The beginnings of cheap steel — Inside the Classic

Bessemer was dependent for the origin and success of his process. Since Bessemer was the only one of the group to make money from the expansion of the steel industry consequent upon the introduction of the new technique, the suspicion has remained that he exploited the inventions of the others, if indeed he did not steal them.

In this study, based largely upon the contemporary discussion in the technical press, the relation of the four men to each other is re-examined and an attempt is made to place the controversy of 1855-1865 in focus. The necessity for a reappraisal arises from the fact that today's references to the origin of Bessemer steel[2] often contain chronological and other inaccuracies arising in many cases from a dependence on secondary and sometimes unreliable sources. As a result, Kelly's contribution has, perhaps, been overemphasized, with the effect of derogating from the work of another American, Alexander Lyman Holley, who more than any man is entitled to credit for establishing Bessemer steel in America.[3]

[2] See especially material distributed by the American Iron and Steel Institute in connection with its celebration of the centennial of Steel: "Steel centennial (1957), press information," prepared by Hill and Knowlton, Inc., and released by the Institute as of May 1, 1957.

[3] Holley's work is outside the scope of this paper. Belatedly, his biography is now being written. It can hardly fail to substantiate the contention that during his short life (1832-1882) Holley, who negotiated the purchase of the American rights to Bessemer's process, also adapted his methods to the American scene and laid a substantial part of the foundation for the modern American steel industry.

Steel Before the 1850's

In spite of a rapid increase in the use of machines and the overwhelming demand for iron products for the expanding railroads, the use of steel had expanded little prior to 1855. The methods of production were still largely those of a century earlier. Slow preparation of the steel by cementation or in crucibles meant a disproportionate consumption of fuel and a resulting high cost. Production in small quantities prevented the adoption of steel in uses which required large initial masses of metal. Steel was, in fact, a luxury product.

The work of Reaumur and, especially, of Huntsman, whose development of cast steel after 1740 secured an international reputation for Sheffield, had established the cementation and crucible processes as the primary source of cast steel, for nearly 100 years. Josiah Marshall Heath's patents of 1839, were the first developments in the direction of cheaper steel, his process leading to a reduction of from 30 to 40 percent in the price of good steel in the Sheffield market.[4] Heath's secret was the addition to the charge of from 1 to 3 percent of carburet of manganese[5] as a deoxidizer. Heath's failure to word his patent so as to cover also his method of producing carburet of manganese led to the effective breakdown of that patent and to the general adoption of his process without payment of license or royalty. In spite of this reduction in the cost of its production, steel remained, until after the midpoint of the century, an insignificant item in the output of the iron and steel industry, being used principally in the manufacture of cutlery and edge tools.

[4] Andrew Ure, _Dictionary of arts, manufactures and mines_, New York, 1856, p. 735.

[5] See abridgement of British patent 8021 of 1839 quoted by James S. Jeans, _Steel_, London, 1880, p. 28 ff. It is not clear that Heath was aware of the precise chemical effect of the use of manganese in this way.

The stimulus towards new methods of making steel and, indeed, of making new steels came curiously enough from outside the established industry, from a man who was not an ironmaster--Henry Bessemer. The way in which Bessemer challenged the trade was itself unusual. There are few cases in which a stranger to an industry has taken the risk of giving a description of a new process in a public forum like a meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. He challenged the trade, not only to attack his theories but to produce evidence from their own plants that they could provide an alternative means of satisfying an emergent demand. Whether or not Bessemer is entitled to claim priority of invention, one can but agree with the ironmaster who said:[6] "Mr. Bessemer has raised such a spirit of enquiry throughout ... the land as must lead to an improved system of manufacture."

[6] _Mining Journal_, 1857, vol. 27, p. 465.

