THE SKETOHER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2170, 26 September 1895, Page 45

THE SKETOHER.

LIFE OF SIB HENEY BESSEMEB. Tae inventor of the celebrated " Bessemer process " is tho most modest of men, shunning rather than courting observation. The British public, the British Government, and British manufacturers did their very best at one time to crush one of tho most useful men ever born in Britain, and failed ignominrously. Sheffield laughed at him, and Woolwich gave liim the ofiicial cold shoulder ; but Sheffield and Woolwich would be crippled indeed at tbe present time were it not for " Bessemer steel." Henry Bessemer, son of the late Mr Anthony Bessemer, was born in Hertfordshire in the year 1813. His earlier jears were devoted to art, and we find that he was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy at the age of 20. At this early age he had } discovered a means by which impressions of the designs on coins, medals, and other reliefs could be reproduced in any numbers on oardboard. Some cf his work in this line ia still extant, and when specimens come into the market they bring high prices. This led him indirectly to a more Important invention. He discovered that the government of the time was robbed to the tune of £100,000 per annum by unscrupulous persons, who were in the habit of removing .the embossed duty stamps on legal and other documents and using the same again. Young Bessemer invented the useful little contrivance by whioh the stamp is embossed on the paper or parchment of the dooament itself, and submitted it to tbe then chief of the Stamp department at Somerset H-juso, and the authorities expressed their willitgaess to make use of it. When hie model was completed Bessemer showed it to the young lady to whom be was then engaged. Her first comment upon it showed that she Wiia well fitted to become the wife of an inventor. Sue said : " Yea, I understand thia ; but surely, if all stamps had a date put upon them, they could not at a .future time be U3ed agaiu without detection." This proved a very valuable suggestion, for Bessemer soon hib upon tho idea of a steel die, with a space for a movable date, and in that form his invention was adopted by the authorities. Will it be credited that he never received a solitary farthing from the Government for his services or the use of his invention ? A man of vast wealth now, Sir Henry Bessemer can afford to regard the troubles of that period of his life with comparative indifference — though he has sinco had more ample reason to cherish a die-like for all British governments and politician?. But his disappointment in this instance taught him a vety salutary lesson. Whan he made the great disoovery of his life — that by which it is possible to oonverfc pig iron into steel by a simple and inexpensive process— ho kept his discovery a secret. To some extent it is a secret to this day. Before the Bessemer process came into use steel oould not be bought under £50 a ton, and its price prohibited its use in numberless departments cf industry where it is now considered essential. At that time, too, only 51.000 tons of cast steel were produced in Sheffield in a yoar. In 1892, 33,546 tons of steel were manufactured in tho world every day according to the Bessemer process, the selling price per ton averaging £8 perhaps. Such a discovery, it might be supposed, would be hailed with enthusiasm by those interested ia the iron trade of Great Britain. Not a bit of it. Bessemer met with every possible discouragement. The steel manufacturers of Sheffield were dead against him from the first, and the Government ignored him. On the Continent his merits were immediately recognised. Krapp, the great gun manufacturer, was one of the first to pay him royalty on his patents. The Emperor Napoleon evinced the keenest interest in his invention, and would ha?e decorated Bessemer with the Grand Cross of the Legioa of Honour if it had not been explained to him that British subjoots were not allowed to receive decorations from foreign governments except by special permission. The. Emperor of Austria conferred upon him a knighthood of one of the most distinguished Austrian orders. The British Government had to follow suit in some fashion, and a knighthood was conferred upon him in 1879. Iv 1880 he was preswited with that highly-prized distinction, the freedom of tho City of London, "in recognition of his valuable discoveries, which have io largely benefited the iron industry of this country, and hia scientific attainments, which are so well known throughout the world." Bessemer is at present in his eighty-third year. It is a characteristic of the man that he should take a particular pleasure in his invention of a machine for the manufacture of nails, for the simple reason that thiß invention relieves hundreds of young girla in what is known in England as the " Black Country " aud Wolverhampton of the degrading toil of forging nails by band. In filohy, reeking dens these poor young things passed thoir lives in "unwomanly rage," engaged in unwomanly toil. Bat Bessemer has altered all that. — Boston Commercial Bulletin.