CABLED “NOTHING DOING”

Evening Star, Issue 20983, 23 December 1931, Page 12

CABLED “ NOTHING DOING”

AND SACRIFICED £3,400,000 By scribbling on a cablegram form the words “Nothing doing,” a man who is now in London signed away a fortune ot £3,400,000. He is Mr Harold Richardson, of London, Ontario, one of the inventors of modern battleship armour plating, and the offer of millions which he so lightly refuseu was made by the great American king, Mr Charles M. Schwab, head of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation one ot the largest industrial concern.. in the world. The man who through away the millions lit a cigar when 1 asked him about it at the Dorchester (writes a ‘Sunday Express ' representative). “ Ever workeu in a bank?” he began. “No.’ Well, I served a sentence of twenty-two years in banks, and when I retired I took up the study of metals. “ That was round about 1908, and Britain was then trying to find a new and toughs* steel for her battleships. I experimented with the molybdenum alloy and evolved a new formula for the manufactun o) steel. “I came to England and Lord Invernairn listened to my theories and told me to go ahead at the Parkhead Forge, Glasgow, the headquarters of the great Beardmore foundries. “ I spent two years in the laboratory, and at the foundry made hundreds of experimental armour plates. Then, one day I knew I had perfected my formula and we had an armour plate eight feet by twelve and six inches thick. “ The plate was taken down to the naval gunnery base, and gunners banged away at it for hours with sixinch shells from a range of one hundred feet. They failed to penetrate it. “News of the success of the test reached the United States, and Mr. Sshwab offered me a royalty of £4 a ton, guaranteeing me £200,000 a year in royalties for seventeen years. “ I wanted Britain to have my new process, and so I just cabled to New York, ‘ Nothing doing ’; just twelve letters, • but each letter cost me nearly £300,000. “ Well, I was already fairly rich, and I made a comfortable fortune from my steel, so I have no regrets. Britain has been building her -warships with my steel ever since 1912.”