Bessemer and his Competitors

Henry Bessemer (1813-1898), an Englishman of French extraction, was the son of a mechanical engineer with a special interest in metallurgy. His environment and his unusual ability to synthesize his observation and experience enabled Bessemer to begin a career of invention by registering his first patent at the age of 25. His active experimenting continued until his death, although the public record of his results ended with a patent issued on the day before his seventieth birthday. A total of 117 British patents[7] bear his name, not all of them, by any means, successful in the sense of producing a substantial income. Curiously, Bessemer's financial stability was assured by the success of an invention he did not patent. This was a process of making bronze powder and gold paint, until the 1830's a secret held in Germany. Bessemer's substitute for an expensive imported product, in the then state of the patent laws, would have failed to give him an adequate reward if he had been unable to keep his process secret. To assure this reward, he had to design, assemble, and organize a plant capable of operation with a minimum of hired labor and with close security control. The fact that he kept the method secret for 40 years, suggests that his machinery[8] (Bessemer describes it as virtually automatic in operation) represented an appreciation of coordinated design greatly in advance of his time. His experience must have directly contributed to his conception of his steel process not as a metallurgical trick but as an industrial process; for when the time came, Bessemer patented his discovery as a process rather than as a formula.

[7] _Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S., an autobiography_, London, 1905, p. 332.

[8] _Ibid._, p. 59 ff.

In the light of subsequent developments, it is necessary to consider Bessemer's attitude toward the patent privilege. He describes his secret gold paint as an example of "what the public has had to pay for not being able to give ... security to the inventor" in a situation where the production of the material "could not be identified as having been made by any particular form of mechanism."[9] The inability to obtain a patent over the method of production meant that the disclosure of his formula, necessary for patent specification, would openly invite competitors, including the Germans, to evolve their own techniques. Bessemer concludes:[10]

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 [_i.e._, _ca._ 1890] market price, viz. from two shillings and three pence to two shillings and nine pence 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 disadvantages resulting from secret manufacture. 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, there would, in all probability have been many improved machines invented and many novel features applied to totally different manufactures.

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.

Bessemer's intervention in the field of iron and steel was preceded by a period of experiments in the manufacture of glass. Here Bessemer claims to have made glass for the first time in the open hearth of a reverberatory furnace.[11] His work in glass manufacture at least gave him considerable experience in the problems of fusion under high temperatures and provided some support for his later claim that in applying the reverberatory furnace to the manufacture of malleable iron as described in his first patent of January 1855, he had in some manner anticipated the work of C. W. Siemens and Emil Martin.[12]

[11] _Ibid._, p. 108 ff.

[12] _Ibid._, p. 141. Bessemer's assertion that he had approached "within measurable distance" of anticipating the Siemens-Martin process, made in a paper presented at a meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (_Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers_, 1897, vol. 28, p. 459), evoked strong criticism of Bessemer's lack of generosity (_ibid._, p. 482). One commentator, friendly to Bessemer, put it that "Bessemer's relation to the open-hearth process was very much like Kelly's to the Bessemer process.... Although he was measurably near to the open-hearth process, he did not follow it up and make it a commercial success...." (_ibid._, p. 491).

The general interest in problems of ordnance and armor, stimulated by the Crimean War (1854-1856), was shared by Bessemer, whose ingenuity soon produced a design for a projectile which could provide its own rotation when fired from a smooth-bore gun.[13] Bessemer's failure to interest the British War Office in the idea led him to submit his design to the Emperor Napoleon III. Trials made with the encouragement of the Emperor showed the inadequacy of the cast-iron guns of the period to deal with the heavier shot; and Bessemer was presented with a new problem which, with "the open mind which derived from a limited knowledge of the metallurgy of war," he attacked with impetuosity. Within three weeks of his experiments in France, he had applied for a patent for "Improvements in the Manufacture of Iron and Steel."[14] This covered the fusion of steel with pig or cast iron and, though this must be regarded as only the first practical step toward the Bessemer process,[15] it was his experiments with the furnace which provided Bessemer with the idea for his later developments.

[13] British patent 2489, November 24, 1854.

[14] Bessemer, _op. cit._ (footnote 7), p. 137 He received British patent 66, dated January 10, 1855.

