Editing Henry Bessemer (section)

==Bessemer process==
{{Main|Bessemer process}}
[[Image:ConverterB.jpg|thumb|left|300px|Bessemer converter]]
Henry Bessemer worked on the problem of manufacturing cheap [[steel]] for ordnance production from 1850 to 1855 when he patented his method.{{sfn|Boylston|1936|p=213}} However, [[William Kelly (inventor)|William Kelly]], an American inventor in Kentucky, received a [[Priority right|priority patent]] in 1857, effectively nullifying Bessemer's 1855 US patent.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.acs.org/education/whatischemistry/landmarks/kelly-iron.html|title=Kelly Pneumatic Iron Process|website=American Chemical Society|accessdate=20 January 2024}}</ref>

On 24 August 1856 Bessemer first described the process to a meeting of the [[British Association]] in Cheltenham which he titled "The Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel without Fuel." It was published in full in ''[[The Times]]''. The [[Bessemer process]] involved using oxygen in air blown through molten pig iron to burn off the impurities and thus create steel.{{sfn|Boylston|1936|pp=218–219}} [[James Nasmyth]] had been working on a similar idea for some time prior to this. A reluctant patentor, and in this instance still working through some problems in his method, Nasmyth abandoned the project after hearing Bessemer at the meeting. Bessemer acknowledged the efforts of Nasmyth by offering him a one-third share of the value of his patent. Nasmyth turned it down as he was about to retire.{{sfn|Lord|1945}}
[[File:Bessemer 5180.JPG|right|thumb|Bessemer converter, [[Kelham Island Museum]], [[Sheffield]], England in 2010]]

Many industries were constrained by the lack of steel, being reliant on [[cast iron]] and [[wrought iron]] alone. Examples include railway structures such as bridges and tracks, where the treacherous nature of cast iron was keenly felt by many engineers and designers. There had been many accidents when cast iron beams collapsed suddenly, such as the [[Dee Bridge disaster]] of May 1847, the [[Wootton bridge collapse]] and the [[Bull bridge accident]] of 1860. The problem recurred at the [[Tay Bridge disaster]] of 1879, and failures continued until all cast iron under-bridges were replaced by [[steel]] structures. Wrought iron structures were much more reliable with very few failures.

Though this process is no longer commercially used, at the time of its invention it was of enormous industrial importance because it lowered the cost of production steel, leading to steel being widely substituted for [[cast iron]] and [[wrought iron]]. Bessemer's attention was drawn to the problem of steel manufacture in the course of an attempt to improve the construction of guns.<ref name=EB1911/>

===Implementation===
Bessemer licensed the patent for his process to five [[ironmaster]]s, but from the outset, the companies had great difficulty producing good-quality steel.{{sfn|Bessemer|1905|p=172}} Mr [[Göran Fredrik Göransson]], a Swedish ironmaster, using the purer charcoal [[pig iron]] of that country, was the first to make good steel by the process, but only after many attempts. His results prompted Bessemer to try a purer iron obtained from [[Cumberland]] [[hematite]], but even with this he had only limited success<ref name=EB1911/> because the quantity of carbon was difficult to control. [[Robert Forester Mushet]] had carried out thousands of experiments at [[Darkhill Ironworks]], in the [[Forest of Dean]], and had shown that the quantity of carbon could be controlled by removing almost all of it from the iron and then adding an exact amount of [[carbon]] and [[manganese]], in the form of [[spiegeleisen]]. This improved the quality of the finished product and increased its malleability.<ref>{{cite DNB|wstitle=Mushet, Robert Forester}}</ref><ref name="fweb.org.uk">[http://www.fweb.org.uk/Dean/towns/colefordproject/people/mushet.html Coleford, Towns in the Forest Of Dean ForestWeb (fweb) – Virtual guide to the Royal Forest Of Dean] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120822112307/http://www.fweb.org.uk/Dean/towns/colefordproject/people/mushet.html |date=22 August 2012 }}. fweb. Retrieved on 1 July 2015.</ref>{{sfn|Anstis|1997}}

When Bessemer tried to induce makers to take up his improved system, he met with general rebuffs and was eventually driven to undertake the exploitation of the process himself. He erected steelworks in [[Sheffield]] in a business partnership with others, such as [[W & J Galloway & Sons]], and began to manufacture steel. At first the output was insignificant, but gradually the magnitude of the operations was enlarged until the competition became effective, and steel traders generally became aware that the firm of Henry Bessemer & Co. was underselling them to the extent of UK£10–£15 a ton. This argument to the pocket quickly had its effect, and licences were applied for in such numbers that, in royalties for the use of his process, Bessemer received a sum in all considerably exceeding a million pounds sterling.<ref name=EB1911>{{EB1911|wstitle=Bessemer, Sir Henry|volume=3|page=823|inline=1}}</ref>

However Mushet received nothing and by 1866 was destitute and in ill health. In that year his 16-year-old daughter, Mary, travelled to London alone, to confront Bessemer at his offices, arguing that his success was based on the results of her father's work.{{sfn|Bessemer|1905}} Bessemer decided to pay Mushet an annual pension of £300, a very considerable sum, which he paid for over 20 years, possibly with a view to keeping the Mushets from legal action.{{sfn|Bessemer|1905}}

Bessemer also had works in [[Greenwich]], London, adjacent to the River Thames, from about 1865.<ref name="Mills-Aug2009">{{cite news |last1=Mills |first1=Mary |title=Bessemer in Greenwich |url=https://greenwichindustrialhistory.blogspot.com/2009/08/bessemer-in-greenwich.html |access-date=19 January 2021 |work=Greenwich Industrial History |date=8 August 2009}}</ref>

W.&nbsp;M. Lord has said with regard to this success that "Sir Henry Bessemer was somewhat exceptional. He had developed his process from an idea to a practical reality in his own lifetime and he was sufficiently of a businessman to have profited by it. In so many cases, inventions were not developed quickly and the plums went to other persons than the inventors."{{sfn|Lord|1945}}