Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 5, 2025
No information is available as to whether Martien's own furnace was actually installed at Ebbw Vale, although as noted above, David Mushet claims to have been invited to see it there. Joseph P. Lesley, The iron manufacturer's guide, New York, 1859, p. 34. Martien's name is spelled Marteen.
Martien was probably never a serious contender for the honor of discovering the atmospheric process of making steel. In the present state of the record, it is not an unreasonable assumption that his patent was never seriously exploited and that the Ebbw Vale Iron Works hoped to use it, in conjunction with the Mushet patents, to upset Bessemer's patents.
His experiments were conducted, at least nearly up to the close of the year 1856, with the cooperation of Thomas Brown of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works. The price of this assistance was apparently half interest in Mushet's patents, though for reasons which Mushet does not explain the deed prepared to effect the transfer was never executed.
Ebbw Vale and the Bessemer Process After his British Association address in August 1856, Bessemer had received applications from several ironmasters for licenses, which were issued in return for a down payment and a nominal royalty of 25 pence per ton. Among those who started negotiations was Mr. Thomas Brown of Ebbw Vale Iron Works, one of the largest of the South Wales plants.
This fact must be added to our knowledge that Mushet's patent of September 22, 1856 was drawn up with a specific reference to the application of his "triple compound" to "iron ... purified by the action of air, in the manner invented by Joseph Gilbert Martien," and that this and his other manganese patents were under the effective control of Ebbw Vale.
The position of Mushet is not so clear, and it is hoped that further research can eventually throw a clearer light on his relationship with the Ebbw Vale Iron Works. It may well be that the "opinion of metallurgists in later years" is sound, and that both Mushet and Bessemer had successfully worked at the same problem.
Their purchase of the Uchatius process and their final attempt to develop Martien's ideas through the Parry patents, which exposed them to a very real risk of a suit by Bessemer, are also indications of the politics in the case. Mushet seems to have been a willing enough victim of Ebbw Vale's scheming.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking