. I pressed hard for the £3,000 in cash, which by
a special resolution of the Board I had a right to, and which was in
their possession ; but I failed to get the money, and after a time I
was glad to take £3,000 in Debentures, in lieu of the money lent them,
although I knew at the time that these Debentures were of very
questionable value. I, therefore, held in the Company £15,000 in Ordinary
Shares and £19,000 in Debentures.
I have shown that by Agreement and Deed of License I was only
to give my advice and opinion, but being above all things desirous for
the success of the enterprise, I took upon myself an immense amount
of practical detail. I had been some years without doing any actual
work at the drawing-board ; my staff of assistants was scattered, and
I feared to entrust so important a matter as the arrangement of all the
details of the saloon machinery to strangers. I consequently wrent to
the drawing-board myself, working long hours for many weeks together.
At my then time of life, and with the effects of my former efforts still
hanging about me, this work proved too much. I suffered constantly
from severe headache and want of sleep, and at last my health broke
down so completely that my friends became alarmed, and I consulted
318 HENRY BESSEMER
Dr. Jenner, who ordered me at once to leave home and all business matters
for some months, enjoying perfect quiet and repose. I, however, held on,
and got such further professional assistance as was necessary to finish the
work before I left London. I also went to the cost of many photographs
and two large coloured drawings of the interior of the saloon, by means
of which the Directors were enabled to see precisely what was intended
to be done. Everyone seemed to pride himself on the beautiful saloon,
and not a word was raised about the expense of it ; each of the contracts
for oak carving, cartoon paintings, and gilt decorations passed the Board
with full approval.
I may mention that, during my study of the best means of governing
the saloon, I proposed to employ a gyroscope, driven at a very high speed
by a steam turbine on the same axis. There was enough doubt about
so novel a contrivance to prevent me from feeling quite justified in
advising the Company to go to the expense of trying it ; and, on the
other hand, I believed it would be a splendid success if it acted at
all in the way proposed, and seeing that the cost of the apparatus would
not exceed £500, I volunteered to go to this expense, and had a beautiful
instrument made on a large scale ; I also went to the further expense
of taking out patents, at home and abroad, so as to secure its use to the
Bessemer Saloon Ship Company. But when the latter fell into liquidation,
this beautiful instrument, which was chiefly constructed of gun-metal, was
sold as old metal ; only the fly-wheel remained to give an idea of its size.
The Bessemer Saloon Ship Company were most fortunate in finding in
Mr. Forbes and Capt. Godbold, of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway
Company, gentlemen who not only thoroughly appreciated the advantages
to the Channel service promised by the Saloon Steamboat, but who
also, with enlightened liberality, seldom equalled in a public body, gave
the most valuable help on all occasions : lending the services of their
experienced Commodore, Captain Pittock, and in a dozen other ways
affording the most generous assistance.
Among other things they organised a trial trip of the Saloon boat,
to take place on the 8th May, 1875, having invited the most influential
officers and others connected with their Company and with the Channel
service. Now, what was the result of this elaborately-organised trial
THE COLLISION WITH CALAIS PIER 319
trip, from which so much had been expected ? On a beautiful calm
day, in broad daylight, at a carefully-chosen time of the tide, and with
all the skill of the best Channel navigator, the ship dashed into the pier
at Calais for the second time out of three attempts to enter the harbour,
doing damage for which the authorities claimed £2,800 (a sum greatly
in excess of the injury done) ; and for this an undertaking had to be
given before the vessel was allowed to depart. On this run, with every
effort, she did not steam faster than the small boats, although from the
huge columns of smoke issuing from the funnels it was evident to all on
board that she was consuming coal at a furious rate. The fact that the
boat did not answer her helm was sworn to by Captain Pittock before
the Consul at Calais.
That this mishap did in no way arise from any failure of the saloon
itself, or from any inefficiency in the machinery used to control it, I have
the testimony of Mr. E. J. Reed (the Company's Naval Architect), as well
as that of Admiral Sir Spencer Robinson. The facts of the case were
given by these gentlemen in the most clear and emphatic terms.
During the week immediately following the catastrophe at Calais
I remained in Paris, and on my return to England I had placed before
me, by the Secretary of the Saloon Ship Company, a letter for my
approval, which, as endorsed thereon, was intended to be sent to all the
London daily papers. The letter was written by no less an authority than
Mr. E. J. Reed, and it had also been approved by Admiral Sir Spencer
Robinson, who had, at his own discretion, made some additions to the
latter part of the letter, leaving intact, and without one word of alteration,
all the part of it having reference to the saloon and its machinery, which
I therefore quote as being purely independent evidence, written without
my knowledge or suggestion, and intended to convey to the world, through
the medium of the public press, the simple facts of the case. This letter
was to appear in the papers as if written by the Secretary under the
authority of the Board, and to be signed by him ; but as Captain Davis
(one of the Directors) did not agree with some of the statements made
in the latter part of the letter in reference to the steering powers of
the boat, the publication of it was postponed, and it was never sent
to the press.
320 HENRY BESSEMER
Here follows a correct copy of so much of the letter in question
as refers to the Saloon and its machinery : —
THE BESSEMER.
I am instructed by the Board of this Company to request your kind insertion of the
following remarks upon a subject which appears to be of sufficient public interest to justify
this request.
The facts that the Bessemer is not yet running between England and France, and that
on two occasions the pier of Calais has been injured by her in entering, have led some persons
to state that the vessel has failed, and that the object which the Company had in view
cannot be accomplished. That this is a hastily-drawn inference will appear from the following.
The Bessemer was built primarily for the purpose of showing that the rolling motion
of a passenger steamer might be neutralised in a saloon supported upon axles and controlled
by hydraulic power. It is well understood that this was a great experiment, and all reasonable
persons expected that the totally novel machinery required for keeping the saloon at comparative
rest, however successful in principle, would require some experience, and probably some
minor modifications, in order to put it successfully to work.
Now up to this present moment Mr. Bessemer and his representatives have been able
to make but extremely few trials, and there does not appear to be the slightest ground for
alleging that he will fail in his object. He has amply proved the sufficiency of his machinery
for applying to the Saloon all the power that is requisite for the purpose. The only changes
which he has yet found desirable have been of a minor kind, and connected only with the
valves and levers. These improvements have not yet been properly tried, for it is not an
easy thing, particularly at this season of the year, to find suitable opportunities for working
the cabin at sea, and for making such adjustments as experiment only can indicate. Any
supposition of failure, therefore, with regard to Mr. Bessemer's plans, is altogether premature
and without proper foundation.
After this second collision with the Calais pier, nothing was done
to test the powers of the hydraulic machinery ; not a single thing was
done or alteration made, not even a screw was undone or touched, so
that the saloon and its hydraulic governing machinery still remains an
untried mechanical problem. And it is important that it should be
understood how it happened that the machinery connected with the saloon
was prevented from being completed by a similar accident, or collision,
with the Calais pier about three weeks prior to the fatal smashing of
the pier on the public trial on May 8th, 1875. The simple facts are
these : —
Immediately after this public trial-trip had been decided upon, the
Saloon Ship Company thought it prudent to have a rehearsal, and it was
THE FIRST TRIP OF THE BESSEMER SALOON STEAMSHIP 321
arranged that Captain Pittock, the able Commander of the Chatham
and Dover steamboats, should run the boat into Calais harbour at mid-day,
and return at once to Dover. Matters being thus arranged, Captain
Pittock started from Dover for this private trial-trip about the middle
of April; and, notwithstanding his long experience in daily navigating
the Channel for twenty years, in daylight and in darkness, in calm and
in storm, yet on a bright Spring morning, with a gentle breeze, he
failed to steer safely into Calais Harbour, which he knew so well, and
where at all states of the tide, and in all weathers, he had steered his
Channel ships thousands of times without a mishap of any kind. On
this rehearsal trial he was unable to keep the Bessemer ship off the
pier, which she crashed into, not with her bows but with her paddle-
wheels, doing much damage to the pier, but still more damage to one
paddle-wheel and adjacent parts of the ship. He was, however, able to
back out of the harbour that he had partially entered, and by the aid
of the other pair of paddle-wheels to crawl back again into Dover
Harbour, thus deranging the whole programme, and altering all that
had been decided to be done during the three weeks pending the great
demonstration advertised to be made on the 8th May, and which could
not be put off.
The saloon machinery was nearly completed, but the whole of its
working parts had never once been put together, and the trial referred
to in the letter written by Mr. Reed had reference only to the testing
of joints and connections, steam pumps, etc. ; no trial whatever up
to the present hour has ever been made with the complete apparatus,
which, in fact, was never finished. The interval of about three weeks
between the middle of April and May 8th would have enabled me to
complete my work, and also to get a first rehearsal of the saloon with
its machinery absolutely finished, prior to the public use of it on the
8th May, had it not been for the smashing of the paddle-wheel. But
the first thing to be done after the accident was to render the ship
itself capable of performing the advertised voyage, and with this object
every available man was put on the repairs of the disabled paddle-wheel,
and the other parts of the vessel injured in its collision with the pier.
There was scarce time, by working night and day, to get the ship
T T
322 HENRY BESSEMER
again in good order for the 8th of May. It was impossible that time could
be allowed me to have a trial-trip and a proper rehearsal of the Saloon
machinery, and I did not feel justified in subjecting our visitors to the
first trial of so novel an invention, with a steersman absolutely without
practice. Seeing this was to be the case, I employed the few hands
that could be spared in riveting some plates and stays to the underside
of the saloon, and securing their opposite ends to the main ribs and
bottom of the ship, thus making the saloon, for the time being, a part
and parcel of the ship itself, like any other fixed cabin, and quite safe
for persons to go into it, or crowd upon its upper open deck, as they
did on the journey to Calais.
Thus, owing to the want of control of the rudder, this first smash
of the Calais pier destroyed the only opportunity I ever had of trying
the action of the saloon with all its mechanical arrangements complete.
With the rigidly-fixed saloon the invited company started for Calais ;
everyone was charmed with it, the proportions being so unlike the cabin
of a Channel boat. It formed a room 70 ft. long by 30 ft. wide, with
a ceiling 20 ft. from the floor ; its beautiful morocco-covered seats ; its
fine carved-oak divisions and spiral columns ; its gilt, moulded panels,
with hand-painted cartoons ; its groined ceiling, tastefully decorated, gave
an idea of luxury to the future Channel passage which all seemed to
appreciate.
I have given an illustration of the interior of the saloon (see Fig. 87,
Plate XLII.) in section, taken from a large water-colour painting, closely
following all the details of the structure ; but it requires a very
fertile imagination, when looking at this small black-and-white illustration,
to fill in the exquisite oak carving and arabesques in its numerous panels,
its bold cartoon filling each space between the spiral oak columns, with
the beautiful colouring intermixed, with just enough gilding to convert
the decorations into one harmonious whole, pleasing to the eye but
not distracting to the senses : a room which did infinite credit to its
able and truly artistic decorators, Messrs. B. Simpson and Son. Everyone
on board on that fatal 8th of May roamed over the various small cabins
connected with the saloon, and ascended to the upper deck. They all
had gone over the ship, and commented, according to their different tastes
PLATE XLII
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THE LAST TRIP OF THE BESSEMER SALOON STEAMSHIP 323
and ideas, on the many novelties in this new structure ; and in the interim
we had arrived — very slowly, it must be admitted — at the entrance of
Calais Harbour. I, knowing what had occurred on a previous occasion,
held my breath while the veteran Captain Pittock gave his orders to
the man at the helm. But the ship did not obey him, and crash she
went along the pier side, knocking down the huge timbers like so many
ninepins !
I knew what it all meant to me. That five minutes had made me
a poorer man by £34,000 ; it had deprived me of one of the greatest
triumphs of a long professional life, and had wrought the loss of the
dearly-cherished hope that buoyed me up and helped to carry me through
my personal labours. I had fondly hoped to remove for ever from
thousands yet unborn the bitter pangs of the Channel passage, and thus
by intercourse, and a greater appreciation of each other, to strengthen
the bonds of mutual respect and esteem between two great nations, while
it still left us the silver streak for our political protection. All this
had gone for ever.
It will be readily understood that this second catastrophe at Calais
finally determined the fate of the Bessemer Saloon Steamboat Company,
which had thus become hopelessly discredited ; its financial position was
equally bad, and there only remained the formal act of winding up the
Company, from which I withdrew myself, much disappointed.
Had this unfortunate ship been able to steam rapidly and steer
safely, all might still have been saved, for Captain Godbold, the Foreign
Traffic Manager of the London, Chatham, and Dover Railway Company,
distinctly stated to me that had the Bessemer been capable of steering
safely into Calais Harbour at the promised speed, his Company would
have run her regularly on this station, even if her saloon had always
been kept locked fast to the boat, on terms that would have yielded
a handsome profit to the Saloon Company, and thus have afforded ample
opportunities between her trips across the Channel for practising and
perfecting the controlling apparatus, and training two or three men to
this new occupation.
I have already explained the conditions under which I granted a
monopoly of a portion of rny patent rights to the Saloon Company, and
324 HENRY BESSEMER
for which I was to receive 10 per cent, on the cost of the ships built by
them. Now, if there is any force in a sealed contract, deliberately entered
into by men of business, I had a clear right, both moral and legal, to
the advantages secured by that contract. I state this distinctly, so
that there may be no mistake, and that no one shall be able to say
that my determination never to apply to my own private use one shilling
of the money so obtained from the Saloon Company, was because I had
any doubts of my moral and legal rights thereto. It was purely because
I would not put into my own pocket one shilling earned by my invention,
while there were tradesmen and manufacturers who had done work and
supplied material to the Saloon Company, but who remained unpaid their
just debts.
As before stated, I had received £3000 in cash, and had been
obliged to take £6000 in debentures in lieu of that amount in cash.
These I was fortunate to sell for £3000, making my gross receipts from
the Company £6000. I held only three-fourths of the saloon patents,
and I therefore handed over £1500 to my friends who held the
remainder, thus reducing the amount personally received by me to
£4500.
I then requested my solicitor to write to each of the creditors of
the Bessemer Saloon Steamboat Company, fixing a day, viz., Wednesday,
June 23rd, 1875 — when, on applying at the offices of Messrs. Watkin,
Baker, Bayllis, and Baker, of 11, Sackville Street, their accounts would
be paid in full. It appeared that there were twenty-one creditors,
whose united claims on the Company amounted to the sum of
£3328 18s. 9d., which was duly paid to them. I am, at the time of
writing, still in possession of all the receipts given by these creditors.
The payment of these twenty-one accounts left me with a balance
of £1172 out of the monies I had received from the Saloon Company,
and which sum I had proposed to hand over to some public charity,
but one of the unfortunate shareholders suggested that " Charity begins
at home," and I therefore handed over this balance to the liquidators.
All these details would for ever have been buried in oblivion but for
the fact that I had, through no fault of my own, been identified with the
affairs of this bankrupt company ; and I consequently feel bound to
THE END OP THE BESSEMER SALOON STEAMSHIP COMPANY 325
vindicate my character, and to show that I had, time after time, helped
with a liberal hand to extricate the Company from its financial diffi-
culties by taking further shares. I desire also to show that I had not
benefited by my connection with the Company to the extent of a single
shilling, either for my arduous personal services or for the sale of a
portion of my patent rights to them. And, further, that the collapse
of the Company was not caused by any failure of my invention, which
remains to this hour an untried mechanical problem, in which I have
still the most perfect confidence. Indeed, nothing has happened to
lessen or destroy the confidence with which I had followed it up from
its first inception to the time of the Calais smash ; and, even when all
seemed lost, I could not resist one more attempt to save the Company
and the unfortunate shareholders. We were not bound to that particular
ship, and if an opportunity could only be obtained to show that
the Saloon when finished would do what was expected of it, all might
yet be well. But who was to lead this forlorn hope ? I, if anyone.
But how dare I run such a ship on my own responsibility ? I
was not mad enough for this ; but the ship was worth so little that
the liquidators might be induced to risk taking her to sea, after the
completion of the Saloon machinery had been effected, and I was willing
to risk yet another £1000 to get this done and the device properly
tried at sea. For this purpose I proposed to place the sum of £1000
in the London Joint Stock Bank in the names of Mr. J. O. Chadwick,
one of the liquidators, and Captain Henry Davis, a director of
the Saloon Company. In order that the fund thus provided should
be applied in a manner that would be satisfactory to the liquidators,
I proposed to form a committee of three competent engineers — viz.,
Mr. John Beckwith, manager of Messrs. Galloway and Sons, who made
all the hydraulic apparatus for the saloon ; Mr. Robert Charles May,
of Great George Street, Westminster, an eminent civil engineer, and
myself. These three persons were to decide by a majority on all the
steps to be taken, and to draw cheques on this £1000 for the payment
of fitting up, completing, and working experimentally the hydraulic
apparatus at sea. I insisted, however, that I, personally, should not
be held responsible for any damage the Saloon ship might do to
326 HENRY BESSEMER
herself, or to other vessels she might collide with or run into, etc.
