process was an ironfounder named Walker, who carried on his business at
Greenside near Sheffield, and it was certainly there that the making of
cast-steel was next begun. Walker adopted the "ruse" of disguising
himself as a tramp, and, feigning great distress and abject poverty, he
appeared shivering at the door of Huntsman's foundry late one night
when the workmen were about to begin their labours at steel-casting,
and asked for admission to warm himself by the furnace fire. The
workmen's hearts were moved, and they permitted him to enter. We have
the above facts from the descendants of the Huntsman family; but we add
the traditional story preserved in the neighbourhood, as given in a
well-known book on metallurgy:--
"One cold winter's night, while the snow was falling in heavy flakes,
and the manufactory threw its red glared light over the neighbourhood,
a person of the most abject appearance presented himself at the
entrance, praying for permission to share the warmth and shelter which
it afforded. The humane workmen found the appeal irresistible, and the
apparent beggar was permitted to take up his quarters in a warm corner
of the building. A careful scrutiny would have discovered little real
sleep in the drowsiness which seemed to overtake the stranger; for he
eagerly watched every movement of the workmen while they went through
the operations of the newly discovered process. He observed, first of
all, that bars of blistered steel were broken into small pieces, two or
three inches in length, and placed in crucibles of fire clay. When
nearly full, a little green glass broken into small fragments was
spread over the top, and the whole covered over with a closely-fitting
cover. The crucibles were then placed in a furnace previously prepared
for them, and after a lapse of from three to four hours, during which
the crucibles were examined from time to time to see that the metal was
thoroughly melted and incorporated, the workmen proceeded to lift the
crucible from its place on the furnace by means of tongs, and its
molten contents, blazing, sparkling, and spurting, were poured into a
mould of cast-iron previously prepared: here it was suffered to cool,
while the crucibles were again filled, and the process repeated. When
cool, the mould was unscrewed, and a bar of cast-steel presented
itself, which only required the aid of the hammerman to form a finished
bar of cast-steel. How the unauthorized spectator of these operations
effected his escape without detection tradition does not say; but it
tells us that, before many months had passed, the Huntsman manufactory
was not the only one where cast-steel was produced." [7]
However the facts may be, the discovery of the elder Huntsman proved of
the greatest advantage to Sheffield; for there is scarcely a civilized
country where Sheffield steel is not largely used, either in its most
highly finished forms of cutlery, or as the raw material for some home
manufacture. In the mean time the demand for Huntsman's steel steadily
increased, and in 1770, for the purpose of obtaining greater scope for
his operations, he removed to a large new manufactory which he erected
at Attercliffe, a little to the north of Sheffield, more conveniently
situated for business purposes. There he continued to flourish for six
years more, making steel and practising benevolence; for, like the
Darbys and Reynoldses of Coalbrookdale, he was a worthy and highly
respected member of the Society of Friends. He was well versed in the
science of his day, and skilled in chemistry, which doubtless proved of
great advantage to him in pursuing his experiments in metallurgy.[8]
That he was possessed of great perseverance will be obvious from the
difficulties he encountered and overcame in perfecting his valuable
invention. He was, however, like many persons of strong original
character, eccentric in his habits and reserved in his manner. The
Royal Society wished to enrol him as a member in acknowledgment of the
high merit of his discovery of cast-steel, as well as because of his
skill in practical chemistry; but as this would have drawn him in some
measure from his seclusion, and was also, as he imagined, opposed to
the principles of the Society to which he belonged, he declined the
honour. Mr. Huntsman died in 1776, in his seventy-second year, and was
buried in the churchyard at Attercliffe, where a gravestone with an
inscription marks his resting-place.