[15] See James W. Dredge, "Henry Bessemer 1813-1898," _Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers_, 1898, vol. 19, p. 911.

These were described in his patent dated October 17, 1855 (British patent 2321). This patent is significant to the present study because his application for an American patent, based on similar specifications, led to the interference of William Kelly and to the subsequent denial of the American patent.[16] In British patent 2321 Bessemer proposed to convert his steel in crucibles, arranged in a suitable furnace and each having a vertical tuyere, through which air under pressure was forced through the molten metal. As Dredge[17] 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."

[16] See U.S. Patent Office, Decision of Commissioner of Patents, dated April 13, 1857, in Kelly vs. Bessemer Interference. This is further discussed below (p. 42).

[17] Dredge, _op. cit._ (footnote 15), p. 912.

Experiments were continued and several more British patents were applied for before Bessemer made his appearance before the British Association on August 13, 1856.[18] Bessemer described his first converter and its operation in some detail. Although he was soon to realize that he "too readily allowed myself to bring my inventions under public notice,"[19] Bessemer had now thrown out a challenge which eventually had to be taken up, regardless of the strength of the vested interests involved. The provocation came from his claims that the product of the first stage of the conversion was the equivalent of charcoal iron, the processes following the smelting being conducted without contact with, or the use of, any mineral fuel; and that further blowing could be used to produce any quality of metal, that is, a steel with any desired percentage of carbon. Yet, the principal irritant to the complacency of the ironmaster must have been Bessemer's attack on an industry which had gone on increasing the size of its smelting furnaces, thus improving the uniformity of its pig-iron, without modifying the puddling process, which at best could handle no more than 400 to 500 pounds of iron at a time, divided into the "homeopathic doses" of 70 or 80 pounds capable of being handled by human labor.[20] 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. The ensuing criticism of Bessemer has to be interpreted, therefore, with this in mind; not by any means was it entirely based on objective consideration of the method or the product.[21]

[18] Bessemer's paper was reported in _The Times_, London, August 14, 1856. By the time the Transactions of the British Association were prepared for publication, the controversy aroused by Bessemer's claim to manufacture "malleable iron and steel without fuel" had broken out and it was decided not to report the paper. Dredge (_op. cit._, footnote 15, p. 915) describes this decision as "sagacious."

[19] Bessemer, _op. cit._ (footnote 7), p. 164.

[20] _The Times_, London, August 14, 1856.

[21] David Mushet recognized that Bessemer's great feature was this effort to "raise the after processes ... to a level commensurate with the preceding case" (_Mining Journal_, 1856, p. 599).

Within a month of his address, Bessemer had sold licenses to several ironmasters (outside Sheffield) and so provided himself with capital with which to continue his development work; but he refused to sell his patents outright to the Ebbw Vale Iron Works and by this action, as will be seen, he created an enemy for himself.

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. Bessemer (unless he used a _nom-de-plume_) took no part in it and remained silent until he made another public appearance before the Institution of Civil Engineers in London (May 1859). 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 (Forester) Mushet (1811-1891), born in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, of a Scots father (David, 1772-1847) himself a noted contributor to the metallurgy of iron and steel, is, like the American William Kelly, considered by many to have been a victim of Bessemer's astuteness--or villainy. Because of Robert Mushet's preference for the quiet of Coleford, many important facts about his career are lacking; but even if his physical life was that of a recluse, his frequent and verbose contributions to the correspondence columns of the technical press made him well-known to the iron trade. It is from these letters that he must be judged.