This offer, if accepted, would in all human probability have saved the
whole property of the Company from wreck by proving the success of
the saloon machinery, but it was refused by the liquidators, who thus
gave the final coup to this most unfortunate undertaking.
In writing an account of the more salient incidents of my professional
career, it was impossible for me to omit the story of the Saloon
Steam-ship, about which the general public very naturally came to the
conclusion that my system of controlling the motion of the saloon by
hydraulic power had proved an entire failure, and that the collapse of
the Saloon Steam-boat Company had consequently ensued. Nothing
could be more absolutely untrue, but a simple denial of that fact on
my part would have had no weight against the fact that the Company
had collapsed. I was, therefore, obliged to choose between two alter-
natives ; I must either for ever remain under the stigma of this
supposed failure, or I must combat that erroneous impression by placing
unreservedly the leading facts of the case before the public, and thus
bring home, even to the untechnical reader, evidence that no fair-minded
person can hesitate to accept. It must be borne in mind that I had
personally expended over model ships, patents, and experiments, some
£5000 prior to the formation of the Saloon Company. Now this
Company ought certainly to have been a source of gain or profit to
me, or, at any rate, have recouped my initial outlay ; but, on the
contrary, I had to prop it up, taking an undue amount in shares, and
ultimately losing £34,000 on them. This may be said only to show
great confidence in the invention on my part, but when all was
over, and the Company was in liquidation, while still smarting under
my pecuniary losses, and still more so over my loss of professional
reputation, by the supposed failure of the untried Saloon, what could
have induced me to place £1000 in the bank to give my invention a
trial, if it had already proved a failure ? This is, at least, a point upon
which the common-sense of unscientific people will enable everyone to
form a sound opinion, and accept the fact that my hydraulic controlling
apparatus was never completed, was never tested at sea, and consequently
never failed.
CHAPTER XXI
[The Bessemer Autobiography terminates with the preceding page. The obvious intention
to continue it, practically to completion, was never carried out; for although to within a
few months of his death Sir Henry was busily occupied in collecting notes of an active
though retired period, the narrative to be evolved from these notes was not commenced.
The alternative was, therefore, to present an unfinished story, or to complete it with the
assistance of his eldest son, Mr. Henry Bessemer. The latter alternative being considered
the more desirable, and Mr. Bessemer having kindly offered his collaboration, the following
Chapter has been added to this book. — ED.]
ri^HE unfortunate destruction of my father's copious notes relating
to those years of his life after he had retired from active business,
but not from usefulness, has made my task a difficult one, because I
have to rely on memory, aided by some memoranda and letters ; and
because I was not at that time in constant touch with my father, as he
resided in London and I in a rather distant part of the country.
I have read the pages of this Autobiography with much care, and
with a critical desire that no paragraph shall go forth to the world
that can in any way reflect on my father's memory or do an injustice
to those who were apparently hostile to him, and I find no statement
which goes beyond the limit of accuracy. To be sure, all the matters
referred to are ancient history. Most of the actors, too, in what was a
vivid drama, are dead and, perhaps, forgotten, but they were very
real to my father when he wrote his story — nearly as real as when he
was the chief actor thirty years before. Perhaps I may be prejudiced,
but it seems to me that, old as it is, my father's story must always
remain full of interest, not only because it records in detail the early
history of the greatest invention of modern times, but also because on
almost every page there is a lesson to the young inventor — a revelation
of the secret of success. From the commencement to the end of his
328 HENRY BESSEMER
long and most honourable career, my father never failed to put in practice
his motto, " Onward Ever ! "
I find a few matters on which I should like to touch before I turn
to the more difficult task I have undertaken — a sketch of my father's
Lt,er years of leisure and retirement. Some of these matters are of small
importance, but they possess an interest from the fact that several of
his casual inventions, dating many years back, have in more recent times
been re-invented, and taken their place among the everyday necessities
of our lives. I am not claiming for my father any special merit in this :
almost every true inventor anticipates the wants of the public (or some
of them) before that public even knows of the requirement, and solves
the problem years before the need for it is realised. To give two or
three illustrations.
In 1846 he obtained a patent in which, among other matters, was
described a method for making an elastic communication between the
ends of railway carriages, so that the whole train could be continuous
from end to end. The device consisted in stretching leather or other
material over collapsing frames, after the fashion of the hood of a
landau ; the ends of all the carriages being fitted with such hoods, they
could be brought together and secured so as to make a covered connection
between the vehicles. This was certainly an anticipation of the vestibule
train.
That my father was a prolific inventor is evident from his Auto-
biography, and in' one place he makes special reference to the large
number of patents for inventions which he secured. I have been at
some pains to make as complete a list as possible of these patents and
applications for patents, and this list I subjoin, arranged chronologically.
It will be noticed that the patents chiefly refer to four main subjects :
The manufacture of glass, the manufacture of iron and steel, improve-
ments in ordnance, and the manufacture of sugar. Of these, only the
patents relating to the manufacture of iron and steel bore a plentiful
harvest. As already explained, no patents of importance were obtained
by my father for the manufacture of bronze powder.
BESSEMER AS AN INVENTOR
329
LIST OF PATENTS GRANTED TO HENRY BESSEMER, 1838-1883.
Casting, breaking off, and counting printing types.
Checking or stopping railroad carriages.
Manufacture of glass.
Manufacture of bronze and other metallic powders. <f
Preparing paint and varnishes for fixing metallic powders
or leaf.
Atmospheric propulsion, and exhausting air and other
fluids.
Manufacture, silvering, and coating of glass.
Railway engines and carriages.
Manufacture of glass.
Manufacture of glass. .
Manufacture of glass.
Manufacture of cane sugar.
Manufacture of oils, varnishes, pigments and paints.
Raising and forcing water.
Preparation of fuel and stoking machinery.
Figuring and ornamenting surfaces.
Manufacture and treatment of sugar.
Manufacture and refining of sugar.
Ornamenting woven fabrics and leather.
Manufacture of sugar.
Manufacture of sugar.
Treatment of cane juices.
Manufacture of sugar.
Treatment of washed sugar.
Concentrating saccharine fluids.
Manufacture of waterproof fabrics.
Refining and manufacturing sugar.
Manufacture of bastard sugar from molasses and scums.
Manufacture and refining of sugar.
Manufacture and refining of sugar.
Railway axles and brakes.
Treatment of slag.
Naval and military guns.
Projectiles and guns.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of ordnance.
Screw propellers, cranks and propeller shafts.
Manufacture of cast steel and mixtures of steel and
cast iron.
Manufacture of ordnance.
U D
1838
March
8.
No.
7,585.
1841
Jan.
6.
No.
8,777.
1841
Sept.
23.
No.
9,100.
1843
June
15.
No.
9,775.
1844
Jan.
13.
No.
10,011.
1845
Dec.
5.
No.
10,981.
1846
July
30.
No.
11,317.
1846
Aug.
26.
No.
11,352.
1847
July
17.
No.
11,794.
1848
March
22.
No.
12,101.
1849
Jan.
31.
No.
12,450.
1849
April
17.
No.
12,578.
1849
May
15.
No.
12,611.
1849
June
23.
No.
12,669.
1849
Sept.
20.
No.
12,780.
1850
July
22.
No.
13,183.
1850
July
31.
No.
13,202.
1851
March
20.
No.
13,560.
1851
Nov.
19.
No.
13,819.
1852
Feb.
24.
No.
13,988.
1852
July
24.
No.
14;239.
1852
Nov.
19.
No.
795.
1852
Nov.
19.
No.
796.
1852
Nov.
19.
No.
797.
1852
Nov.
19.
No.
799.
1853
June
18.
No.
1,483.
1853
July
14.
No.
1,687.
1853
July
15.
No.
1,689.
1853
July
15.
No.
1,691.
1853-
Dec.
2.
No.
2,811.
185g
Dec.
9.
No.
2,875.
185£
Aug.
21.
No.
1,835.
1854-
Aug.
25.
No.
1,868.
1854*
Nov.
24.
No.
2,489.
1855
Jan.
10.
No.
66.
1855*
Jan.
10.
No.
67.
1855
June
18.
No.
1,382.
1855
June
18.
No.
1,384.
1855 June 18. No. 1,386.
330
HENRY BESSEMER
1855 June 18. No. 1,388.
1855 June 18. No. 1,390.
1855 Oct. 17. No. 2,317.
1855 Oct. 17. No. 2,319.
1855 Oct. 17. No. 2,321.
1855 Oct. 17. No. 2,323.
1855 Oct. 17. No. 2,325.
1855 Oct. 17. No. 2,327.
1855 Dec. 7. No. 2,768.
1856 Jan. 4. No. 44.
1856 Feb. 12. No. 356.
1856 March 15. No. 630.
1856 May 31. No. 1,290.
1856
May
31.
No.
1,292.
1856
Aug.
19.
No.
1,938.
1856
Aug.
25.
No.
1,981.
1856
Nov.
4.
No.
2,585.
1856
Nov.
10.
No.
2,639.
1856
Nov.
18.
No.
2,726.
1857
Jan.
24.
No.
221.
1857
Sept.
18.
No.
2,432.
1857
Nov.
5.
No.
2,808.
1857
Nov.
6.
No.
2,819.
1857 Nov. 13. No. 2,862.
1857 Nov. 20. No. 2,921.
1858 July 30. No. 1,724.
1858 Dec. 1. No. 2,747.
1859 March 16. No. 670.
1860 March 1. No. 578.
1861 Jan. 26. No. 216.
1861 Feb. 1. No. 275.
1861 April 27, No. 1,069.
1862 Jan. 8. No. 56.
1863 Jan. 5. No.
37.
Manufacture of rolls or cylinders for shaping metals,
crushing ores, etc. ; and calendering, glazing, em-
bossing, printing, and pressing.
Manufacture of railway wheels.
Manufacture of anchors.
Manufacture of railway bars.
Manufacture of cast steel.
Metal beams, girders, and tension bars used in con-
structing buildings, viaducts, and bridges.
Ordnance and projectiles.
Railway wheels.
Manufacture of iron.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of malleable iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Shaping, pressing, and rolling malleable iron and
steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of railway rails and axles.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of cast steel.
Treating iron ores.
Manufacture of malleable iron and steel, and of railway
and other bars, plates, and rods.
Treating and smelting iron ores.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Cleaning pit coal.
Wheels and tyres.
Manufacture of crank axles.
Apparatus for the manufacture of malleable iron and
steel.
Ordnance and projectiles.
Manufacture of malleable iron and steel, and apparatus
therefor.
Projectiles and ordnance.
«
Apparatus for the manufacture of malleable iron and
steel.
Apparatus for pressing, moulding, shaping, embossing,
crushing, shearing, and cutting metallic and other
substances.
LIST OF BESSEMER S PATENTS
331
1863 Jan. 13. No. 114.
1863
June
9.
No.
1,439.
1863
Nov.
5.
No.
2,744.
1863
Nov.
5.
No.
2,746.
1864
Jan.
25.
No.
217.
1864
Jan.
30.
No.
265.
1865
May
1.
No.
1,208.
1865
Nov.
3.
No.
2,835.
1867
Aug.
14.
No.
2,343.
1867
Nov.
11.
No.
3,193.
1867
Dec.
9.
No.
3,501.
1867
Dec.
31.
No.
3,714.
1868
March
21.
No.
965.
1868
March
21.
No.
967.
1868
March
31.
No.
1,095.
1868
Nov.
10.
No.
3,419.
1869
Feb.
23.
No.
566.
1869
May
10.
No.
1,431.
1869
May
10.
No.
1,432.
1869
May
10.
No.
1433.
1869
May
10.
No,
1,434.
1869
May
10.
No.
1,435.
1869
Aug.
10.
No.
2,397.
1869
Dec.
22.
No.
3,707.
1870
Feb.
24.
No.
553.
1870
May
27.
No.
1,559.
1870
May
30.
No.
1,580.
1870
June
17.
No.
1,742.
1870
Nov.
29.
No.
3,130.
1871
Jan.
27.
No.
223.
1871
Feb.
15.
No.
386.
1871
June
1.
No.
1,466.
1871
July
4.
No.
1,737.
1872
Oct.
1.
No.
2,897.
Manufacture of malleable iron and steel, and furnaces
and apparatus therefor.
Construction of hydraulic presses and machinery.
Manufacture of railway bars.
Manufacture of malleable iron and steel.
Manufacture of projectiles.
Manufacture of armour plate.
Manufacture of pig-iron or foundry metal, and of castings
thereof.
Manufacture of iron and steel, and apparatus therefor.
Ordnance.
Grindstones and artificial stones.
Manufacture of firebricks, retorts, and crucibles.
Treatment of cast iron and manufacture of malleable
iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel.
Manufacture of iron and steel, heating and melting of
metals.
Manufacture of cast steel and homogenous malleable iron.
Apparatus and buildings for manufacture of cast steel
and malleable iron from pig iron.
Manufacture of malleable iron and steel, and furnaces
therefor.
Furnaces for obtaining cast steel or homogeneous malleable
iron from wrought iron or pig.
Conversion of molten pig iron into homogeneous malleable
iron or steel.
Treatment of pig iron and apparatus therefor.
Blast furnaces, their gaseous products, and the con-
struction of blowing engines.
Melting and casting metals.
Vessels for prevention of sea-sickness.
Vessels for prevention of sea-sickness.
Vessels for prevention of sea-sickness.
Steamships for prevention of sea-sickness.
Vessels for prevention of sea-sickness.
Ordnance and ammunition.
Marine artillery.
Repairing and converting vessels.
Ordnance and projectiles.
Asphalte pavement.
Passenger vessels.
OF THF
UNIVERSITY
OF
332
HENRY BESSEMER
1873 March 22. No. 1,076.
1874 Sept 24. No. 3,274.
1874 Sept 28. No. 3,319.
1874 Dec. 10, No. 4,258.
1875 Dec. 31. No. 4,552.
1879 April 5. No. 1,368.
1879 Oct. 10. No. 4,110.
1880 March 6. No. 987.
1882 Oct. 30. No. 5,171.
1883 Jan. 18. No. 305.
Controlling, etc., suspended saloons; discharging marine
artillery.
Ships' saloons, cabins, etc.
Supplying water.
Ships' saloons, cabins, etc.
Reflectors, lenses, etc.
(A. G. Bessemer and Sir II . Bessemer.) Making tinplate
and blackplate.
Tinplate bars or slabs.
(A. G. Bessemer and Sir H. Bessemer.) Making malleable
iron; making castings or ingots.
Loading, etc., merchandise ; rolling stock of railways.
Loading, etc., merchandise; rolling stock of railways.
In the earlier pages of the narrative, my father relates the story
of a visit he paid to the works of some friends of his, Messrs. Hayward
and Co., manufacturers of paints and varnishes, in London. He tells
how he was struck with the time-honoured, wasteful, and imperfect
process of making drying oils in an iron pot over an open fire : a crude
method, always attended with uncertainty, danger, and not infrequently
with a complete loss of the whole charge. We are told how he recom-
mended a new, simple, and certain plan to replace the old primitive and
dangerous method — a plan that had occurred to him as he walked through
the works, and which he embodied in a sketch. The idea was put into
practice by his friends, to their lasting profit, as they for years kept
it a secret in the colour trade. The new plan (not described in the
Autobiography) was this : instead of a small charge of two or three gallons
being heated over an open fire, some fifty or sixty gallons were run into a
tank, in the bottom of which was a pipe terminating in a large rose-
head. Connected with this pipe .was a coil that could be heated to
any desired temperature, and air could be forced through this coil,
escaping from the rose-head into the oil. The exact degree of heat
required could be thus maintained, and the process completed with
certainty and safety, without waste, and, above all, without any dis-
coloration of the oil. This may seem but a small matter — as, indeed, it
was so far as my father was concerned, for the incident passed from
his mind until he was reminded of it later. But it proved a fortune
to the firm, and to-day exactly the same method, carried to a further
BESSBMER'S SKILL AS A DRAUGHTSMAN 333
degree of oxidation, is the foundation of the vast linoleum industries
throughout the world.
I do not find that my father refers (except now and then quite
indirectly) to his skill as a draughtsman and designer ; yet he possessed
both these qualities to a remarkable degree. No doubt they were
inherited, with other mechanical gifts, from his father, who, as we have
seen, occupied a prominent position in the Paris Mint at an early age,
and possessed a rare combination of mechanical and artistic skill. My
father speaks of a knack he possessed, as a boy, of modelling in clay,
which he put to use at a very early age ; later, when the family had
removed to London, the production of dies for embossing cardboard
and metal, and especially the ornamental designs that characterised
them, depended wholly on himself, and would not have been possible
without natural gifts carefully cultivated. Perhaps even more interesting
was his skill in the application of art to mechanical purposes, as
evidenced by the engraving of his new stamp dies (see Fig. 5, Plate III.) ;
by his designs and preparation of the deep-cut cylinders for making
figured Utrecht velvet (Fig. 15, Plate VII.), and a number of other
applications of art to mechanics that are only briefly referred to, or
even not mentioned, in the course of his Autobiography.