His son continued to carry on the business, and largely extended its
operations. The Huntsman mark became known throughout the civilised
world. Le Play the French Professor of Metallurgy, in his Memoire of
1846, still speaks of the cast-steel bearing the mark of "Huntsman and
Marshall" as the best that is made, and he adds, "the buyer of this
article, who pays a higher price for it than for other sorts, is not
acting merely in the blind spirit of routine, but pays a logical and
well-deserved homage to all the material and moral qualities of which
the true Huntsman mark has been the guarantee for a century." [9]
Many other large firms now compete for their share of the trade; and
the extent to which it has grown, the number of furnaces constantly at
work, and the quantity of steel cast into ingots, to be tilted or
rolled for the various purposes to which it is applied, have rendered
Sheffield the greatest laboratory in the world of this valuable
material. Of the total quantity of cast-steel manufactured in England,
not less than five-sixths are produced there; and the facilities for
experiment and adaptation on the spot have enabled the Sheffield
steel-makers to keep the lead in the manufacture, and surpass all
others in the perfection to which they have carried this important
branch of our national industry. It is indeed a remarkable fact that
this very town, which was formerly indebted to Styria for the steel
used in its manufactures, now exports a material of its own conversion
to the Austrian forges and other places on the Continent from which it
was before accustomed to draw its own supplies.
Among the improved processes invented of late years for the manufacture
of steel are those of Heath, Mushet, and Bessemer. The last promises
to effect before long an entire revolution in the iron and steel trade.
By it the crude metal is converted by one simple process, directly as
it comes from the blast-furnace. This is effected by driving through
it, while still in a molten state, several streams of atmospheric air,
on which the carbon of the crude iron unites with the oxygen of the
atmosphere, the temperature is greatly raised, and a violent ebullition
takes place, during which, if the process be continued, that part of
the carbon which appears to be mechanically mixed and diffused through
the crude iron is entirely consumed. The metal becomes thoroughly
cleansed, the slag is ejected and removed, while the sulphur and other
volatile matters are driven off; the result being an ingot of malleable
iron of the quality of charcoal iron. An important feature in the
process is, that by stopping it at a particular stage, immediately
following the boil, before the whole of the carbon has been abstracted
by the oxygen, the crude iron will be found to have passed into the
condition of cast-steel of ordinary quality. By continuing the
process, the metal losing its carbon, it passes from hard to soft
steel, thence to steely iron, and last of all to very soft iron; so
that by interrupting the process at any stage, or continuing it to the
end, almost any quality of iron and steel may be obtained. One of the
most valuable forms of the metal is described by Mr. Bessemer as
"semi-steel," being in hardness about midway between ordinary
cast-steel and soft malleable iron. The Bessemer processes are now in
full operation in England as well as abroad, both for converting crude
into malleable iron, and for producing steel; and the results are
expected to prove of the greatest practical utility in all cases where
iron and steel are extensively employed.
Yet, like every other invention, this of Mr. Bessemer had long been
dreamt of, if not really made. We are informed in Warner's Tour
through the Northern. Counties of England, published at Bath in 1801,
that a Mr. Reed of Whitehaven had succeeded at that early period in
making steel direct from the ore; and Mr. Mushet clearly alludes to the
process in his "Papers on Iron and Steel." Nevertheless, Mr. Bessemer
is entitled to the merit of working out the idea, and bringing the
process to perfection, by his great skill and indomitable perseverance.
In the Heath process, carburet of manganese is employed to aid the
conversion of iron into steel, while it also confers on the metal the
property of welding and working more soundly under the hammer--a fact
discovered by Mr. Heath while residing in India. Mr. Mushet's process
is of a similar character. Another inventor, Major Uchatius, an
Austrian engineer, granulates crude iron while in a molten state by
pouring it into water, and then subjecting it to the process of
conversion. Some of the manufacturers still affect secrecy in their
operations; but as one of the Sanderson firm--famous for the excellence
of their steel--remarked to a visitor when showing him over their
works, "the great secret is to have the courage to be honest--a spirit
to purchase the best material, and the means and disposition to do
justice to it in the manufacture."
It remains to be added, that much of the success of the Sheffield
manufactures is attributable to the practical skill of the workmen, who
have profited by the accumulated experience treasured up by their class
through many generations. The results of the innumerable experiments
conducted before their eyes have issued in a most valuable though
unwritten code of practice, the details of which are known only to
themselves. They are also a most laborious class; and Le Play says of
them, when alluding to the fact of a single workman superintending the
operations of three steel-casting furnaces--"I have found nowhere in
Europe, except in England, workmen able for an entire day, without any
interval of rest, to undergo such toilsome and exhausting labour as
that performed by these Sheffield workmen."