In view of his propensity to intervene pontifically in every discussion concerning the manufacture of iron and steel, it is somewhat surprising that he refrained from comment on Bessemer's British Association address of August 1856 for more than fourteen months. The debate was opened over the signature of his brother David who shared the family facility with the pen.[22] Recognizing Bessemer's invention as a "congruous appendage to [the] now highly developed powers of the blast furnace" which he describes as "too convenient, too powerful and too capable of further development to be superseded by any retrograde process," David Mushet greeted Bessemer's discovery as "one of the greatest operations ever devised in metallurgy."[23] A month later, however, David Mushet had so modified his opinion of Bessemer as to come to the conclusion that the latter "must indeed be classed with the most unfortunate inventors." He gave as his reason for this turnabout his discovery that Joseph Martien had demonstrated his process of "purifying" metal successfully and had indeed been granted a provisional patent a month before Bessemer. The sharp practice of Martien's patent lawyer, Mushet claimed, had deprived him of an opportunity of proving priority of invention against Bessemer. Mushet was convinced that Martien's was the first in the field.[24]

[22] See _Mining Journal_, 1857, vol. 27, pp. 839 and 855. David Mushet withdrew from the discussion after 1858 and his relapse into obscurity is only broken by an appeal for funds for the family of Henry Cort. A biographer of the Mushets is of the opinion that Robert Mushet wrote these letters and obtained David's signature to them (Fred M. Osborn, _The story of the Mushets_, London, 1952, p. 44, footnote). The similarity in the style of the two brothers is extraordinary enough to support this idea. If this is so, Robert Mushet who disagreed with himself as "Sideros" was also in controversy with himself writing as "David."

[23] _Mining Journal_, 1856, vol. 26, p. 567.

[24] _Ibid._, pp. 631 and 647. The case of Martien will be discussed below (p. 36). 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. Writing as "Sideros"[25] he gave credit to Martien for "the great discovery that pig-iron can, whilst in the fluid state, be purified ... by forcing currents of air under it ...," though Martien had failed to observe the use of temperature by the "deflation of the iron itself"; and for discovering that--

when the carbon has been all, or nearly all, dissipated, the temperature increases to an almost inconceivable extent, so that the mass, when containing only as much carbon as is requisite to constitute with it cast steel ... still retains a perfect degree of fluidity.

[25] _Mining Journal_, 1857, vol. 27, p. 723. Robert Mushet was a constant correspondent of the _Mining Journal_ from 1848. The adoption of a pseudonym, peculiar apparently to 1857-1858 (see _Dictionary of national biography_, vol. 39, p. 429), enabled him to carry on two debates at a time and also to sing his own praises.

This, says "Sideros," was no new observation; "it had been before the metallurgical world, both practical and scientific, for centuries," but Bessemer was the first to show that this generation of heat could be attained by blowing cold air through the melted iron. Mushet goes on to show, however, that the steel thus produced by Bessemer was not commercially valuable because the sulphur and phosphorous remained, and the dispersion of oxide of iron through the mass "imported to it the inveterate hot-short quality which no subsequent operation could expel." "Sideros" concludes that Bessemer's discovery was "at least for a time" now shelved and arrested in its progress; and it had been left "to an individual of the name of Mushet" to show that if "fluid metallic manganese" were combined with the fluid Bessemer iron, the portion of manganese thus alloyed would unite with the oxygen of the oxide and pass off as slag, removing the hot-short quality of the iron. Robert Mushet had demonstrated his product to "Sideros" and had patented his discovery, though "not one print, literary or scientific, had condescended to notice it."

"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[26] summed up the situation as he saw it:

Nothing that Mr. Mushet can hereafter invent can entitle him to the merit of Mr. Bessemer's great discovery ... and ... nothing that Mr. Bessemer may hereafter patent can deprive Mr. Robert Mushet of having been the first to remove the obstacles to the success of Mr. Bessemer's process.

[26] _Ibid._, p. 823. Mushet's distinction between an inventor and a patentee is indicative of the disdain of a son of David Mushet for an amateur (see also p. 886).

Bessemer still did not intervene in the newspaper discussion; nor had he had any serious supporters, at least in the early stage.[27]

[27] One William Green had commented extensively on David Mushet's early praise of the Bessemer process and on his sudden reversal in favor of Martien soon after Bessemer's British Association address (_Mechanics' Magazine_, 1856, vol. 65, p. 373 ff.). Green wrote from Caledonian Road, and the proximity to Baxter House, Bessemer's London headquarters, suggests the possibility that Green was writing for Bessemer.