In another direction his skill and assiduity as a draughtsman were
remarkable. He made, with his own hand, all the drawings that
accompanied his patent specifications, at least for a great number of
years ; and, near the close of his business career, we find that he himself
prepared nearly all the drawings for the Bessemer Saloon.
In lighter vein, his designs for alterations and additions to his own
residences, and those of his children, were quite remarkable. This is
a matter to which I shall have occasion to again refer, later on.
The story of his great invention, the " Bessemer Process," is told
in the Autobiography at much length and with characteristic vigour;
but in this story my father has omitted a few noteworthy details which
should not be lost. It is interesting that, in the month of June,
1859, Bessemer tool steel was first quoted in the printed price lists of the
trade. The Mining Journal of June 4th, 1859, gives the necessary
evidence on this point. It says : —
334 HENRY BESSEMER
In this day's Journal we quote, for the first time, amongst the metallic manufactures
of this country, the steel produced by the process patented by Mr. Bessemer, and we are
informed that the new material can be supplied in almost any quantities. The usual price
of engineers' tool steel is from £2 15s. to £3 5s. per cwt., while Mr. Bessemer offers an
article, which prominent judges pronounce equal to the best, at £2 4s., his other kinds of
steel being proportionately lower. As to the quality of the article, there can be little
doubt, since the tests to which it has been submitted at Woolwich gave much satisfaction to
the officials; and, we understand, a contract for a considerable period has been concluded
with Mr. Bessemer. "With a steel of equal quality a little more than two-thirds the usual price,
it would appear almost impossible for success to be wanting to the seller, while the pecuniary
advantage to the consumer will be at once verified ; so that it is needless to commend Bessemer's
steel to the consideration of our readers.
Sir Henry speaks of the early struggles and ultimate success of the
Sheffield works ; how great that success was may be gathered from
the following passage, given in almost similar words on page 177.
Some idea may be formed of its importance as a manufacture when I state the simple
fact that on the expiration of the fourteen years' term of partnership of our Sheffield firm,
the works, which had been greatly increased from time to time, entirely out of revenue,
were sold by private contract for exactly twenty-four times the amount of the whole sub-
scribed capital of the firm, notwithstanding that we had divided in profits during the partner-
ship a sum equal to fifty-seven times the capital; so that, by the mere commercial working
of the process, apart from the patents, each of the partners retired, after fourteen years, from
the Sheffield works with eighty-one times the amount of his subscribed capital, or an average
of nearly cent per cent, every two months.
But, during the early days (from 1858 to 1861), the success was
problematical and the anxiety very great. The subjoined statement
shows the financial results obtained at the Sheffield works during the
first ten years of its existence.
Year £ s. d.
1858 ... ... ... ... Loss 729 12 2
1859 „ 1,093 6 2
1860 ... ... ... ... Profit 923 2 1
1861 „ 1,475 10 2
1862 ... ... ... ... „ 3,685 18 4
1863 ... ... ... ... „ 10,968 6 3
1864 „ 11,827 0 4
1865 ... ... „ 3,949 5 11
1866 ... ... ... ... „ 18,076 18 4
1867 28,622 1 8
THE FIRST STEEL RAIL 335
My father omits any reference to the first steel rails put into
actual service ; and, curiously enough, he does not mention the historic
occasion when he persuaded Mr. Ramsbottom, then the chief mechanical
engineer of the London and North Western Railway, to make a trial.
He has, however, described this interview in a letter :
Perhaps there was no better practical engineer in Great Britain than Mr. John Ramsbottom,
of the London and North- Western Railway ; and when I proposed steel rails to him, Mr.
Ramsbottom, looking at me with astonishment, and almost with anger, said : " Mr. Bessemer,
do you wish to see me tried for manslaughter ? " That observation was the natural result of
the then state of knowledge as to what could be done with steel. At that time steel was
made almost exclusively for cutting purposes, and it was highly carbonized, and certainly
too hard for rails. After seeing my samples, however, Mr Ramsbottom, whose mind was
thoroughly open to conviction, said : " Well, let me have 10 tons of this material that I may
torture it to my heart's content. ..." A steel rail was rolled by Mr. Ramsbottom from a
portion of the 10 tons mentioned, and it had been twisted cold by clamping one end in the
reversing brasses of a rolling mill, and putting the other end in connection with the shaft
driven by the engine, till it was twisted into two pieces. I carefully measured that sample,
and I found that in a part measuring 6 ft. along the centre of the web, each of the flanges
measured 8 ft. 1 in. This twisted rail was a good example of what mild steel was in those
days. To show that such material, which twisted so well cold, would endure in the hot
test, a 4-in. square bar was twisted hot. It was twisted till it came in two in the centre.
The angles were thus made to form a sort of screw with threads f in. to J in. apart.
The first steel rail was laid down between two adjacent iron rails,
at the Camden Goods Station of the London and North- Western
Railway, on May 9th, 1862, and as the first of so many millions of
tons, its history should not be forgotten. It is summarised in Engineering,
of January 5th, 1866, as follows : —
The Bessemer rails, judging from the experience of the London and North- Western
Railway Company, are cheaper than iron rails at £50, or more, per ton. There is the
remarkable rail under the Chalk Farm bridge of the North- Western line, which, but a
few weeks ago, when we saw it, was wearing out the seventeenth or eighteenth face of
wrought-iron rails adjoining it, and which were subjected to exactly the same conditions of
traffic. This comparison is an extraordinary one. A steel rail, rolled at Crewe, from an
ingot cast at the Sheffield Steel Works of Messrs. Henry Bessemer and Company, was
selected at random, and laid down between contiguous iron rails, at the Camden Goods
Station, May 9th, 1862. In 1864, a gentleman about to proceed to Belgium upon business
connected with steel rails, asked and received permission from the London and North- Western
directors to copy the records of this and the contiguous rails, as filed in their office. The
steel rail, when examined in September, 1864, had never been turned, top for bottom, and
336 HENRY BESSEMER
showed "but little signs of wear." Eight thousand goods trucks pass over this line in twenty-
four hours, and it is estimated that nearly 10,000,000 tracks, or more than 20,000,000
wheels, have passed over this rail from the first. The next iron rail, contiguous to it, was
laid down, quite new, on the same date, May 9th, 1862. It was found necessary to turn
it in the following July; and on September 9th of the same year, a second iron rail had
to be laid down in the place of the first. This required to be turned on November 6th, and
on January 6th, 1863, a third iron rail had to be put down. This was turned on March 1st,
and a fourth new rail put down on April 29th. This was turned top for bottom, July 3rd,
and a fifth new iron rail laid down September 29th. It was turned over on December 16th,
and on February 16th, 1864, a sixth new rail was put in. This was turned April 12th,
and a seventh new rail put in its place, August 6th, 1864. Mr. Bessemer exhibited his
rail at the last meeting of the British Association at Birmingham, after it had worn out
additional and neighbouring wrought-iron rails. It was not greatly worn, and had never
been turned. The Crewe station, with nearly three hundred time-table trains through it
daily, besides a great amount of shunting almost always going on, was laid with rails rolled
from ingots cast by Messrs. Bessemer and Company, November 9th and 10th, 1861, and a
year later, on the Prince of Wales's Birthday, Mr. Bessemer's exhibition rails, 35 ft. long,
rolled at Crewe, were laid in the up line, just out of the station. None of these rails
have yet been turned, and we believe that Mr, Ramsbottom, and Captain Webb, of the
Crewe Works, anticipate sending the 35-ft. rails in good order to the next International
Exhibition, to which we are looking forward, in 1872.
In 1861, the price of Bessemer steel rails was £22 per ton, but
in the following year the Metropolitan Railway paid only £17 per ton.
Although my father does not say so, steel rails were a conspicuous
feature in the Bessemer collection in the London Exhibition of 1862.
The following description of this exhibit is quoted from an appreciative
article in The Engineer : —
There are also some close bends of rails, one of which is deserving special notice.
Mr. Ramsbottom, the able engineer of the railway works at Crewe, had this piece taken up
while covered with sharp frost, and placed under the large steam-hammer, where it stood
the blow necessary to double both ends together, without showing the smallest indications
of fracture There are also some extraordinary examples of the toughness of the
Bessemer steel, made from British coke pig iron, among which may be enumerated two deep
vessels of 1 ft. in diameter, with flattened bottoms and vertical sides. At the top edge,
one of these is f in. and the other | in. in thickness. A 4-in. square bar has been so twisted,
while hot, that its angles have approached within less than half an inch of each other, so
that what was originally 1 ft. length of surface has now become 26 ft., while the central
portion of the bar still preserves its original length of 1 ft. ! . . . . By the present
process, although the number of operations is reduced by casting steel in large masses, its
cost as compared with that of wrought iron is somewhat increased. Still, it compares
favourably considering its greater strength. The present causes of the costliness of steel are
BESSEMER STEEL AT THE EXHIBITION OF 1862 337
principally these : Melting the metal is expensive. Such a high temperature is required
that the pots for very low steel stand only one or two meltings. The subsequent heating
of immense ingots (one of Krupp's, in the Groat Exhibition, was 44 in. in diameter, and
8 ft. long) requires time and skill ; drawing them under ordinary hammers, not to speak
of its injurious effects, is a very long operation. The careful preparation and selection of
the materials add considerably to the cost. Again, the business is now monopolised by a few
manufacturers. Standard qualities of low steel bring a price much more disproportionate
than that of wrought iron, compared to the cost of production. Some of the processes are
secret, others are covered by patents ; but the chief difficulty is, that very few establish-
ments out of the whole number have undertaken the manufacture. Many of the large
British establishments have introduced the Bessemer process. In this country several iron-
masters pronounce this process a failure, and propose to stick to puddling and piling. At
the same time others are doing all they can to develop this and similar improvements,
but are indifferently encouraged. There is no doubt, however, that within a few years low
steel will be produced at a cheap rate all over the world. The wonderful success and
spread of the Bessemer process in England, France, Prussia, Belgium, Sweden, and even
in India, all within three or four years, prove that great talent and capital are already
concentrated on this subject, and promise the most favourable results.
And again :
Among the specimens of Bessemer metal in the Exhibition of 1862 was a 14-in.
octagonal ingot, broken at one end, and turned at the other end, to show that the metal
was perfectly solid. The turned end looked like forged steel. An 18-in. ingot, weighing
3136 lb., was the six thousand four hundred and tenth "direct steel" ingot made at the
works of Messrs. Henry Bessemer and Co.
There were also exhibited a double-headed rail, 40 ft. long ; a 24-pounder and a 32-pounder
cannon; a 250 horse-power crank-shaft, and several tyres without welds. The specimens
showing the wonderful ductility of the metal have been referred to. The Bessemer process
has been adopted during the last two or three years, since its early embarrassments were
overcome, with such great success, and by so many leading manufacturers in England, France,
Sweden, Belgium, and other European States, that its general substitution for all processes
for making either fine wrought iron or cheap low steel is now considered certain.
One of the most important chapters in the history of the Bessemer
steel industry concerns its introduction and development in the United
States, and although he makes many suggestive references to this subject
in his Autobiography, Sir Henry does not give any details. An attempt
should therefore be made to supply this deficiency, though only in a
very brief and imperfect way. Alexander Lyman Holley says, in his
book on Ordnance and Armour, written in 1863, that at that date,
the Bessemer process was to be tried on a working scale at Troy, in
the State of New York, by Messrs. Winslow, Griswold, and Holley.
x x
338 HENRY BESSEMER
The process was then in operation on a large scale in many places in
England and on the Continent ; but, almost seven years before, experi-
ments had been carried out by Messrs. Cooper and Hewitt at their
iron works in Philipsburgh, New Jersey, following the information
given them in Mr. Bessemer's British Association paper of 1856. At
the meeting of the British Iron and Steel Institute in America, in
1890, Mr. Abram S. Hewitt, said :
Mr. Bessemer read his celebrated paper describing the process of producing steel without
fuel, at the Cheltenham meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science
in the summer of 1856 ; an imperfect report of this paper was published in the journals of the
day, and attracted my notice. The theory announced seemed to be entirely sound, and the
apparatus simple and effective. I gave orders at once, without further information than
that derived from the published report, to erect an experimental vessel for the purpose
of testing the possibility of producing steel direct from the blast furnace. In the same year
in which this paper was read the experiment was tried at the furnace of Cooper and Hewitt,
at Philipsburgh, in New Jersey, and the result served to show, beyond all doubt, that the
invention of Mr. Bessemer was one that could be successfully reduced to practice.
This fixes the date of the first application of the Bessemer process
in the United States. However, nothing on a practical scale was done
until after A. L. Holley's visit to England in 1862, when, on behalf
of a syndicate known as the "Bessemer Association," one of the most
active members of which was Mr. Hewitt, he opened negotiations for
the purchase of the Bessemer American patents. These negotiations
were completed in 1864 ; but the opposition which Mr. Bessemer en-
countered up to that date, as is vividly related in his Autobiography,
delayed developments in the United States, and the Bessemer Association
was deterred from taking action by the widespread hostile articles in
the British press. A letter written by Holley, in September, 1866,
shows the actual position at that date.
In view of the diverse statements of the English journals regarding the success of the
Bessemer process in this country, and of the improvements actually developed here, I trust
that some account of our practice will be interesting. The Bessemer process was first experi-
mentally practised in this country with a 3-ton converter, at the ironworks of Mr. E. B.
Ward, at Wyandotte, near Detroit, under the superintendence of Mr. L. M. Hart, who had
learned the Bessemer process at the works of Messrs. Jackson, in France
Before the Wyandotte experiments were commenced, Messrs. Winslow, Griswold and
Holley, of Troy, had completed an arrangement with Mr. Bessemer and his associates for the
THE FIRST BESSEMER STEEL IN THE UNITED STATES 339
purchase of the Bessemer patents in the United States, and had commenced the erection
of a 2-ton experimental plant. This plant was started in February, 1865, and has since
been in constant operation. The first ingot made had a tensile strength of 65,000 Ib. per
square inch in the cast state, and 121,000 Ibs. when hammered to a 2 in. bar, A 2-in.
bar was bent double cold. The first ingot was a fair representative of all the steel that has
since been manufactured at Troy. The pig iron used was smelted with charcoal from the
hematite and from the magnetic ores of the Lake Champlain, the Hudson Kiver, and the
Salisbury regions, and the Lake Superior iron, smelted either with charcoal near the mines,
or with bituminous coal in the Mahoning Valley of Ohio. Some of the Pennsylvania and
New Jersey anthracite irons produce steel equal in quality to that made from the English
hematites of the Cumberland regions, but not equal to that made from the American charcoal
irons mentioned. Some 100 tons of the best steel have been made from the Iron Mountain
ores of Missouri, smelted with charcoal, and from the charcoal hematite irons of central
Alabama. Sufficient experience has already been gained in the mixing of these various pigs
to produce, uniformly, all grades of steel. The only irons that have failed are those reduced
from surface ores, containing an excess of phosphorus, and those that have been smelted
with very sulphurous coal. As far as tested, probably three-quarters of the American pigs
produce first-rate Bessemer steel.
Meanwhile Messrs. Winslow, Griswold and Holley had commenced the erection of a
pair of 5-ton converters, and the Wyandotte Works were producing a good quality of steel
from the Lake Superior irons. The re-carboniser at both works has been the Franklinite
pig iron of New Jersey, which is slightly richer in manganese than spiegeleisen. ... At
the present time the 2-ton converter at Troy is producing 10 tons of ingot (six charges) per
twenty-four hours ; the 5-ton converter will be in operation next December. The Wyandotte
Works are producing a smaller quantity, but a good quality of steel. Of the licensees, the
Pennsylvania Steel Company, at Harrisburg, will be in operation early next year, with two
5-ton converters, a 25-in. three-high rail mill, a tyre mill, a plate mill, and a forge suited
to the manufacture of all ingots under 12 tons weight. Similar works at Chester, Penn-
sylvania, at Cleveland, in Ohio, are partially completed, and will be running during the
next year. Several other works in Pennsylvania and at the West will probably produce
steel within eighteen to twenty months of the present writing (September, 1866).
The plans for the Pennsylvania Steel Company's Works were
prepared by my father himself, at Sheffield, and the plant was
almost wholly of English manufacture. The converters were made by
Messrs. Galloway and Sons, of Manchester, and the hammers by Messrs.
Thwaites and Carbutt, of Bradford.