[1] AGRICOLA, De Re Metallica. Basle, 1621.
[2] The Rev. JOSEPH HUNTER, History of Hallamshire.
[3] MUSHET, Papers On Iron and Steel.
[4] M. Le Play's two elaborate and admirable reports on the manufacture
of steel, published in the Annales des Mines, vols. iii. and ix., 4th
series, are unique of their kind, and have as yet no counterpart in
English literature. They are respectively entitled 'Memoire sur la
Fabrication de l'Acier en Yorkshire,' and 'Memoire sur le Fabrication
et le Commerce des Fers a Acier dans le Nord de l'Europe.'
[5] There are several clocks still in existence in the neighbourhood of
Doncaster made by Benjamin Huntsman; and there is one in the possession
of his grandson, with a pendulum made of cast-steel. The manufacture
of a pendulum of such a material at that early date is certainly
curious; its still perfect spring and elasticity showing the scrupulous
care with which it had been made.
[6] Annales des Mines, vols. iii. and ix., 4th Series.
[7] The Useful Metals and their Alloys (p. 348), an excellent little
work, in which the process of cast-steel making will be found fully
described.
[8] We are informed that a mirror is still preserved at Attercliffe,
made by Huntsman in the days of his early experiments.
[9] Annales des Mines, vol. ix., 4th Series, 266.
CHAPTER VII.
THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT.
"I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to
devise manie and profitable inventions, than to dispose of one of them
to the good of the author himself."--Sir Hugh Platt, 1589.
Henry Cort was born in 1740 at Lancaster, where his father carried on
the trade of a builder and brickmaker. Nothing is known as to Henry's
early history; but he seems to have raised himself by his own efforts
to a respectable position. In 1765 we find him established in Surrey
Street, Strand, carrying on the business of a navy agent, in which he
is said to have realized considerable profits. It was while conducting
this business that he became aware of the inferiority of British iron
compared with that obtained from foreign countries. The English
wrought iron was considered so bad that it was prohibited from all
government supplies, while the cast iron was considered of too brittle
a nature to be suited for general use.[1] Indeed the Russian
government became so persuaded that the English nation could not carry
on their manufactures without Russian iron, that in 1770 they ordered
the price to be raised from 70 and 80 copecs per pood to 200 and 220
copecs per pood.[2]
Such being the case, Cort's attention became directed to the subject in
connection with the supply of iron to the Navy, and he entered on a
series of experiments with the object of improving the manufacture of
English iron. What the particular experiments were, and by what steps
he arrived at results of so much importance to the British iron trade,
no one can now tell. All that is known is, that about the year 1775 he
relinquished his business as a navy agent, and took a lease of certain
premises at Fontley, near Fareham, at the north-western corner of
Portsmouth Harbour, where he erected a forge and an iron mill. He was
afterwards joined in partnership by Samuel Jellicoe (son of Adam
Jellicoe, then Deputy-Paymaster of Seamen's Wages), which turned out,
as will shortly appear, a most unfortunate connection for Cort.
As in the case of other inventions, Cort took up the manufacture of
iron at the point to which his predecessors had brought it, carrying it
still further, and improving upon their processes. We may here briefly
recite the steps by which the manufacture of bar-iron by means of
pit-coal had up to this time been advanced. In 1747, Mr. Ford
succeeded at Coalbrookdale in smelting iron ore with pit-coal, after
which it was refined in the usual way by means of coke and charcoal.
