Henry Bessemer

Sir Henry Bessemer was an English inventor whose steelmaking process would become the most prominent steelmaking technique in the nineteenth century for nearly a century, from 1856 to 1950. He was also instrumental in building Sheffield, nicknamed "Steel City," as a major industrial powerhouse.

Henry Bessemer devised his technology for blowing air into molten pig iron to eliminate impurities in order to minimize the cost of steel production for military weapons. This made steel production easier, faster, and less expensive, and it revolutionized structural engineering. Bessemer, one of the most important inventors of the Second Industrial Revolution, also invented over 100 additional things in the domains of the iron, steel, and glass. Unlike many innovators, he was able to complete his own inventions and earn financially from their success. In 1879, he was knighted for his contributions to science, and the following year, he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society.

Bessemer's initial wealth came from a series of six steam-powered machines for producing bronze powder, which was utilized in the production of gold paint. According to his book, he inspected the bronze powder created in Nuremberg, which at the time was the only site where it was made. He then duplicated and refined the product, allowing it to be manufactured on a simple production line. It was an early example of reverse engineering, which involves analyzing a product and then reproducing it. In 1848, Bessemer invented a method for producing a continuous ribbon of plate glass, but it was never commercially viable. He got expertise in designing furnaces, which he would put to good use in his new steel-making method.

From 1850 until 1855, Henry Bessemer worked on the problem of producing cheap steel for ordnance production, and he patented his process. Bessemer originally detailed the process to a conference of the British Association in Cheltenham on August 24, 1856. The Bessemer process used oxygen in air blasted through molten pig iron to burn off impurities and generate steel. Though this process is no longer commercially employed, it was enormously important at the time of its development since it reduced the cost of producing steel, resulting in steel being widely substituted for cast iron and wrought iron. In an effort to improve gun construction, Bessemer's attention was called to the problem of steel manufacturing.

Born: 19 January 1813 (Charlton, Hertfordshire, England)
Died: 15 March 1898 (London, England)