The first charge of Bessemer metal made in the United States was
run into ingots at Troy, on February 16th, 1865. The works were
very small, with two 2-ton converters, but the results obtained under
Holley 's able management were so surprising that tha Bessemer
340 HENRY BESSEMER
Association required no further proof, and both practical steel-makers
and capitalists were convinced. During the month of May, 1865, no
less than eighty converter charges were run into ingots. This was
rapidly followed by the installation of two 5 -ton converters at Troy,
and the construction of the Pennsylvania Steel Company's Bessemer
Works at Harrisburg. During fifteen years Holley's life was spared to
build up the Bessemer process in America, and to make a lasting
monument for himself. In March, 1865, the two small converters at
Troy made 118 tons of Bessemer steel, or at the rate of 1,400 tons
in the year. In 1880 the output from two 5-ton converters was 14,000
tons. In 1868 the total output of Bessemer steel in America was
8,500 tons; the same year it was 110,000 tons in England. Eleven
years later the American production had equalled that of this country,
and since then it has always exceeded it.
The Report of the Twelfth Census of the United States contains
an interesting account of the position of the Bessemer steel industry
in 1900. In that year forty-two establishments owned Bessemer con-
verters ; of these thirty-three were active and nine idle. The number
of active converters was seventy, and their daily capacity was 34,925
gross tons. The total production for the year exceeded 7,500,000 tons,
and its money value was nearly £27,000,000. These astonishing amounts
have been exceeded since 1900, as will be seen by the following figures
for 1902 ; those for Germany, Great Britain, and France being also
added : —
Tons.
United States ... ... ... ... ... 9,138,363
Germany ... ... ... ... ... ... 5,229,939
Great Britain ... ... ... ... ... 1,825,779
France ... ... ... ... ... ... 1,010,000
These figures show clearly the stupendous growth of the Bessemer
steel industry in the United States, from the small converters at Troy
in 1865 : a development chiefly due to Holley's untiring energy and
skill. The secret of his progress and success was defined by Mr. Robert
W. Hunt, in a paragraph of a paper read by him before the American
Institute of Mining Engineers, and called " A History of the Bessemer
Manufacture in America." Mr. Hunt said : —
AMERICAN BESSEMER PLANT 341
After building the first experimental works at Troy, Mr. Holley seems to have at once
broken loose from the restraints of his foreign experience, and to have been impressed with
the capabilities of the new process. The result is that, mainly through his inventions and
modifications of the plant, we in America are to-day enabled to stand at the head of the
world in respect of amount of product.
Referring to the modifications and improvements made in the
Bessemer process by Holley, and to which the great output of the
American Bessemer steel works is largely due, Mr. Hunt said further : —
He did away with the English deep pit, and raised the vessels so as to get working
space under them on the ground floor; he instituted top-supported hydraulic cranes for the
more expensive English counterweighted ones; he put three ingot cranes around the pit
instead of two, and thereby obtained greater area of power. He changed the location of
the vessels, as related to the pit and smelting-house. He modified the ladle-crane, and
worked all the cranes and the vessels from a single point ; he substituted cupolas for
reverberatory furnaces ; and last, but by no means least, introduced the intermediate or accumu-
lative ladle, which is placed on scales, and thus insures accuracy of operation, by rendering
possible the weighing of each charge of melted iron, before pouring it into the converter.
These points cover the radical features of his innovations. After building such a plant, he
began to meet the difficulties in manufacture, among the most serious of which was the
short duration of the vessel bottoms, and the time required to cool off the vessel to a point
at which it was possible for workmen to enter and make new bottoms. After many experi-
ments, the result was the Holley vessel bottom, which, either in its form as patented, or
in a modification of it as now used in all American works, has rendered possible, as much
as any other one thing, the present immense production. Then he tried many forms of
cupolas at Troy, adopting in the original plant a changeable bottom, or section below the
tuyeres ; then, later, at Harrisburg, assisting Mr. S. B. Pearce, in developing the furnace to
a point, which rendered the many bottoms unnecessary, chiefly by deepening the bottom and
enlarging the tuyere area. Upon his rebuilding the Troy works, after their destruction by
fire, Mr. Holley put in the perfected cupolas. At this time the practice was to run a
cupola for a turn's melting, which had reached eight heats or forty tons of steel, and then
dropping its bottom. This was already an increase of 100 per cent, over his boast about
the same amount in twenty-nine hours.
By the year 1865 the Bessemer process was firmly established on
the Continent. Krupp, of Essen, had installed a plant; the Bochum
Works had four 3-ton converters ; the Hoerde Company, near Dort-
mund, had two converters ; a steel works in Diisseldorf was completed
with two converters ; the Neuberg Works, in Styria, works at Grasse
and at Witkowitz, all made Bessemer steel ; as also did John Cockerill,
of Seraing ; Petin, Gaudet and Co., at Rive de Giers ; James Jackson
342 HENRY BESSEMER
and Co., of St. Severin, near Bordeaux, besides many others. During
that year the production of Bessemer steel on the Continent was about
100,000 tons. This and the following few years ripened the golden
harvest for my father, his royalties from all sources reaching a very high
figure. In 1869, however, his leading patent expired; and while this
gave a great impetus to the production of Bessemer steel, his income
arising from the royalties was much diminished.
In the early 'sixties, when my father's process for the manufacture
of steel had triumphed over the many difficulties described in the
previous pages, he determined on the establishment of steel works in
or near London. I may say here that this intention was chiefly for
the benefit of my brother and myself, the idea being that we should
carry on the works under the general supervision of my father. After
careful consideration, a site of about three acres was secured on the
banks of the Thames, just below Greenwich ; for this a long lease was
obtained. It was determined that the works should be only on a small
scale, comprising two 2j-ton converters, and all the plant necessary for
the production of steel on that basis. This plant included one 2^-ton
steam-hammer and another of smaller size ; the buildings were carefully
designed, with the intention that the establishment should in all respects
be a model one.
At the time I speak of, the Thames was a very busy shipbuilding
centre, and we naturally expected to find a large number of customers
ready to our hand. But before we were able to commence operations
the shipbuilding trade had deserted the Thames for the North, and
with this great change our expected customers had also disappeared.
Under these circumstances, my father did not consider it desirable for
us to open the works, although they were fully equipped, and he decided
upon letting them. This was done after considerable delay ; our first
tenants being the Steel and Ordnance Company, who, however, did
not achieve much success, and the factory became vacant after a few
years. Then we let it to Messrs. Appleby Brothers, who were general
engineers, and did not propose to become steel makers. For this reason
the whole of the steel-making plant was disposed of, and the scheme
for manufacturing Bessemer steel on the Thames was finally abandoned.
THE ORIGINAL OF THE " POPOFPKA " 343
Again, after some delay, we found the place on our hands, and this
time my brother and I determined upon converting the long lease into
a freehold : an operation effected only with much difficulty and after
prolonged negotiations. Then followed a considerable period when the
works remained untenanted, but we eventually let them to a company
for the manufacture of linoleum. This time there was no doubt about
the success of the undertaking, and the company added to the size of
the works until nearly the whole of the three acres was covered with
buildings. A few years since we sold the property to this company,
and thus terminated our connection with the works my father had
originally built for us.
It may not be generally known that long before the episode of the
Bessemer steam-ship, with its swinging saloon, my father had given
much attention to the Channel crossing, a voyage which he heartily
disliked. At the time I speak of, his idea was to construct a large
circular vessel about 200 ft. in diameter, of a double-convex form in
cross-section, and large enough to float over two or three Channel waves
at a time ; in the hull were to be contained the necessary propelling
machinery, cabin accommodation, etc., and in the centre was to be
a raised circular deck about one-third of the vessel's diameter. This
scheme, so far as my father was concerned, never went beyond the
stage of a general design ; but Admiral Popoff, at that time a prominent
Russian naval constructor, and an acquaintance of my father, was much
struck with the idea, and embodied it in a vessel he built for the Russian
Navy. A model of this vessel, which was called the " Popoffka," is
now in the Musee de la Marine, at the Louvre, in Paris.
A very conspicuous feature in my father's character was his intense
love of home and its surroundings : a sentiment which endured to the
last days of his life, and never grew slack, even during the busiest
and most harassed periods. He always found time to make alterations
and improvements, and to decorate his own home with the natural taste
that belonged to him, and which he had inherited from his father.
During his later years he extended this love of domestic improvements
to the houses of his children, all of which bore the impress of his
individuality.
344 HENRY BESSEMER
During his long life he did not shift his home frequently. From
the humble beginnings, commencing with his marriage, we read in his
Autobiography of his moving into Baxter House ; and, after some years,
when the large returns from the bronze-powder business permitted it,
he has told us how he indulged his natural longings for a country
life by the acquisition of a house and grounds, which he called
" Charlton," at Highgate. Here he lived for a number of years, until
he made a last change to Denmark Hill, where he found a charming
though unpretentious house, with beautiful and extensive grounds.
Settled here, the alterations and improvements that he made, both in
house and gardens, occupied and amused him for a number of years.
This may be a matter of very small moment to the general reader, but
to me it possesses a special interest, knowing as I do how the house at
Denmark Hill became an inseparable part of my father's life. For this
reason I venture to give, in Fig. 88, Plate XLIIL, a view of the house,
this view showing on the left-hand side the conservatory which he designed
and erected. An interior view of this conservatory is given in Fig. 89,
Plate XLIV. If serving no other purpose, it will show that my father's
capabilities as a designer and decorator were of no mean order. Another
example of his talents in this direction is given in Fig. 90, Plate XLV.,
which shows the interior of a grotto constructed by him in his grounds ;
the mound within which this was built was formed by the excavation
of a large lake which he had made. As will be seen from the illustration,
the grotto is of an elaborately ornate character, both design and
colouring having been taken from one of the courts of the Alhambra.
Illusions of distance were produced by the ingenious application of
large mirrors.
From the charming Autobiography of that great engineer, James
Nasmyth, I take the liberty of making the following extract, and basing
upon it a comparison of his career with that of my father. Mr. Nasmyth
says : —
"The 'Dial of Life' [see Fig. 91] gives a brief summary of my career. It shows the brevity
of life and indicates the tale that is soon told. The first part of the semicircle includes the
passage from infancy to boyhood and manhood. While that period lasts, time seems to pass
very slowly. We long to be men, and doing men's work. What I have called the ' Tableland
PLATE XLIT1
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PLATE XLV
THE DIAL OF LIFE
345
of Life' is then reached. Ordinary observation shows that between thirty and fifty the full
strength of body and mind is reached, and at that period we energise our faculties to the
utmost.
THE DIAL OF LIFE
FIG. 91. "DIAL OF LIFE" FOR MR. JAMES NASMYTH.
"Those who are blessed with good health and a sound constitution may prolong the
period of energy to sixty or even seventy ; but Nature's laws must be obeyed, and the period
of decline begins and goes on with accelerated rapidity. Then comes old age; and as we
descend the semicircle towards eighty, we find that the remnant of life becomes vague and
cloudy. By shading off, as I have done, the portion of the area of the diagram according
to the individual age, everyone may see how much of life is consumed and how much is
left— D.V.
"Here is my brief record: —
Born, August 19th.
Went to the High School, Edinburgh.
Attended the School of Arts.
Went to London to Maudslay's.
Returned to Edinburgh to make my engineer's tools.
Went to Manchester to begin business.
Removed to Patricroft and built the Bridgewater Foundry.
Invented the steam-hammer.
Marriage.
First visit to France and Italy.
Visit to St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Dannemora.
Application of the steam-hammer to pile-driving.
Retired from business, to enjoy the rest of my life in the active pursuit
of my most favourite occupations."
Y Y
o
Year.
1808
9
1817
13
1821
21
1829
23
1831
26
1834
28
1836
31
1839
32
1840
34
1842
35
1843
37
1845
48
1856
346
HENRY BESSEMER
It will be interesting to compare the foregoing with my father's
record, which stands as follows, his " Dial of Life " being given in
Fig. 92 :—
Age
Year.
1813
17
1830
20
1833
21
1834
30
1843
42
1855
43
1856
45
49
50
52
56
59
66
85
1858
1862
1863
1865
1869
1872
1879
1898
THE DIAL OF LIFE
FIG. 92. "DIAL OF LIFE" FOE SIR HENRY BESSEMER
Born, 19th of January.
Arrived in London.
Improvements in Government stamps.
Marriage.
Manufacture of bronze powder.
First patent for manufacture of iron and steel, October 15th.
Paper read before the Cheltenham Meeting of British Association,
August 24th.
Bessemer Works started at Sheffield.
First Bessemer steel rail laid at Camden Goods Station, May 9th.
Bessemer steel first used in the construction of ships.
First Bessemer Works started in America, by A. L. Holley, at
Troy, U.S.A.
Bessemer Saloon patented.
Retired from business.
Knighted, ^une 26th.
Pied, March 15th.
When describing the first announcement of his great steel invention
at the British Association Cheltenham Meeting, in 1856*, my father
referred to the encouraging and generous remarks made by Mr. James
* See page 162, ante
FIG. 93. FAC-SIMILE OF A LET
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A*-/
PLATE XL VI
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JJ
FHOM ]\IR. JAMES XASMYTH
NASMYTH'S SYSTEM OF PUDDLING 347
Nasmyth. On searching through a mass of miscellaneous papers in my
possession, I came across an interesting correspondence between Nasmyth
and my father, and it seems to me that the facsimile of a letter,
reproduced in Fig. 93, Plate XL VI., will be read with interest; it is
a characteristic letter, and shows that the generous impulse, which so
encouraged my father during the discussion of his memorable paper of
1856 had remained unaltered twenty-five years later.
On turning to the Autobiography referred to in his letter by
Mr. Nasmyth, as giving him so much pleasure in the preparation, I
find that some references are made to this correspondence. He says : —
In 1854 I took out a patent for puddling iron by means of steam. Many of my readers
may not know that cast iron is converted into malleable iron by the process called puddling.
The iron, while in a molten state, is violently stirred and agitated by a stiff iron rod, having
its end bent like a hoe or flattened hook, by which every portion of the molten metal is
exposed to the oxygen of the air, and the supercharge of carbon which the cast iron contains
is thus burnt out. When this is effectually done the iron becomes malleable and weldable.
This state of the iron is indicated by a general loss of fluidity, accompanied by a
tendency to gather together in globular masses. The puddler, by his dexterous use of the
rabbling-bar, puts the masses together, and, in fact, welds the new-born particles into puddle-
balls of about three-quarter cwt. each. These are successively removed from the pool of the
puddling furnace, and subjected to the energetic blows of the steam-hammer, which drives out
all the scoriae lurking within the spongy puddle-balls, and thus welds them into compact
masses of malleable iron. When re-heated to a welding heat, they are rolled ont into flat
bars or round rods, in a variety of sizes so as to be suitable for the consumer.
The manual and physical labour of the puddler is tedious, fatiguing, and unhealthy.
The process of puddling occupies about an hour's violent labour, and only robust young men
can stand the fatigue and violent heat. I had frequent opportunities of observing the labour
and unhealthiness of the process, as well as the great loss of time required to bring it to a
conclusion. It occurred to me that much of this could be avoided by employing some other
means of getting rid of the superfluous carbon, and bringing the molten cast iron into a
malleable condition.
The method that occurred to me was the substitution of a small steam-pipe in the
place of the puddler's rabbling-bar. By having the end of this steam pipe bent downwards,
so as to reach the bottom of the pool, and then to discharge a current of steam beneath the
surface of the molten cast iron, I thought that I should by this simple means supply a
most effective carbon oxidising agent, at the same time that I produced a powerful agitating
action within the pool. Thus the steam would be decomposed and supply oxygen to the
carbon of the cast iron, while the mechanical action of the rush of steam upwards would
cause so violent a commotion throughout the pool of melted iron as to exceed the utmost
efforts of the labour of the puddler. All the gases would pass up the chimney of the
348 HENRY BESSEMER
puddling furnace, and the puddler would not be subject to their influence. Such was the
method specified in my patent of 1854.*
My friend Thomas Lever Rushton, proprietor of the Bolton Iron Works, was so much
impressed with the soundness of the principle, as well as with the great simplicity of
carrying the invention into practical effect, that he urged me to secure the patent, and he
soon after gave me the opportunity of trying the process at his works. The results were
most encouraging. There was a great saving of labour and time compared with the old
puddling process; aud the malleable iron produced was found to be of the highest order
as regarded strength, toughness, and purity. My process was soon after adopted by several
iron manufacturers, with equally favourable results. Such, however, was the energy of the
steam, that unless the workmen were most careful to regulate its force and the duration of its
action, the waste of iron by undue oxidation was such as in great measure to neutralise its
commercial gain as regarded the superior value of the malleable iron thus produced.
Before I had time or opportunity to remove this commercial difficulty, Mr. Bessemer
had secured his patent of the 17th of October, 1855. By this patent he employed a blast
of air to do the same work as I had proposed to accomplish by means of a blast of steam,
forced up beneath the surface of the molten cast iron. He added some other improvements,
with that happy fertility of invention which has always characterised him. The results were
so magnificently successful as to totally eclipse my process, and to cast it comparatively into
the shade. At the same time I may say that I was in a measure the pioneer of his invention ;
that I initiated a new system, and led up to one of the most important improvements in
the manufacture of iron and steel that has ever been given to the world.