In 1762, Dr. Roebuck (hereafter to be referred to) took out a patent
for melting the cast or pig iron in a hearth heated with pit-coal by
the blast of bellows, and then working the iron until it was reduced to
nature, or metallized, as it was termed; after which it was exposed to
the action of a hollow pit-coal fire urged by a blast, until it was
reduced to a loop and drawn out into bar-iron under a common
forge-hammer. Then the brothers Cranege, in 1766, adopted the
reverberatory or air furnace, in which they placed the pig or cast
iron, and without blast or the addition of anything more than common
raw pit-coal, converted the same into good malleable iron, which being
taken red hot from the reverberatory furnace to the forge hammer, was
drawn into bars according to the will of the workman. Peter Onions of
Merthyr Tydvil, in 1783, carried the manufacture a stage further, as
described by him in his patent of that year. Having charged his
furnace ("bound with iron work and well annealed") with pig or fused
cast iron from the smelting furnace, it was closed up and the doors
were luted with sand. The fire was urged by a blast admitted
underneath, apparently for the purpose of keeping up the combustion of
the fuel on the grate. Thus Onions' furnace was of the nature of a
puddling furnace, the fire of which was urged by a blast. The fire was
to be kept up until the metal became less fluid, and "thickened into a
kind of froth, which the workman, by opening the door, must turn and
stir with a bar or other iron instrument, and then close the aperture
again, applying the blast and fire until there was a ferment in the
metal." The patent further describes that "as the workman stirs the
metal," the scoriae will separate, "and the particles of iron will
adhere, which particles the workman must collect or gather into a mass
or lump." This mass or lump was then to be raised to a white heat, and
forged into malleable iron at the forge-hammer.
Such was the stage of advance reached in the manufacture of bar-iron,
when Henry Cort published his patents in 1783 and 1784. In dispensing
with a blast, he had been anticipated by the Craneges, and in the
process of puddling by Onions; but he introduced so many improvements
of an original character, with which he combined the inventions of his
predecessors, as to establish quite a new era in the history of the
iron manufacture, and, in the course of a few years, to raise it to the
highest state of prosperity. As early as 1786, Lord Sheffield
recognised the great national importance of Cort's improvements in the
following words:--"If Mr. Cort's very ingenious and meritorious
improvements in the art of making and working iron, the steam-engine of
Boulton and Watt, and Lord Dundonald's discovery of making coke at half
the present price, should all succeed, it is not asserting too much to
say that the result will be more advantageous to Great Britain than the
possession of the thirteen colonies (of America); for it will give the
complete command of the iron trade to this country, with its vast
advantages to navigation." It is scarcely necessary here to point out
how completely the anticipations of Lord Sheffield have been fulfilled,
sanguine though they might appear to be when uttered some seventy-six
years ago.[3]
We will endeavour as briefly as possible to point out the important
character of Mr. Cort's improvements, as embodied in his two patents of
1783 and 1784. In the first he states that, after "great study,
labour, and expense, in trying a variety of experiments, and making
many discoveries, he had invented and brought to perfection a peculiar
method and process of preparing, welding, and working various sorts of
iron, and of reducing the same into uses by machinery: a furnace, and
other apparatus, adapted and applied to the said process." He first
describes his method of making iron for "large uses," such as shanks,
arms, rings, and palms of anchors, by the method of piling and
faggoting, since become generally practised, by laying bars of iron of
suitable lengths, forged on purpose, and tapering so as to be thinner
at one end than the other, laid over one another in the manner of
bricks in buildings, so that the ends should everywhere overlay each
other. The faggots so prepared, to the amount of half a ton more or
less, were then to be put into a common air or balling furnace, and
brought to a welding heat, which was accomplished by his method in a
much shorter time than in any hollow fire; and when the heat was
perfect, the faggots were then brought under a forge-hammer of great
size and weight, and welded into a solid mass. Mr. Cort alleges in the
specification that iron for "larger uses" thus finished, is in all
respect's possessed of the highest degree of perfection; and that the
fire in the balling furnace is better suited, from its regularity and
penetrating quality, to give the iron a perfect welding heat throughout
its whole mass, without fusing in any part, than any fire blown by a
blast. Another process employed by Mr. Cort for the purpose of
cleansing the iron and producing a metal of purer grain, was that of
working the faggots by passing them through rollers. "By this simple
process," said he, "all the earthy particles are pressed out and the
iron becomes at once free from dross, and what is usually called
cinder, and is compressed into a fibrous and tough state." The
objection has indeed been taken to the process of passing the iron
through rollers, that the cinder is not so effectually got rid of as by
passing it under a tilt hammer, and that much of it is squeezed into
the bar and remains there, interrupting its fibre and impairing its
strength.
