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Updated: June 2, 2025
In early life I was apprenticed in England to a famous iron-master, and when the Bessemer patents for converting iron into steel were issued, it was my good fortune to be a foreman where the first experiments were made by Henry Bessemer himself, and so I came to have a practical knowledge of Bessemer's valuable invention; but my health failed, and for six months I have been in your country in search of it, and now being well again, I plan to start if possible a Bessemer steel plant in America.
Evidences of his constructive skill and exquisite taste were seen on every hand, notably in his billiard room, conservatory, and astronomical observatory. The last contained a reflector telescope of his own design, that rivals the world-famed telescope of Lord Rosse. Both were soon charmed with Bessemer's manners and conversation.
Bessemer's claim to "do" 800 pounds of metal in 30 minutes against the puddling furnace's output of 500 pounds in two hours was calculated to arouse the opposition of those who feared the loss of capital invested in puddling furnaces and of those who suspected that their jobs might be in jeopardy.
As Dredge points out, Bessemer's association of the air blast with the increase in the temperature of the metal "showed his appreciation of the end in view, and the general way of attaining it, though his mechanical details were still crude and imperfect." See U.S. Patent Office, Decision of Commissioner of Patents, dated April 13, 1857, in Kelly vs. Bessemer Interference. Dredge, op. cit.
Joseph Gilbert Martien, of Newark, New Jersey, who at the time of Bessemer's address was working at the plant of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works, in South Wales, secured a provisional patent a few days before Bessemer obtained one of his series of patents for making cast steel, a circumstance which provided ammunition for those who wished to dispute Bessemer's somewhat spectacular claims.
Bessemer's process, it places within the reach of every iron manufacturer to produce cast steel at the same cost for which he can now make his best iron." The Engineer, 1859, vol. 7, p. 314. Bessemer's intention to present his paper had been announced in April.
Ibid., p. 82. Ibid., p. 83. While these words, to some extent, were the rationalizations of an old man, Bessemer's career showed that his philosophy had a practical foundation; and, if this was indeed his belief, the episode explains in large measure Bessemer's later insistence on the legal niceties of the patent procedure. The effect of this will be seen.
The three years between 1856 and 1859, when Bessemer opened his own steel works in Sheffield, were occupied in tracing the causes of his initial difficulties. There was continued controversy in the technical press. By this time Bessemer's process was accepted as a practical one, and the claims of Robert Mushet to share in his achievement was becoming clamorous. Robert Mushet
However, Bessemer's own progress was substantial, for his Sheffield works were reported as being in active operation in April 1859, and a price for his engineers' tool and spindle steel was included in the Mining Journal "Mining Market" weekly quotations for the first time on June 4, 1859. Swank, op. cit. The Engineer, 1859, vol. 7, p. 350. Mining Journal, 1859, vol. 29, pp. 396 and 401.
Mining Journal, 1856, vol. 26, p. 567. Ibid., pp. 631 and 647. David Mushet had overlooked Bessemer's patent of January 10, 1855. Robert Mushet's campaign on behalf of his own claims to have made the Bessemer process effective was introduced in October 1857, two years after the beginning of Bessemer's experiment and after one year of silence on Bessemer's part.
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