Mr. Bessemer brought the subject of his invention before the Meeting of the British
Association at Cheltenham in the autumn of 1856. There he read his Paper "On the
Manufacture of Iron and Steel without Fuel." I was present on the occasion, and listened
to his statement with mingled feelings of regret and enthusiasm : of regret, because I had
been so clearly superseded and excelled in my performances ; and of enthusiasm — because I
could not but admire and honour the genius who had given so great an invention to the
mechanical world. I immediately took the opportunity of giving my assent to the principles
which he had propounded. My words were not reported at the time, nor was Mr. Bessemer's
Paper printed by the Association, perhaps because it was thought of so little importance.
But, on applying to Mr. (now Sir Henry) Bessemer, he was so kind as to give me his
recollection of the words which I used on the occasion. ... It was thoroughly consistent
with Mr Bessemer's kindly feelings towards me that, after our meeting at Cheltenham,
he made me an offer of one-third share of the value of his patents. This would have
been another fortune to me. But I had already made money enough. I just then taking
down my signboard and leaving business. I did not need to plunge into any such
tempting enterprise, and I therefore thankfully declined the offer.
I need not refer in this place to my father's reply to Mr. Nasmyth's
letter; to do so would be only to repeat what he has already written
* Specification of James Nasmyth — "Employment of Steam in the Process of Puddling
Iron." May 4th, 1854 ; No. 1001
349
in the earlier pages of his Autobiography. It will be noticed that at
the end of his letter, reproduced in Fig. 93, Plate XL VI., Mr. Nasmyth
expresses the hope that my father was making satisfactory progress
with his telescope. And this naturally leads me to say something about
a pursuit which, if it had no practical and useful conclusion, at all
events afforded my father a congenial occupation for many years.
With the termination of the Saloon Steam-ship episode, my father's
active business career came to an end. That was in the year 1873,
when he was about sixty years of age, so that nearly a quarter of a
century of busy relaxation was still in store for him. Not that the
collision of the " Bessemer " with the pier at Calais terminated that
unfortunate incident ; on the contrary, as my father has already shown,
several years elapsed before the business was entirely closed. Still it
occupied only a small portion of his time, and he was left free to follow
congenial pursuits. During twenty-five years of his strenuous life he
had accumulated what was, for that time, a large fortune, though modest
enough if compared with the standard of to-day. So that his later
years were not only entirely free from business cares, but also from
financial anxieties.
That so active a man could remain without occupation was evidently
impossible ; his house and grounds, in which he took unwearying delight,
had been developed and improved until they afforded him little beyond
the routine occupation of management, and he naturally turned his
attention to some work which should give full play to his mechanical
abilities. As matters turned out, four different pursuits occupied him
fully up to the year of his death. These were — the construction of an
observatory and telescope ; his experiments with a solar furnace ; the
installation of a diamond-polishing factory for the benefit of his grandson ;
and his Autobiography. The last named has told us the story of his
active life in a characteristic manner. The diamond-polishing factory,
to be referred to presently, was an assured success ; as for the telescope
and the solar furnace, it is as well to state at the commencement that
neither proved of any practical value, although they provided for him
a never-failing source of enjoyment.
My father's first ambition was to construct a refracting telescope
350 HENRY BESSEMER
with a 50-in. objective. Fortunately for himself, he soon realised the
impossibility of achieving this ambition : not only on account of the
enormous cost of so large a lens, but because no one could be found,
at that time, to undertake its production with any chance of success.
Therefore he was quickly led to the construction of a reflecting telescope,
which did not seem to present such insurmountable difficulties. More-
over, this had the special attraction to him that he resolved to make
the reflector himself- — a mistake, of course, so far as the scientific outcome
of his work was concerned, but a success in the main respect, namely,
that of giving him congenial occupation. At first he tried a speculum
metal of the same alloy as that used by Lord Rosse in his great
Parsonstown reflector ; that is to say, a mixture of copper and tin,
in the proportions of 126.4 of the former to 58.9 parts of the latter.
This alloy, however, in my father's hands did not prove satisfactory.
He found it extremely brittle and difficult to cast ; moreover, it was
entirely unsuited for turning in the lathe, and it was my father's
intention to give the reflector its proper form by mechanical cutting
and grinding. His early experience of alloys naturally led him to
engage in a long series of experiments with different mixtures.
Ultimately, however, he determined to abandon the use of metal, and to
employ instead a disc of glass, which should be trued up and polished to
the correct figure, and afterwards coated with silver. Before commencing
his operations, he built and equipped a workshop at Denmark Hill.
Besides the necessary steam power, this workshop contained a number
of ordinary tools ; but the main feature was a special grinding and
polishing machine, which he designed and had built from his own
drawings. A sketch of this machine — somewhat imperfect, as I have
made it from memory — is shown in Figs. 94 and 95. It comprised a
long and rigid bed A A, with a head-stock B B, on the spindle of
which are the driving pulleys C and two face-plates D E. These
latter were rather more than 5 ft. in diameter, so as to take the 50 in.
glass discs from which the reflectors were to be made. At the other
end of the bed was a pin G, on which there was mounted a cast-iron
frame F, the frame being free to swing horizontally on the pin. As will
be seen from the diagrams, the size of this swinging frame was increased
MIRROR GRINDING MACHINE
351
as it approached the head-stock, until it was large enough to enclose the
latter, and to oscillate without coming into contact either with the head-
stock or with the face-plate on which the glass disc was mounted.
Within the large end of the oscillating frame was fixed a bar, to the
end of which was secured a black diamond that formed the cutting
tool. The bar could be moved backwards or forwards to vary the depth
of cut ; and as the frame was traversed to-and-fro, the tool described
an arc of a circle which could be varied within narrow limits, so as to
modify the degree of curvature, and, consequently, the length of focus
r
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u
B
C
V
D FIG. 94
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ui
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FIG. 95
MIRROR GRINDING MACHINE
given to the reflector. When this apparatus was set in movement, the
revolution of the face-plate, combined with the oscillating motion of the
frame, gradually gave a concave surface to the disc of glass. A reverse
action could also be obtained by mounting the tool-holder on the
extreme end of the oscillating frame, with the diamond cutter pointing
inwards, in such a way that it could operate on a disc of glass
mounted on the face-plate E ; in this way convex, instead of concave,
surfaces could be formed. A number of both classes of discs were
roughed out and polished by this machine. It was found necessary
to do the finishing work at night, because during the day sudden
variations in temperature occurred which altered the length of the
352 HENRY BESSEMER
oscillating frame F, and so changed the curvature of the surfaces
produced.
The design, installation, and operation of this machine, occupied my
father for a long time ; it was made with great care ; but the surfaces
it produced lacked the accuracy and form necessary for lenses or mirrors
intended for astronomical work, and it never found any useful application.
Whilst the workshop and its equipment were in progress, my father
commenced the construction of the observatory in which the telescope
(never to be completed) was to be mounted. It was altogether a very
beautiful and ingenious piece of work, and calls for a short description.
Fig. 96, Plate XL VII., gives an excellent idea of the general
appearance of the observatory ; as will be seen, it was built on a slight
eminence, and the circular gallery around it was approached by a flight
of steps. The observatory itself was about 40 ft. in diameter, and the
whole structure, vertical walls as well as domed roof, revolved very
freely on a circular rail and a ring of wheels, some of which served as
bearing and the remainder as driving wheels, the latter being actuated
by an endless steel- wire rope ; motion was imparted by a small turbine
working at a head of about 70 ft. By a simple method of reversing,
the dome could be caused to revolve either to the right or the left, and
the speed of revolution could be so regulated, that one complete turn
of the observatory could be effected in two or three minutes, or in
twenty-four hours. As will be seen from the illustration, the side
walls of the dome were pierced with openings for windows and a door,
so that access to the interior could be always obtained from the outer
gallery ; the position of the sliding shutter in the cupola is clearly shown
in the illustration. The telescope was mounted on trunnions, in bearings
at the end of a vertical pillar resting on very solid foundations, and, of
course, the observatory floor was framed solidly to the dome, and
moved with it.
The telescope itself, which unfortunately was never finished, is
illustrated by Figs. 97 and 98, Plates XL VIII. and XLIX. Fig. 97
shows the gallery floor, at the level of which are the trunnions carrying
the telescope. In Fig. 98, Plate XLIX., which is a view on the ground
floor of the observatory, it will be seen that the foundation for the
PLATE XLYII
PLATE XLVIII
1-
OS
PLATE XLIX
FIG. 98. INTERIOR UK OBSERVATORY, GROUMJ
THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TELESCOPE 353
telescope was surmounted by a steel ring carried on a series of short
columns ; on the face of this ring was a roller-path on which the central
column of the telescope took its bearing, and could be turned with very
little effort. The column, and with it the telescope, were turned by means
of hydraulic machinery, the velocity of which could be adjusted exactly
to the same rate as that of the dome, so that the turning rate of
the two was identical. As will be seen by Fig. 98, the body of the
telescope consisted of a very rigid open cast-iron frame, with a solid
ring in the centre carrying the trunnions, and at the lower end it termi-
nated in a ribbed and dish-shaped casting intended to receive the large
concave reflector. The central band and trunnions are better shown in
Fig. 97 ; on these the telescope could oscillate from a vertical to a
horizontal position. This movement was effected by an ingenious
arrangement, indicated in both the illustrations. A large gun-metal
wheel was mounted on each trunnion, and immediately below, but not
in contact, was a second wheel. On each side was an hydraulic cylinder,
the plunger of which terminated in a long flat steel bar that passed
between the two gun-metal wheels, already spoken of as being placed
on each side of the telescope. As the plunger was run in and
out, the bar moving between the two wheels gave motion to the
latter, and, of course, caused the telescope to turn. The speed was
controlled with the utmost delicacy by a small valve, which regulated
the flow of water into the cylinders. This valve was, of course, worked
by the observer. The position of the finders on the telescope is shown
clearly in the illustration.
As may naturally be supposed, every detail connected with the
observatory and the telescope was planned by my father, and showed
throughout his characteristic ingenuity, engineering knowledge, and
correct taste. The undertaking occupied him almost to the time of his
death ; but unfortunately it was far from complete, and with him died
the personal interest necessary for the completion of an undertaking so
full of ideas.
A series of experiments which gave great occupation to my father
for quite a long period grew directly out of his work with the telescope ;
and though they led to no practical result, this notice would be
z z
354 HENRY BESSEMER
incomplete if I did not refer to them. The object my father had
in view was to ascertain to what extent concentrated solar rays could
be employed in the creation of very high temperatures ; he aimed,
in fact, at making a solar furnace in which the most refractory material
could be readily broken down. He expended a great deal of time and money
in this pursuit, and the experimental furnace which he built is illustrated
by the diagrams on page 355, Fig. 99 showing roughly his preliminary
experimental arrangements and Fig. 100 the finished device. In Fig. 99,
on a table was placed a swing mirror a, and at a convenient height above
this was fixed a concave reflector b, about 12 in. in diameter ; a lens c
6 in. in diameter was mounted above the table, the various parts being so
arranged as to produce the following result : The solar rays striking the
mirror at an angle, were thrown up to the concave reflector, and sent
back to the lens which focussed them at the point b. From this
experimental apparatus the solar furnace illustrated in Fig. 100 was
constructed ; as will be seen, it was almost precisely identical with the
earlier form. The tower-like structure was carried on wheels running
on a circular rail laid in the shallow pit which formed the foundation;
the platform on which the tower was built was about 18 ft. in diameter.
The tower itself was 12 ft. square and about 30 ft. in height ; the front
side was open, but could be closed by sliding shutters when the apparatus
was not at work ; the lower part was cut off by a large mirror placed at
an angle which could be adjusted within moderate limits. Beneath this
mirror was the small furnace, access to which was obtained by a door at
the back of the tower. The mirror, about 12 ft. square, was carried by a
strong cast-iron frame closely boarded over, so that the silvered glass was
entirely supported. In the centre was cut a circular opening about 3 ft. in
diameter. The cast-iron mirror frame was mounted on trunnions, so that
its angle could, as already stated, be altered to suit the altitude of the
sun. In the circular opening, and in the position shown in the diagram,
Fig. 100, was mounted a lens 30 in. in diameter, and immediately beneath
was placed the crucible already referred to ; the frame on which this crucible
was mounted could be raised or lowered, so as to reduce or increase the
degree of heat obtained by the concentration of the solar rays. In the
upper part of the tower was placed the large concave reflector, which was
THE SOLAR FURNACE
FIG. 99. FIG. 100.
THE BESSEMER SOLAR FURNACE
356 HENRY BESSEMER
about 10 ft. in diameter, and was formed of a concave cast-iron frame ;
into this were fitted one hundred hexagonal glass plates, each slightly
concave on the lower surface, and convex at the back. The backs of
these plates were silvered, and afterwards coated with copper ; each of
them formed a small reflector, to the back of which were secured three
copper studs to receive screws, by means of which the plate was attached
to the cast-iron frame. This arrangement was found necessary, because
each plate had to be so adjusted as to act as a separate reflector,
throwing its rays down to the 30-in. lens beneath ; as may be imagined,
the adjustment of these reflectors was a very long and tedious operation.
As the position of each reflector was finally fixed, its face was covered
over with water-colour, to prevent the focussing of the rays through
the lower lens while the others were being adjusted ; when all the parts
were completed the paint was washed off, and the reflector was ready
for use. A screen was introduced to cut off the whole of the reflected
rays, and only to permit them gradually to focus on the crucible beneath
the lens ; this precaution was taken to prevent any great and sudden
heat destroying the crucible.
Experiments made with this furnace were somewhat disappointing,
as it never developed the amount of heat expected ; copper was melted
and zinc was vapourised, but its efficiency ought to have been much
greater. The non-success was attributed to the inaccuracy of the small
hexagonal reflectors, which caused considerable dispersion of the rays,
and consequently a great loss in heat. After some years of experimental
work, my father became disheartened, and abandoned the solar furnace.
It was in the early part of 1868 that my father commenced his
experiments with the apparatus for the concentration of solar heat,
which I have just described, and these experiments naturally were
continued for a considerable time. While he had them under con-
sideration, the question of the cause of the great heat of the sun
naturally engaged his attention; and he busied himself by working out
a theory which would account for it. He was led to the conclusion that
the combustion going on in the sun attained its very great intensity
largely owing to the pressure under which it took place. As the force
of gravity at the sun's surface is about 27.6 times as great as it is on
COMBUSTION UNDER PRESSURE 357
the surface of the earth, all the incandescent solar gases must be
maintained in a state 27.6 times as dense as they would be if they
formed a portion of our own atmosphere. My father was therefore
struck with the idea that the great intensity of the solar heat might
be simply due to the fact that combustion took place under very
much higher pressure than combustion naturally does on the earth.
No sooner did this solution suggest itself to him than he resolved
to test it by actual experiment, or, as he expressed it, to have " a little
sun of his own." He was at that time desirous of carrying out a
series of researches on the fusion, vaporisation, and re-crystallisation
of the more refractory metals, and of other so-called infusible substances.
As the first step towards attaining this result, he constructed a small
cupola furnace, so made that the products of combustion, instead of
escaping freely as usual, were checked, in consequence of the mouth
of the cupola being narrowed to a diameter of some 2 in. The result
of this arrangement was that when air was blown into the furnace
at considerable pressure the products of combustion within the furnace
were raised to several pounds above the atmospheric pressure, and
combustion accordingly took place under this pressure.
With this furnace my father obtained results as brilliant as the
conception to which the furnace owed its origin. While the furnace
was worked at pressures of from 15 to 18 Ib. per square inch above
the atmosphere, the temperature obtained was such that steel — and
even wrought iron — might be melted more readily than cast iron in
an ordinary cupola. Thus on one occasion, a piece of 2-in. square bar
iron, 1 ft. long, and weighing 13 Ib., was introduced cold into the
furnace, and was completely fused in five and a-half minutes ; while
3 cwt. of wrought-iron scrap, also introduced cold into the same
furnace, was run off in a completely fused state in fifteen minutes.
These results were obtained in a small model furnace, without much
greater expenditure of coke than would take place in an ordinary
cupola furnace melting cast iron.
There were naturally considerable mechanical difficulties to be over-
come in making tight a furnace wherein such high temperatures prevailed,
and one of these is worth referring to, as it illustrates the happy way in
358 HENRY BESSEMER
which my father could meet very serious obstacles by devices which
were exceedingly simple, and at the same time eminently successful.
At the place at which the joint occurred, and which, of course, was liable
to be rapidly cut out by the leakage of flame and products of com-
bustion at an intense temperature, he provided a hollow ring, which
was connected to the main blast pipe, and therefore received air at a
pressure of a few pounds higher than existed in the body of the
furnace. The result was that whatever leakage took place was a
leakage of cold air into the furnace, and this cold air completely
protected the surfaces which otherwise might have been eroded by the
gases.