It does not appear that there was any novelty in the use of rollers by
Cort; for in his first specification he speaks of them as already well
known.[4] His great merit consisted in apprehending the value of
certain processes, as tested by his own and others' experience, and
combining and applying them in a more effective practical form than had
ever been done before. This power of apprehending the best methods,
and embodying the details in one complete whole, marks the practical,
clear-sighted man, and in certain cases amounts almost to a genius.
The merit of combining the inventions of others in such forms as that
they shall work to advantage, is as great in its way as that of the man
who strikes out the inventions themselves, but who, for want of tact
and experience, cannot carry them into practical effect.
It was the same with Cort's second patent, in which he described his
method of manufacturing bar-iron from the ore or from cast-iron. All
the several processes therein described had been practised before his
time; his merit chiefly consisting in the skilful manner in which he
combined and applied them. Thus, like the Craneges, he employed the
reverberatory or air furnace, without blast, and, like Onions, he
worked the fused metal with iron bars until it was brought into lumps,
when it was removed and forged into malleable iron. Cort, however,
carried the process further, and made it more effectual in all
respects. His method may be thus briefly described: the bottom of the
reverberatory furnace was hollow, so as to contain the fluid metal,
introduced into it by ladles; the heat being kept up by pit-coal or
other fuel. When the furnace was charged, the doors were closed until
the metal was sufficiently fused, when the workman opened an aperture
and worked or stirred about the metal with iron bars, when an
ebullition took place, during the continuance of which a bluish flame
was emitted, the carbon of the cast-iron was burned off, the metal
separated from the slag, and the iron, becoming reduced to nature, was
then collected into lumps or loops of sizes suited to their intended
uses, when they were drawn out of the doors of the furnace. They were
then stamped into plates, and piled or worked in an air furnace, heated
to a white or welding heat, shingled under a forge hammer, and passed
through the grooved rollers after the method described in the first
patent.
The processes described by Cort in his two patents have been followed
by iron manufacturers, with various modifications, the results of
enlarged experience, down to the present time. After the lapse of
seventy-eight years, the language employed by Cort continues on the
whole a faithful description of the processes still practised: the
same methods of manufacturing bar from cast-iron, and of puddling,
piling, welding, and working the bar-iron through grooved rollers--all
are nearly identical with the methods of manufacture perfected by Henry
Cort in 1784. It may be mentioned that the development of the powers
of the steam-engine by Watt had an extraordinary effect upon the
production of iron. It created a largely increased demand for the
article for the purposes of the shafting and machinery which it was
employed to drive; while at the same time it cleared pits of water
which before were unworkable, and by being extensively applied to the
blowing of iron-furnaces and the working of the rolling-mills, it thus
gave a still further impetus to the manufacture of the metal. It would
be beside our purpose to enter into any statistical detail on the
subject; but it will be sufficient to state that the production of
iron, which in the early part of last century amounted to little more
than 12,000 tons, about the middle of the century to about 18,000 tons,
and at the time of Cort's inventions to about 90,000 tons, was found,
in 1820, to have increased to 400,000 tons; and now the total quantity
produced is upwards of four millions of tons of pig-iron every year, or
more than the entire production of all other European countries. There
is little reason to doubt that this extraordinary development of the
iron manufacture has been in a great measure due to the inventions of
Henry Cort. It is said that at the present time there are not fewer
than 8200 of Cort's furnaces in operation in Great Britain alone.[5]
Practical men have regarded Cort's improvement of the process of
rolling the iron as the most valuable of his inventions. A competent
authority has spoken of Cort's grooved rollers as of "high
philosophical interest, being scarcely less than the discovery of a new
mechanical Power, in reversing the action of the wedge, by the
application of force to four surfaces, so as to elongate a mass,
instead of applying force to a mass to divide the four surfaces." One
of the best authorities in the iron trade of last century, Mr.
Alexander Raby of Llanelly, like many others, was at first entirely
sceptical as to the value of Cort's invention; but he had no sooner
witnessed the process than with manly candour he avowed his entire
conversion to his views.
