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Updated: June 20, 2025
Mushet was a leading authority on all matters connected with Iron and Steel, and he contributed largely to the scientific works of his time. Besides his papers in the Philosophical Journal, he wrote the article "Iron" for Napiers Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and the articles "Blast Furnace" and "Blowing Machine" for Rees's Cyclopaedia.
Mushet's failure to make the public appreciate his theories has not injured his inventive faculties." These patents include, besides variations on his "triple compound" theme, his important patent on the use of tungsten for cutting tools, later to be known as Mushet steel. Mining Journal, 1859, vol. 29, p. 539 and 640.
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.
Mushet admits that he was not a free agent in respect of these patents, and the failure of Ebbw Vale to ensure their full life under English patent law indicates clearly enough that by 1859 the firm had realized that their position was not strong enough to warrant a legal suit for infringement against Bessemer.
On September 16, 1856, Martien filed application for a U.S. patent on his furnace and Mushet for one on the application of his triple compound to cast iron "purified or decarbonized by the action of air blown or forced into ... its particles while it is in a molten ... state."
"Sideros" viewed Mushet's discovery as a "spark amongst dry faggots that will one day light up a blaze which will astonish the world when the unfortunate inventor can no longer reap the fruits of his life-long toil and unflinching perseverance." In an ensuing letter he summed up the situation as he saw it: Nothing that Mr. Mushet can hereafter invent can entitle him to the merit of Mr.
The clerk went closer to the crack, and looked hard at the silent witness. "Lor' bless you! that ain't nothing," he said; "'tis only just the jarring of the bells done that. You don't expect a mushet of paper to stand as firm as an anvil-stone, when Taylor John's a-swinging up aloft." "Look you," Westray said; "you were in church this morning.
His later repudiation of the process as an absurd and impracticable patent process "possessing neither value nor utility" may more truly represent his opinion, especially as, when he wrote his 1861 comment, he still did not know of the disappearance of his patents. The Engineer, 1861, vol. 12, p. 189. Ibid., p. 78. Mushet, op. cit.
The Engineer found Mushet's position untenable on the very grounds he was pleading that patents should not be issued to different men at different times for the same thing; and showed that Bessemer in his patents of January 4, 1856, and later, had clearly anticipated Mushet. In a subsequent article, The Engineer disposed of Martien's and Mushet's claims with a certain finality.
Perhaps the early records of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works, if they exist, will show whether this episode was in some way linked to the firm's optimistic combination of the British patents of Martien and Mushet.
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