After success had been attained in a small furnace, my father
designed : first, an ordinary cupola furnace ; next, a reverberatory
furnace for the melting of steel scrap ; and, later, a Bessemer converter,
all of which were intended to be worked under pressure. The matter,
however, was not proceeded with beyond this point. To-day the
electric furnace provides still higher temperatures in a more convenient
manner ; and it is not likely that combustion under pressure will ever
be resorted to in practical work. Nevertheless, it was a brilliant
conception, and was admirably worked out.
Whilst engaged in his experiments connected with the cutting of
the glass discs to form the mirror for his telescope, my father had occasion
to visit the diamond-cutting factories which existed in Clerkenwell at that
time ; and in that industry he, with his ardent temperament, took imme-
diately a keen interest. It happened that about 1884 he was anxious
to establish one of his grandsons in business, and he accordingly made
arrangements by which, under the name of Messrs. Ford and Wright, a
diamond-cutting and polishing factory should be installed in Clerkenwell.
London, two hundred years ago, was one of the chief centres of this
industry ; but it gradually became supplanted by France and Holland, until
the most important diamond-cutting factories in the world were established
in Amsterdam, which is still the chief seat of the industry. The
trade meanwhile had died out of London, and was practically re-established
by the energy and ingenuity of Sir Henry Bessemer, acting on behalf
of Mr. Ford, and his grandson, Mr. Wright. It is almost needless to
DIAMOND POLISHING MACHINES
859
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360
HENRY BESSEMER
say that the ancient methods of diamond-cutting and polishing still in
vogue did not at all suit the ideas of my father, who could not rest
contented until he had designed and installed an entirely new plant on
strictly mechanical and economical lines. The Clerkenwell factory
FIG. 104. METHOD OP DRIVING DIAMOND POLISHING MACHINES
was indeed a startling contrast to the Dutch diamond-cutting works,
in which all the mechanical appliances were of a very primitive description,
and the admirable results obtained are due entirely to the wonderful
skill of the workmen.
A detailed account of Messrs. Ford and Wright's factory will be
found on page 123 of Vol. XLVIT. of Engineering, from which the annexed
DIAMOND POLISHING MACHINES
361
illustrations are taken, and a description summarised. The cutting and
polishing machines were quite small, and a number of them were arranged
in a row upon a bench in the workshop ; the factory included several of
these benches. One of the machines is illustrated in Figs. 101 to 103,
page 359, while Fig. 104 is a diagram showing the method of driving a
complete series. Each mill consisted in its main parts of a cast-iron
bracket, above and below the bench ; of a vertical spindle n, carrying
above the bench a heavy disc, and below the bench a double-grooved
pulley m, which received the driving cord, by which a very rapid
FIG. 105. METHOD OP DKIVING DIAMOND POLISHING MACHINE
rotation was transmitted to the spindle and disc. As will be
seen from the illustration, Fig. 101, the top and bottom of the
spindle were pointed, and ran in bearings made of lignum vitce; these
blocks were set in tapered metal bushes, and the position of the upper
one could be adjusted by the set screw x. It will be noticed that a
ring k was introduced above the lower bearing, to prevent the lubri-
cating oil used from being thrown out ; the driving disc was protected
by a guard. All the mills were of the same pattern, and were driven,
as explained, by endless ropes. Fig. 104 shows the method of trans-
mission. The benches were divided by a gangway across the centre ;
3 A
362 HENRY BESSEMER
underneath this, in the basement, was the steam engine and trans-
mission pulleys, which gave motion to six belts. These passed from
the main shaft on to the pulleys o, Fig. 105, these pulleys being
mounted on spindles m, carried on the brackets d, the position of
which on the vertical frame c could be adjusted by a screw. At
the other end of the pulley spindle was the rope pulley n, driving the
main cotton rope, which rose vertically to the level of the working
benches, and then was taken round the pulleys on the spindles, as shown
in Fig. 104. The speed of the engine was multiplied until that of
the pulleys was nearly 3000 revolutions ; any mill could be stopped by
throwing the rope out of contact with the double-grooved pulley on the
spindle, by means of the lever e and the frame g, Figs. 101 and 103.
The following description of the manner in which these mills
were operated is extracted from the article in Engineering above
referred to : —
The natural angles of the stones are so sharp that if applied to the discs of the
mills they would rapidly cut them away, and practically ruin them. These angles are,
therefore, abraded in the first instance by hand. Two diamonds are mounted on sticks or
holders, and the operator, taking one in each hand, uses an angle of one gem to cut
off or reduce an angle of the other, and in this way he gradually removes them all,
carefully catching the dust which falls, for subsequent use. Originally the stone was practi-
cally shaped in this way, and it was only the polishing that was done on the mill, for the
supply of diamond dust was limited to that obtained by the mutual attrition of the gems.
But now there is obtainable an ample supply of small diamonds which are worthless for
decorative purposes, either from the presence of flaws, or from the poorness of their
colour. They are placed in a steel mortar with a tight-fitting cover, and are gradually ground
into a fine powder, which is used upon the mills, and serves to do most of the work which
was formerly effected in the way just described. The whole process is now called polishing,
the two processes of grinding and finishing being simultaneous.
After the natural angles of the stone have been removed, it is mounted in a ball
of lead about the size of a large walnut or small apple. The metal is heated till it
reaches the plastic stage, when the jewel is pressed into it, leaving visible the particular
surface which it is desired to grind. The metal is very easily manipulated by those who
have the skilly and can be "wiped" to one side or the other so as to vary the position
of the stone and give it greater or less prominence. At the opposite side of the lead ball
to the diamond there is a stalk of brass wire, and once the metal is set, this stalk offers
the only means of adjustment by being bent to one side or the other. It is perfectly
marvellous how thirty-two facets can be cut on a diamond no larger than a hemp-seed with
such means as these. The cutter is truly a handicraftsman, for he depends entirely on the
senses of sight and touch, and has no apparatus to aid him in making his minute divisions.
THE FREEDOM OP THE COMPANY OF TURNERS 363
When the diamond has been fixed in its bed the stalk is clamped in a holder, which
consists of a heavy bar with a hole to receive the stalk at one end, and two feet at
the other end. Practically, the lead ball forms a third foot to the bar, which is laid down
with two feet resting on the bench and the third on the disc of the mill. The disc is
moistened from time to time with olive oil containing diamond dust, and runs at a speed
of about a mile a minute. The small particles of diamond become rubbed into its face,
which is of soft cast iron, and thus produce an abrading surface acting continually against
the diamond contained in the lead holder. The keen edges of the dust, aided by the speed,
and the weight of the lead ball, gradually wear away the stone, which is removed for
inspection every few minutes. When the workman considers that the cutting has proceeded
as far as is necessary, the lead is softened, and the gem is released, ready to be again set
in another position. Thus by successive stages the cutting proceeds until the jewel finally
assumes the proper form.
This diamond factory was extremely successful, and remained in
active operation for several years, until circumstances which have
nothing to do with this story, rendered it desirable for the partnership
to be dissolved, and the works closed.
I may refer here to April, 1880, when the Freedom of the Company
of Turners was conferred on Sir Henry Bessemer, " in recognition of
his valuable discoveries, which have so largely benefited the iron
industries of the country, and his scientific attainments, which are so
well known and appreciated throughout the world." In the course of
his speech, my father, in expressing his thanks for this distinction,
said : —
Under the process which I had the honour of inaugurating, we dispense with every
one of the intermediate processes formerly employed. We have no smelting of pig iron, we
have no making of balls, we have no rolling of bars, we have no shearing of bars, we have
no piling up, we have no heating furnaces.
You will readily understand why, with a process so rapid, and so entirely devoid of
the use of expensive fuel, and of all those varied skilled manipulations which were necessary
at every stage in the old process, the cost of manufacture is so exceedingly small as it is
found to be. ... At the time when my invention was introduced into Sheffield the entire
make of steel was 51,000 tons a year; last year we made 830,000 tons of Bessemer steel,
being sixteen times what was before the entire output of the whole produce of the whole
country. It is anticipated that on the Continent of Europe this year's make will reach
in all 3,000,000 tons. The value of these 3,000,000 tons altogether may be taken at
,£10 per ton, or £30,000,000 sterling; and if that metal had been made by the old process
which I have described, it would have been impossible to have brought it into the
market under £50 per ton, or £150,000,000 sterling.
364 HENRY BESSEMER
A matter of much importance, not referred to in the Autobiography,
is Sir Henry Bessemer's close connection with the Iron and Steel
Institute, of which he was one of the founders in 1868, and the
President in 1871 to 1873. He only contributed two Papers to the
Institute. The first of these was read in 1886, on "Some Earlier
Forms of Bessemer Converters"; the second was read in 1891, and
is published in the " Transactions " under the title of " The Manufacture
of Continuous Sheets of Malleable Iron or Steel direct from the
Fluid Metal."
In 1873 Sir Henry Bessemer presented to the Institute a sum
to be invested for the purchase each year of a gold medal, to be
awarded under the following conditions : —
The awards are to be (1) to the inventor or introducer of any important or remarkable
invention, employed in the manufacture of iron or steel ; (2) for a paper read before the
Institute, and having special merit and importance in connection with the iron and steel
manufacture ; (3) for a contribution to the " Journal " of the Institute, being an original
investigation bearing on the iron and steel manufacture, and capable of being productive of
valuable and practical results. The Council may, in their discretion, award the medal in
any case not coming strictly under the foregoing definition, should they consider that the
iron and steel trades have been, or may be, substantially benefited by the person to whom
such an award is to be made.
In 1890, my uncle, the late Mr. W. D. Allen, to whom frequent
reference is made in the foregoing pages, was the recipient of
this medal, and on that occasion Sir Henry Bessemer addressed to
Mr. Allen the following letter, which is reproduced here, not only on
account of its intrinsic interest, but because it contains a just appreciation
of Mr. Allen, my father's brother-in-law, and partner during so many
years ; —
There was a Council meeting this morning of the Iron and Steel Institute, and, among
other business, we had to decide the question of the award of the Bessemer medal. I
addressed the meeting, and said I had made it a rule not to throw any weight into this
question, but preferred that my fellow councilmen should take the initiative, but at the
same time observing that this standing aloof might be carried too far, and a great injustice
done ; and, under these circumstances, I said that I felt in duty bound to name a gentleman,
to whom the introduction and the successful carrying out of the Bessemer steel process was
very greatly indebted ; and that I was the more able to bear testimony in his behalf,
because, although once intimately associated with him in business, I had for the last dozen
years ceased to have any pecuniary interest whatever in the works referred to.
PRESENTATION TO MR. W. D. ALLEN 365
I said that Mr. W. Allen, of the Sheffield Bessemer steel works, assisted me in the
very first experiments I ever made, and became thoroughly initiated in all facts that related
to the process ; that he assisted in the building and laying-out of our Sheffield works, and
had the entire management of the process as well as of the business, and in that capacity
realised almost fabulous profits from an extremely small capital. Further, that in aid of
the introduction and dissemination of the " art and mystery " he had done a great deal, all the
early makers having derived from him that stock of knowledge with which they commenced
their respective businesses ; and further, that Mr. Allen had introduced many important
improvements in the detail of manufacture.
I also remarked that it had been frequently said that Bessemer steel was very good
for rails, but not for a higher class of goods. Now Mr. Allen had conclusively proved the
contrary of this assertion ; he had never made a rail, but had gone in for the better class
of material now so largely used in the Sheffield manufactures. He produced a high class
of Bessemer steel, which was fully appreciated by the Sheffield trade, and he consequently
was able to realise most remunerative prices : in proof of which I might mention the fact
that a few weeks ago Messrs. Bessemer and Co. (which is mainly Mr. Allen and his son)
declared a dividend of 25 per cent, per annum on a capital of £90,000 ; carried £23,000
forward; wrote off £5,000 depreciation; and spent out of revenue £11,000 in new
erections. Such a result, in the face of the great competition in Bessemer steel is, I take
it, a strong proof of the excellence of the material which Mr. Allen has acquired the art
of making.
Mr. Windsor Richards spoke of the valuable information he had received from Mr. Allen,
Mr. Snelus made a similar statement, and Mr. Ellis confirmed the fact of your success as a
manufacturer of high-grade Bessemer ; the question was then passed, and you were
unanimously awarded the Bessemer medal, which is to be presented to you at the May
meeting. This award has given me a great deal of satisfaction I do not know if
you are aware that I have been engaged in designing and superintending the execution of
a very handsome diploma, framed and glazed, to be presented to all who have been previously
awarded the medal : a dozen of these will be sent out to-morrow It was thought
that the medal itself can be rarely shown, and that this large and beautifully got-up design
might be hung up in a library or the principal office of the medallist, where the fact
would show itself to all who came, whereas the medal itself was generally locked up for safety.
I cannot better close this brief reference to my father's long
connection with the Iron and Steel Institute than by repeating the
resolution of sympathy passed by the Council on the occasion of his
death. "The Council of the Iron and Steel Institute desire to express
their sincere sympathy with the relatives of Sir Henry Bessemer in
their bereavement ; and, recognising his great services to the Institute
as one of its founders, as its President, and the generous donor of
the Bessemer gold medal, and for thirteen years as trustee of its
funds, deeply deplore his loss."
366
HENRY BESSEMER
In connection with the early history of steel rails referred to
elsewhere I found among my father's papers a very interesting letter
from Mr. F. W. Webb, the chief mechanical engineer of the London
and North- Western Railway. This letter is as follows : —
London and North- Western Railway,
Locomotive Department, Crewe,
26th April, 1897.
DEAR SIR HENRY,
Referring to your last communication with reference to steel specimens.
I enclose you herewith rough hand -sketch showing the size of the piece of wheel;
also the length of the old piece of rail with the inscription, which is stamped on it,
together with two short pieces of bent and twisted rails. I shall be glad to know whether
these will meet your requirements for exhibition.
Yours faithfully,
F. W. WEBB.
Sir Henry Bessemer,
165, Denmark Hill, Surrey.
SEGMENT OF WHEEL ,BRIGH 7 PARTS EDGED THUS:
raeos t
INSCRIPTION
(21 FT. STEEL RAIL LAID DOWN AT CREWE STATION l»63, TURNED
11866. TAKEN UP I87S, ESTIMATED TONNAGE 7£ MILLIONS,
\GREATEST WEAR OF TABLES O-8S INCH, LOSS Of WEIGHT 2O LBS.
(PER YARD.
fteosjt)
FIG. 106
The sketch to which this letter refers has been reproduced in
Fig. 106.
Shortly after Sir Henry's death, Mr. Webb presented the Iron
THE CITY OP BESSEMER 367
and Steel Institute with a piece of this rail ; the presentation being
accompanied by the following letter addressed to the Secretary ; —
May 4th, 1898.
DEAR SIR,
As I promised when I was at the last Council meeting, I am sending you to-day,
by passenger train, a piece of one of the earliest Bessemer steel rails that were put down
on this line, and I hope you will consider it of sufficient interest to be preserved with the
other early specimens of Bessemer steel at the Institute. You will observe that I have
had the following particulars stamped on the piece of rail : — " Bessemer steel rail, laid down
at Crewe Station, 1863, turned 1866, taken up 1875 ; estimated tonnage 72,000,000 ;
greatest wear of tables, 0.85 in. ; loss of weight, 20 Ib. per yard. Presented by the London
and North-Western Eailway, per F. W. Webb, April 18, '98." I shaU be glad if you will
kindly acknowledge receipt on its arrival.
To the Secretary, Iron and Steel Institute.
On the occasion when this letter was read, Mr. E. Riley said that he
had a piece of the first Bessemer rail which was ever rolled ; it was
rolled at Dowlais. The rail broke in rolling. It was made from
Blaenavon pig iron, at the Bessemer steel works at St. Pancras, London,
and was rolled at Dowlais in 1856.
It was a source of constant pride and gratification to my father
that several towns in the United States were named after him. The
most important of these is the City of Bessemer, in Pennsylvania, in
which are situated the Edgar Thomson steel works, founded in 1870,
acquired by Mr. Carnegie after the death of Mr. Edgar Thomson, and
now forming the most important unit in the gigantic steel trust of
America. This City of Bessemer is situated on the Monongahela River,
a few miles from Pittsburg.
In the State of Alabama there is another Bessemer, which has
been raised to the dignity of a city. It was established in 1886, and
is situated in the northern part of the State, in the centre of the
southern Bessemer steel industry. The population of this city is
over 6,000.
Bessemer, in the State of Virginia, near Clifton Ford, on the
Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, is also in the southern section of the
Bessemer steel industry. I am unaware to what extent this city has
developed, but a few years since it promised to become a very important
manufacturing town.
368
HENRY BESSEMER
A fourth City of Bessemer is in the State of Michigan. This
place also has, I believe, developed into considerable prosperity, as it is
situated in the heart of a vast ore-producing district.
In all there are no fewer than thirteen Bessemers in the United
States ; the following list has been compiled officially from the United
States Census of 1900.
Population
In Iron-
Town.
State.
County.
in 1900. Mining
U. S. Census.
District 1
Bessemer
Alabama
Jefferson . . .
6,358
Yes
Bessemer Junction ...
Alabama
Jefferson . . .
(a)
Yes
Bessemer (Station, Pueblo) . . .
Colorado
Pueblo
8
Yes
Bessemer Junction ...
Colorado
Pueblo
(«)
Yes
Bessemer
Michigan
Gogebic
3,911
Yes
Bessemer Junction ...
Michigan
Gogebic
(a)
Yes
Bessemer
N. Y
Tomkins . . .
(a)
No
Bessemer City
KG
Gaston
1,100
No
Bessemer
Pennsylvania . . .
Allegheny ...
a
No
Bessemer
Pennsylvania . . .
Lawrence . . .
W
No
Bessemer
Texas ...
Llano
w
No
Bessemer
Bessemer
Vancouver
Wyoming
Botetourt . . .
Natrona
i
Yes
No
(a) Not separately returned by the Census of 1900.
(b) Bessemer City (population 3,317 as returned by Census of 1890) annexed to Pueblo
since 1890.
My father possessed a special charm of conversation, and an unusual
facility for explaining difficult subjects in the most graphic manner.
Those who enjoyed his friendship will always remember this peculiar gift.
Striking examples of it are to be found in his remarks at various
scientific meetings where he took part in discussions ; and on the rare
occasions when he wrote letters to the newspapers, chiefly to The Times.
As illustrations of what I mean, I reproduce here three letters which I
think are of much interest. The first of these was published in Hie
Times in January, 1878, under the title "A Billion Dissected."
SIR,
It would be curious to know how many of your readers have brought fully
home to their inner consciousness the real significance of that little word "billion"
which we have seen of late so glibly used in your columns. There are, indeed, few
A BILLION DISSECTED 369
Intellects that can fairly grasp it and digest it as a whole ; and there are, doubtless,
many thousands who cannot appreciate its true worth, even when reduced to fragments
for more easy assimilation. Its arithmetical symbol is simple and without much pretension ;
there are no large figures — just a modest 1 followed by a dozen cyphers, and that is all.
Let us briefly take a glance at it as a measure of time, distance, and weight. As a
measure of time, I would take one second as the unit, and carry myself in thought through
the lapse of ages back to the first day of the Year 1 of our era, remembering that in all
those years we have 365 days, and in every day just 86,400 seconds of time. Hence, in
returning in thought back again to this year of grace 1878, one might have supposed that
a billion of seconds had long since elapsed; but this is not so. We have not even passed
one-sixteenth of that number in all these long eventful years, for it takes just 31,687 years,
17 days, 22 hours, 45 minutes, and 5 seconds to constitute a billion of seconds of time.
It is no easy matter to bring under the cognizance of the human eye a billion objects
of any kind. Let us try in imagination to arrange this number for inspection, and for this
purpose I would select a sovereign as a familiar object. Let us put one on the ground and
pile upon it as many as will reach 20 ft. in height ; then let us place numbers of similar
columns in close contact, forming a straight line, and making a sort of wall 20 ft. high, showing
only the thin edges of the coin. Imagine two such walls running parallel to each other and
forming, as it were, a long street. We must then keep on extending these walls for miles
— nay, hundreds of miles, and still we shall be far short of the required number. And it
is not until we have extended our imaginary street to a distance of 2386J miles that we
shall have presented for inspection our one billion of coins.
Or, in lieu of this arrangement, we may place them flat upon the ground, forming one
continuous line like a long golden chain, with every link in close contact. But to do this we
must pass over land and sea, mountain and valley, desert and plain, crossing the Equator,
and returning around the southern hemisphere through the trackless ocean, retrace our
way again across the Equator, then still on and on, until we again arrive at our starting-
point; and when we have thus passed a golden chain round the huge bulk of the earth, we
shall be but at the beginning of our task. We must drag this imaginary chain no less
than 763 times round the globe. If we can further imagine all those rows of links laid
closely side by side and every one in contact with its neighbour, we shall have formed a
golden band around the globe just 52 ft. 6 in. wide ; and this will represent our one billion
of coins. Such a chain, if laid in a straight line, would reach a fraction over 18,328,445
miles, the weight of which, if estimated at £ oz. each sovereign, would be 6,975,447 tons,
and would require for their transport no less than 2325 ships, each with a full cargo of
3000 tons. Even then there would be a residue of 447 tons, representing 64,081,920
sovereigns.
For a measure of height let us take a much smaller unit as our measuring rod. The thin
sheets of paper on which these lines are printed, if laid out flat and firmly pressed together
as in a well-bound book, would represent a measure of about l-333rd of an inch in thickness.
Let us see how high a dense pile formed by a billion of these thin paper leaves would
reach. We must, in imagination, pile them vertically upward, by degrees reaching to the
height of our tallest spires; and passing these, the pile must still grow higher, topping the
Alps and Andes and the highest peaks of the Himalayas, and shooting up from thence
through the fleecy clouds, pass beyond the confines of our attenuated atmosphere, and leap
SB
370 HENRY BESSEMER
up into the blue ether with which the universe is filled, standing proudly up far beyond
the reach of all terrestrial things ; still pile on your thousands and millions of thin leaves,
for we are only beginning to rear the mighty mass. Add millions on millions of sheets,
and thousands of miles on these, and still the number will lack its due amount. Let
us pause to look at the neat ploughed edges of the book before us. See how closely
lie those thin flakes of paper, how many there are in the mere width of a span, and
then turn our eyes in imagination upwards to our mighty column of accumulated sheets.
It now contains its appointed number, and our one billion of sheets of The Times, super-
imposed upon each other and pressed into a compact mass, has reached an altitude of
47,348 miles!
Those who have taken the trouble to follow me thus far will, I think, agree with
me that a billion is a fearful thing, and that few can appreciate its real value. As for
quadrillions and trillions, they are simply words : mere words wholly incapable of adequately
impressing themselves on the human intellect.
I remain, your obedient servant,
Denmark Hill, January 3, 1878. HENRY BESSEMER.
The second was also a letter that appeared in The Times on
April the 18th, 1882, and was called "Easter and the Coal Question."
SIR,
The Easter holidays have come round once more, and our boys, with their bright,
beaming faces, full of mirth and cheerfulness, have been flocking home from school to
dear old smoky London, all unmindful of its murky atmosphere, and intent only on the
many wondrous sights they hope to see. I had just filled some loose sheets with calculations
which I had been making, with a view to afford some amusement to my grandsons on
their return, when, looking up from my task, I noticed a stream of small, bright objects
flitting by. The sharp east wind was breaking up the large seed - pods on the great
Occidental plane tree near my study window, and its taper seeds, with their beautiful little
gold-coloured parachutes, were being wafted far away, falling into little chinks and unknown
out-of-the-way places. Some, resting on the bare earth, may perchance be seized by some
blind worm, and made to close the door of its lowly habitation, and, germinating there,
may, in after-years, when all who now live have passed away, spread its huge arms, and
afford a grateful shelter to those who are to come after us. Just so the broad sheet
you daily publish conveys to every civilised part of the world the thoughts and sentiments
of those who lead and form public opinion, while it never fails to give the latest
expression of science, literature, and art. Much of all this may, like the flying plane tree
seeds, fall on unproductive soil ; yet who shall say in that ceaseless stream of intelligence
how many a sympathetic chord of the human heart may be touched, or how many thoughts
and sentiments so imbibed may germinate, and, gaining strength with years, may change
the whole current of a life, and form the statesman, the scientist, or the man of letters ?
Thus musing, it occurred to me that the statistical results I had arrived at might, perhaps,
interest some other boys than those for whom they were intended, and if thought worthy
of a place in The Times might inspire a more than passing interest in an otherwise most
uninviting subject.
THE ANNUAL OUTPUT OF COAL 371
Every one of late must have had his thoughts more or less turned to the prevention
of smoke in large cities, and also to the exhibition of the electric light now in progress
at the Crystal Palace, for every form and modification of which we are still dependent
on that vast storehouse of Nature — our beds of coal, the economic use of which is of
such vast importance to our national progress, and to the maintenance and spread of
civilisation throughout the world, that no one can afford to remain indifferent to it. It
is only when the mind can fairly grasp the magnitude of our coal consumption that the
importance of its economy can be fully realised. The statistics of the coal trade show
that during the year 1881 the quantity of coal raised in Great Britain was no less than
154,184,300 tons.
When the eye passes over these nine figures it does not leave on the mind a very
vivid picture of the reality — it does not say much for the twelve months of incessant toil
of the 495,000 men who are employed in this vast industry; hence I have endeavoured
in a pictorial form to convey to the mind's eye of my young friends something like the
true meaning of those figures; for mere magnitude to the youthful mind has always an
absorbing interest, and the gigantic works of the ancients fortunately supply us with a ready
means of comparison with our own. Let us take as an example the great pyramid of Gizeh,
a work of human labour which has excited the admiration of the world for thousands of
years. Though in itself inaccessible to my young friends, we fortunately have its base
clearly marked out in the metropolis.
When Inigo Jones laid out the plans of Lincoln's Inn Fields he placed the houses
on opposite sides of the square just as far from each other as to enclose a space between
them of precisely the same dimensions as the base of the great pyramid. Measuring up to
the front walls of the houses this space is just equal to 11 acres and 4 poles. Now, if my
young friends will imagine St. Paul's Cathedral to be placed in the centre of this square
space, and having a flagstaff of 95 ft. in height standing up above the top of the cross, we
shall have attained an altitude of 499 ft., which is precisely equal to that of the great pyramid.
Further, let us imagine that four ropes are made to extend from the top of this flagstaff,
each one terminating at one of the four corners of the square and touching the front walls
of the houses. We shall then have a perfect outline of the pyramid of exactly the same
size as the original. The whole space enclosed within these diagonal ropes is equal to
79,881,417 cubic feet, and if occupied by one solid mass of coal it would weigh 2,781,581
tons — a mass less than l-55th part of the coal raised last year in Great Britain. In fact,
the coal trade could supply such a mass as this every week, and at the end of the year
have more than nine millions of tons to spare.
Higher up the Nile Thebes presents us with another example of what may be
accomplished by human labour. The great temple of Rameses at Karnak, with its hundred
columns of 12 ft. in diameter, and over 100 ft. in height, cannot fail to deeply impress the
imagination of all who, in their mind's eye, can realise this magnificent colonnade. It may
be interesting to ascertain what size of column and what extent of colonnade we could
construct with the coal we laboriously sculpture from its solid bed in every year.
Let us imagine a plain cylindrical column of 50 ft. in diameter, and of 500 ft. in
height, our one year's production of coal would suffice to make no less than 4511 of these
gigantic columns, which, if placed only at their own diameter apart, would form a colonnade
which would extend in a straight line to a distance of no less than 85 miles and 750 yards
372 HENRY BESSEMER
— in fact, we dig in every working day throughout the year a little more than enough to
form fourteen of these tall and massive columns, which, if placed upon each other, would
reach an altitude of 7,000 ft.
But there is yet another great work of antiquity which our boys will not fail to
remember as offering itself for comparison ; they have all heard of the Great Wall of China,
which was erected more than 2,000 years ago to exclude the Tartars from the Chinese Empire.
This great wall extends to a distance of 1,400 miles, and is 20 ft. in height, and 24 ft.
in thickness, and hence contains no less than 3,548,160,000 cubic feet of solid matter.
Now, our last year's production of coal was 4,427,586,820 cubic feet, and is sufficient in
bulk to build a wall round London of 200 miles in length, 100 ft. high, and 41 ft. 11 in.
in thickness; a mass not only equal to the whole cubic contents of the Great "Wall of
China, but sufficient to add another 346 miles to its length.
These imaginary coal structures can scarcely fail to impress the mind of youth with
the enormous consumption of coal ; and when they are told that in many of its applications
the useful effect obtained is not one-fifth of its theoretic capabilities, they will be enabled
to form some idea of the vast importance of the economic problem which calls so loudly
for solution. They must not, however, fall into the too-common error of supposing that
the electric light by superseding gas is to do away with the use of coal in the production
of light, or that dynamo-electric machines will largely [replace the steam engine and boiler.
A visit to the Crystal Palace, which has for the time being become a great school
of applied science, will set them right on this point. There they will find that coal, our
willing slave, still lends its powerful aid in propelling those machines by which we
manufacture artificial lightning ; and there also, in its mere infancy, they will see something
of the colossal power that is destined to effect such vast changes, and to carry forward by
another grand leap the ever-increasing dominion of mind over matter.
Let every boy now home from school be taken to see this grand exhibition before
it closes, and while still on the tablets of the brain there are left some few blank pages,
let these marvels of applied science inscribe an indelible record, which, perchance, in after
years, may profitably be drawn upon and improved; and in due course they may find their
own names inscribed among those who, following the paths of science, have become the
benefactors of mankind.
Although coal is still our great agent in the production of motive power, it must
not be forgotten that Sir William Thomson has clearly shown that by the use of
dynamo-electric machines, worked by the Falls of Niagara, motive power could be generated
to an almost unlimited extent, and that no less than 26,250 horse-power so obtained could
be conveyed to a distance of 300 miles by means of a single copper wire of \ in. in diameter,
with a loss in transmission of not more than 20 per cent., and hence delivering at the
opposite end of the wire 21,000 horse-power.*
What a magnificent vista of legitimate mercantile enterprise this simple fact opens up
* Since the above was written, experiments on a large scale have shown that the loss
of power in transmission is much greater than stated, and also that the size of the copper
wire was very much underestimated, but these facts do not materially lessen the advantages
of this mode of supplying power and light to London direct from the coalfield. — H. B.
373
for our own country ! Why should we not at once connect London with one of our
nearest coalfields by means of a copper rod of 1 in. in diameter and capable of transmitting
84,000 horse-power to London, and thus practically bring up the coal by wire instead
of by rail?
Let us now see what is the equivalent in coal of this amount of motive power.
Assuming that each horse-power can be generated by the consumption of 3 Ib. of coal per
hour, and that the engines work six and a-half days per week, we should require an annual
consumption of coal equal to 1,012,600 tons to produce such a result.
Now all this coal would in the case assumed be burned at the pit's mouth, at a cost
of 6s. per ton for large and 2s. per ton for small coal — that is, at less than one-fourth the
cost of coal in London. This would immensely reduce the cost of the electric light, and
of the motive power now used in London for such a vast variety of purposes, and at the
same time save us from the enormous volumes of smoke and foul gases which this million
of tons of coal would make if burned in our midst. A 1 in. diameter copper rod would cost
about 5331. per mile, and if laid to a colliery 120 miles away, the interest at 5 per cent,
on its first cost would be less than Id. per ton on the coal practically conveyed by it direct
into the house of the consumer.
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
HENRY BESSEMER.
Denmark Hill, April 17, 1882.
The third reprint is from the Engineering Review, of July the 20th,
1894, and is entitled "A Brief Statistical Sketch of the Bessemer
Steel Industry : Past and Present."
It is an old man's privilege to look back upon the past and compare it with the
present. It is no less his privilege to do so when his thoughts turn to those subjects
in which he himself has taken a more or less conspicuous part. I do not know, therefore,
that I need make any apology for laying before you some thoughts that have been passing
through my mind on looking back upon the progress that has been made in the metallurgical
world, and especially in a retrospect of the rapid advances made by the process to which my
name was given thirty-seven years ago.
If we go back to the year 1861, just one-third of a century, we shall find Sheffield
by far the largest producer of steel in the world, the greater portion of her annual make
of 51,000 tons, realising from £50 to £60 per ton.*
For this purpose the costly bar-iron of Sweden was chiefly employed as the raw
material, costing from £15 to £20 per ton ; the conversion of this expensive iron into
crude steel occupied about ten days — that is, about two days and nights for the gradual
heating of the furnace, in which the cold iron bars had been carefully packed in large
stone boxes with a layer of charcoal powder between each bar^ in these boxes the metal
was retained for six days at a white heat, two days more being required to cool down the
* It is stated in the Jurors' Report to the Commissioners of the International Exhibition
of 1851, that the production of steel in Sheffield was at that period 51,000 tons annually.
374 HENRY BESSEMER
furnace and get out the converted bars. The steel so produced was broken into small
pieces and melted in crucibles holding not more than 40 or 50 Ib. each, and consuming
from 2 to 3 tons of expensive oven coke for each ton of steel so melted. This steel was
excellently adapted for the manufacture of knives, and for all other cutting instruments, but
its hard and brittle character, as well as its excessively high price, absolutely precluded its
use for the thousands of purposes to which steel is now universally applied.
It was under such conditions of the steel trade that, thirty-three years ago, I endeavoured
to introduce an entirely novel system of manufacture — so novel, in fact, and so antagonistic
to the preconceived notions of practical men, that I was met on all sides with the most
stolid incredulity and distrust. Perhaps I ought to make some allowance for this feeling,
for I proposed to use as my raw material crude pig-iron costing £3 per ton, instead of the
highly purified Swedish bar-iron then used, costing from £15 to £20 per ton. I proposed
also to employ no fuel whatever in the converting process, which, in my case, occupied only
twenty -five to thirty minutes, instead of the ten days and nights required by the process
then in use; and I further proposed to make from 5 to tons of steel at a single operation,
instead of the small separate batches of 40 or 50 Ibs., in which all the Sheffield cast steel
was at that time made. What, however, appeared still more incredible was the fact that I
proposed to make steel bars at £5 or £6 per ton, instead of £50 or ,£60 — the then ruling
prices of the trade. One and all of these propositions have long since become well-established
commercial facts, and Bessemer cast-steel is now produced without resorting to any one of
the expensive and laborious processes practised in making Swedish bar-iron, while the old
Sheffield process of converting wrought-iron bars into crude or blister-steel, by ten days'
exposure, at a very high temperature, to the action of carbon, is rendered unnecessary. The
slow and expensive process of melting 40 or 50 Ibs. of steel in separate crucibles is also
dispensed with ; and in lieu of all these combined processes, from 5 to 10 tons of crude
or cast-iron, worth only £3 per ton, is converted into Bessemer cast-steel in thirty minutes,
wholly without skilled manipulation, or the employment of fuel; and while still retaining
its initial heat, can be at once rolled into railway bars or other required forms.
So great was the departure of my invention from all the preconceived notions and
practice of the trade, that no steel manufacturer could be induced to adopt it, in fact
the whole steel and iron trade of the kingdom had declared it to be the mere dream of a
wild enthusiast ; and it was only by building a steelworks of my own in the town of
Sheffield, and underselling other manufacturers in the open market, that I was able at last
to overcome prejudice and the utter disbelief in the practicability of my invention. But as
soon as my works were completed, and I was enabled to throw my cheap steel upon the
market, there came a complete panic in the trade, followed by the adoption of my invention
at two of the largest works in Sheffield. As an example of the irresistible competition thus
established, I may refer to the manufacture of steel railway-wheel tyres, which were at that
time selling at £60 per ton. These tyres we put upon the market at £50, but the extent
to which even that price was capable of reduction will be readily understood from the fact
that tyres made at the present date, by the same process, and by the identical machinery
then actually employed, are now sold at £8 per ton with a profit. No sooner were these
facts rendered indisputable by the steady commercial working of my process, than it began
rapidly to spread throughout England, and thence to every State in Europe. The advantages
which my system offered soon attracted the attention of our energetic brethren in the United
THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION OP BESSEMER STEEL 375
States, where it advanced by leaps and bounds, and where it has since culminated, in the
year 1892, in the production of no less than 4,160,072 tons, or about eighty times the whole
production of Sheffield in 1851.*
The visit of the Iron and Steel Institute to America in 1890 was quite a revelation. The
development of the iron and steel trade of that country, and the enormous extension of their
railroad system, has produced economic changes of vast importance both to them and to us,
and demands the serious consideration of all thinking men.
We have it on the undoubted authority of Mr. Abram Hewitt that the annual
production of steel by the acid and basic treatment of pig-iron in the Bessemer converter
in both Europe and America amounted in 1892 to no less than 10,500,000 tons, about
two-fifths only of which was made into rails. Now, taking the average price of rails in 1891
and 1892 in England at £4 10s. per ton, and in the United States and on the Continent
of Europe at £5 10s., and adding to this the much higher prices obtained for tyres, axles,
cranks, sheets, wire-rods, boiler-plates, forgings, castings, &c., we may fairly assume that the
average selling price of the whole of this steel would be £8 per ton, taking one article
with another, hence yielding a net amount of 84 millions sterling.
It is a curious fact that high numbers like these do not adequately impress themselves
on the minds of many people of undoubted intelligence, and it is not until such figures
are broken up as it were, and presented pictorially to the mind's eye, that they are fully
understood and appreciated. Thus, if, instead of looking at the eight figures which represent
the number of tons, we could have that quantity of steel bodily before us, we should form
a very different estimate of its importance. Let us use the mind's eye to assist us, and
imagine standing erect before us a plain round column or tower of solid steel 20 feet in
diameter and 100 feet high; this, no doubt, would impress us as a very large and heavy
mass, and but few persons would be prepared at first to accept the simple fact that the
production of Bessemer steel in 1892 would make 1,671 such columns and leave a remainder
of 5,535 tons. Yet such is the fact. These tall columns would form a goodly row, and, if
placed side by side in a straight line, and in contact with each other, would extend to a
distance of 6 miles and 580 yards ; indeed there is on an average 5J such columns produced
on every working day in the year, bringing up each day's production of steel to 33,546
tons, as compared with Sheffield's former production of 51,000 tons annually.
We may put this in another way, and imagine a plain cylindrical solid column of 100
feet in diameter, a good idea of which may be formed by a glance at some of the very
large gasometers in the Metropolis ; then further imagine this gasometer, not as a thin iron
shell, but as a ponderous solid mass rising before you to an altitude of 6,684 feet 6 inches,
or nearly one mile and a third in height. Such a huge solid mass would be exactly equal
to one year's make of Bessemer steel. But even in this form we must draw powerfully on
the imagination ; for but few persons can in their mind's eye fully realise a huge solid mass
of such heavy matter rising to more than sixteen and a-half times the height of the cross
of St. Paul's.
A graphic representation of such a column of steel, standing between St. Paul's Cathedral
* We learn from the Bulletin of the American Iron and Steel Association that the
output of Bessemer Steel Ingots in the United States in the year 1892 was the largest
ever reported, and amounted to not less than 4,160,072 tons.
376
HENRY BESSEMER
SOLID STEEL COLUMN
6684 feet 6 inches in height
arid
100 fal in duuntiler
fttprtsenlwy the JVvrMs production
of
BESSEMER-STEEL
in thevearl892.
accurately to scale of
linch lo WOO Kit
THE MONUMENT
100 fat diameter. to fre p f London
FIG. 107.
THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION OF BESSEMER STEEL 377
and the Monument erected to commemorate the Great Fire of London, is shown accurately
to scale (see Fig. 107), and will aid the mind in more fully realising the magnitude of the
ponderous masses annually produced, every pound of which, during the brief period of its
conversion into steel, has been raised to such an excessively high temperature as to
become as brilliantly incandescent as the poles of the electric arc lamp.
It is this new material, so much stronger and tougher than common iron, that now
builds our ships of war and our mercantile marine. Steel forms their boilers, their propeller-
shafts, their hulls, their masts and spars, their standing rigging, their cable chains and
anchors, and also their guns and armour-plating.
This new material has covered with a network of steel rails the surface of every
country in Europe, and in America alone there are no less than 175,000 miles of Bessemer
steel rails, binding together its widely-scattered cities, and bringing them within easy com-
mercial contact with each other. Over these long stretches of smooth steel road there
ceaselessly run hundreds of thousands of steel wheel-tyres, impelled by hundreds of locomotive
engines, which owe their power and endurance to the same ubiquitous material, the great
strength and elasticity of which, as compared with common iron, renders it so especially
suitable for the construction of our bridges and viaducts, our steam boilers, and our machinery
of every description, while its great resistance to wear and abrasion gives it a durability
vastly superior to iron. As an example, I may state that every steel rail now in use will
bear at least six times the amount of traffic to pass over it that would suffice to wear out
an iron rail. This question of durability is one of vast importance, for it has enabled
companies to construct lines in localities where the rapid wearing out of iron rails would not
profitably permit of their construction. The increased durability of steel will be better
realised when we consider that the 175,000 miles of steel railroads now existing in America
would have had to be broken up and laid with new rails six times (if the rails had been
made of iron) during the period that the steel rails will last in a safe and workable
condition.
But to descend from large things to smaller ones, it may be interesting to pass from
the almost unrealisable column of solid steel representing the world's yearly production to
the average quantity made in every one of the 24 hours comprised in the 313 working
days of the year, -and thus bring our mass more in accord with some of the tall columns
in this metropolis, which are, say, 7 or 8 feet in diameter, and reach 100 feet or more in
altitude. It must be remembered that the process of converting crude iron into steel goes on
ceaselessly in the converter for the whole twenty-four hours of each day, so that our one
hour's production is only one twenty-fourth part of a single day's work ; but if all the steel
produced in the Bessemer converter in this short interval of time were collected, it would
form a solid cylindrical mass of 8 feet in diameter, and 139 feet in height, thus overtopping
the Duke of York's column and the Nelson Monument. What a noble portico would twenty-
four such columns make, the work of a single day, but yet large enough to dwarf the grand
old ruins of Karnak or Thebes.
It may be interesting to put this matter in another form, in order to bring it
vividly home to the imagination. A steel ingot of one ton weight is as nearly as possible
five cubic feet of solid matter. Let us now imagine a solid square ingot of steel, having
a base measuring 50 feet by 50 feet, and standing, say, 400 feet high. This would make
a square tower of solid steel, much larger than the clock-tower of the Houses of Parliament
3o
378 HENRY BESSEMER
(which is precisely 40 feet square, and about half as high as this imaginary square tower) \ in
fact, such a tower would only be about four feet below the top of the cross of St. Paul's
Cathedral. This tower would contain precisely 1,000,000 cubic feet, and would weigh just
200,000 tons. Now, the Thames Embankment from Westminster Bridge to Blackfriars
Bridge, measured down the centre of the roadway, is one mile and a-quarter and a few
yards. Let us suppose one of these gigantic towers to stand opposite the Clock Tower, and
in a line with the roadway over Westminster Bridge, and a similar one erected at the other
end of the Embankment in a line with the roadway passing over Blackfriars Bridge. Let
us further imagine fifty other precisely similar towers placed equi-distant between them, thus
leaving a space of only 27 yards between each tower. This row of gigantic towers would
represent 10,400,000 tons, or just 100,000 tons less than one year's production of Bessemer
steel, each of the fifty-two towers being 1,923 tons less than the average weekly production.
We might think of many other object lessons that would be likely to convey to the
mind's eye a vivid and realistic picture of the enormous bulk of matter represented by
10,500,000 tons of steel. Let us select one other illustration. Imagine a straight wall
100 miles in length,* 5 feet in thickness, and 20 feet in height. Such a wall would stand
on 60£ acres of land. But suppose that this wall, like a gigantic armour-plate, was formed
into a circle, and used to surround London ; the enclosure so made would extend to Watford
on the north side, to Croydon on the south, to Woolwich on the east, and to Eichmond
on the west. It would, in point of fact, form a circular enclosure of 31£ miles in diameter,
and would embrace an area of 795 square miles. This great wall of London would just
be equal to a single year's production of Bessemer steel.
I have thought it would be interesting to give these illustrations of the enormous
mass of Bessemer steel that is now annually produced, because its magnitude is more easily
conveyed to the mind by such object lessons than in any other way, and it has long been
a hobby of mine to convey an idea of large numbers by such illustrations. Some of my
old friends will, I doubt not, remember that in 1878 I published a letter in the Times
entitled "A Billion Dissected," in which I broke up the elements of that measure of numbers
in the same way; and in 1882 I dealt, in the Times, in a similar manner with our coal
output. If this fresh illustration, which has naturally exceptional interest to myself, should
bring home to you an idea of the magnitude of modern industrial operations, in respect
of a material that bears my name, I shall be much gratified.
As a commercial question it is impossible to form even an approximately correct idea
of the value of this material when manufactured into the almost endless variety of useful
articles into which it is now made.
As a single instance, I may refer to the manufacture of steel nails. It is an important
and well-known fact that a steel nail can be driven into dry hard wood without boring
a hole for it. This property of steel nails results in an immense saving of labour, and
in the United States, where so many houses are built of wood, it has proved of considerable
value. I find from reliable statistics furnished by nail manufacturers, that in 1892 no
less than 171,200 tons of unforged nails, and 139,900 tons of steel- wire nails were made
in America alone. Medium-sized nails run from 80,000 to 120,000 to the ton, and I have
* Or more accurately 99 miles and 2,280 feet in length.
THE WORLD'S PRODUCTION OF BESSEMER STEEL 379
before me some beautifully-formed carpet nails, with large flat heads, of which a single
ton of steel will make 3,870,000.
It is an interesting fact that at the International Exhibition of 1862, I exhibited the
first steel nails that were ever made. Every form and pattern of nail was shown, large
spikes, 6 inches long, weighing only 10 to the pound, or 22,400 to the ton, down to the
minute tacks used by upholsterers, and known as gymp tacks, so small that one ton of
steel will make more than 14 millions of them.
I well remember how many thousands of people at the Exhibition passed heedlessly
by these germs of a new and important industry, apparently without the remotest idea of
the future universal employment of steel nails in lieu of iron ones.
Those who have passed through Wolverhampton and the "Black Country" a dozen
years ago, must have seen the hundreds of young girls sacrificing all the feminine hopes and
aspirations of their young lives, each one toiling from dewy morn to dusky eve, in smoky,
grimy smithies, with a pair of iron tongs, holding the red-hot nail in one hand, while with
the other she showered upon it blows from the uplifted hammer in such rapid succession as
to maintain the incandescence of the iron she was shaping, amid the ceaseless din of her
fellow-workers, who, with grimy faces and horny hands, were reeking in the heat and foul
air of the nailers' den.
Time in this, as in so many other things, has wrought its wonted change, for to-day the
inexorable power of steam, acting on unconscious matter which suffers from neither heat,
fatigue, nor moral degradation, now yields from a single machine from 50 to 100 nails per
minute, at less cost and of better quality than were ever wrung from human sinews and
female degradation. The extent of the change will be better appreciated when it is known
that the annual value of unforged steel nails now manufactured exceeds ten millions sterling ;
and I have often felt that if in my whole life I had done no other useful thing than the
introduction of unforged steel nails, this one invention would have been a legitimate source
of self-congratulation and thankfulness, in so far as it has successfully wiped out so much
of this degrading species of slavery from the list of female-employing industries in this
country.
The great financier who is constantly dealing with the realised values of many millions
would have a very keen appreciation of what £84,000,000 really means, yet I doubt if even
the Chancellor of the Exchequer could off-hand give anything like the correct dimensions
of a mass of standard gold of that value. It can, however, be easily ascertained with accuracy.
Since fifty-seven sovereigns weigh just 1 Ib. avoirdupois, the weight of 84,000,000 sovereigns
would be 657 tons 17 cwt. 3 qrs. and 16 Ibs. ; and as the specific gravity of standard gold coin
is 17.167, we should have a mass equal to 1374.70 cubic feet, from which we could make
a plain cylindrical column of solid gold 5 feet in diameter and 109 feet 5 inches in height,
as a representative of the commercial value of the larger column of steel which I have referred
to. It is an interesting fact that the statistics published by the Annales des Mines for 1893*
shows that it would take more than three years' production of all the gold mines in the
world to pay in gold for one year's production of Bessemer steel.
* Taken from a paragraph in the Times, showing the weight in tons and value in
pounds sterling of the world's production of gold in 1893.
380 HENRY BESSEMER
In June, 1897, my mother died, and her loss was a blow from
which my father never recovered ; their happy union had lasted for
more than sixty years and he did not long survive her ; his own death
occurred on the 15th March, 1898.
In the earlier pages of his Autobiography, Sir Henry Bessemer
wrote not a little about his father, but the glimpses which he gives us
of the elder Bessemer cause regret that he did not say a great deal
more ; it is true that the interesting part of his career appears to
have ended when, as quite a young man, he fled from Paris during
the stormy days of the Revolution, leaving behind him almost all the
considerable means he had accumulated during his residence in France.
It was during the unsettled period before the Revolution that he had
made a name and a distinguished position in the French Academy of
Sciences. My father makes a reference to a copying and engraving
machine invented by the elder Bessemer, which was largely used in
the Paris Mint, for reproducing in metal, artists' designs modelled in
wax, either in cameo or intaglio. In the Autobiography of James
Nasmyth, to which I have already referred, there is an interesting
notice of one of these machines. It had been sent from Paris to the
London Mint years after my grandfather had returned to this country,
and Nasmyth, speaking of it in the highest terms, relates how it was
sent from the Mint, in 1830, to Messrs. Maudslay's, for .repair, and
the work of its repair was entrusted to him. During the prosperous
period of my grandfather's life in France, miniatures of himself and
of my grandmother were painted by an artist famous at the time, and
these portraits were among the objects he saved in his flight from
Paris. I have been able to reproduce them here (see Plate L.), and
I think that the portraits of the founders of the Bessemer family will
not be without interest.
PRINTED AT THE BEDFORD PRESS, 2O AND 21, BEDFORDBURY, STRAND, LONDON, W.C.
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