We now return to the history of the chief author of this great branch
of national industry. As might naturally be expected, the principal
ironmasters, when they heard of Cort's success, and the rapidity and
economy with which he manufactured and forged bar-iron, visited his
foundry for the purpose of examining his process, and, if found
expedient, of employing it at their own works. Among the first to try
it were Richard Crawshay of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of Penydarran
(both in South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale. Richard
Crawshay was then (in 1787) forging only ten tons of bar-iron weekly
under the hammer; and when he saw the superior processes invented by
Cort he readily entered into a contract with him to work under his
patents at ten shillings a ton royalty, In 1812 a letter from Mr.
Crawshay to the Secretary of Lord Sheffield was read to the House of
Commons, descriptive of his method of working iron, in which he said,
"I took it from a Mr. Cort, who had a little mill at Fontley in
Hampshire: I have thus acquainted you with my method, by which I am
now making more than ten thousand tons of bar-iron per annum." Samuel
Homfray was equally prompt in adopting the new process. He not only
obtained from Cort plans of the puddling-furnaces and patterns of the
rolls, but borrowed Cort's workmen to instruct his own in the necessary
operations; and he soon found the method so superior to that invented
by Onions that he entirely confined himself to manufacturing after
Cort's patent. We also find Mr. Reynolds inviting Cort to conduct a
trial of his process at Ketley, though it does not appear that it was
adopted by the firm at that time.[6]
The quality of the iron manufactured by the new process was found
satisfactory; and the Admiralty having, by the persons appointed by
them to test it in 1787, pronounced it to be superior to the best
Oregrounds iron, the use of the latter was thenceforward discontinued,
and Cort's iron only was directed to be used for the anchors and other
ironwork in the ships of the Royal Navy. The merits of the invention
seem to have been generally conceded, and numerous contracts for
licences were entered into with Cort and his partner by the
manufacturers of bar-iron throughout the country.[7] Cort himself made
arrangements for carrying on the manufacture on a large scale, and with
that object entered upon the possession of a wharf at Gosport,
belonging to Adam Jellicoe, his partner's father, where he succeeded in
obtaining considerable Government orders for iron made after his
patents. To all ordinary eyes the inventor now appeared to be on the
high road to fortune; but there was a fatal canker at the root of this
seeming prosperity, and in a few years the fabric which he had so
laboriously raised crumbled into ruins. On the death of Adam Jellicoe,
the father of Cort's partner, in August, 1789,[8] defalcations were
discovered in his public accounts to the extent of 39,676L, and his
books and papers were immediately taken possession of by the
Government. On examination it was found that the debts due to Jellicoe
amounted to 89,657L, included in which was a sum of not less than
54,853L. owing to him by the Cort partnership. In the public
investigation which afterwards took place, it appeared that the capital
possessed by Cort being insufficient to enable him to pursue his
experiments, which were of a very expensive character, Adam Jellicoe
had advanced money from time to time for the purpose, securing himself
by a deed of agreement entitling him to one-half the stock and profits
of all his contracts; and in further consideration of the capital
advanced by Jellicoe beyond his equal share, Cort subsequently assigned
to him all his patent rights as collateral security. As Jellicoe had
the reputation of being a rich man, Cort had not the slightest
suspicion of the source from which he obtained the advances made by him
to the firm, nor has any connivance whatever on the part of Cort been
suggested. At the same time it must be admitted that the connexion was
not free from suspicion, and, to say the least, it was a singularly
unfortunate one. It was found that among the moneys advanced by
Jellicoe to Cort there was a sum of 27,500L. entrusted to him for the
payment of seamen's and officers' wages. How his embarrassments had
tempted him to make use of the public funds for the purpose of carrying
on his speculations, appears from his own admissions. In a memorandum
dated the 11th November, 1782, found in his strong box after his death,
he set forth that he had always had much more than his proper balance
in hand, until his engagement, about two years before, with Mr. Cort,
"which by degrees has so reduced me, and employed so much more of my
money than I expected, that I have been obliged to turn most of my Navy
bills into cash, and at the same time, to my great concern, am very
deficient in my balance. This gives me great uneasiness, nor shall I
live or die in peace till the whole is restored." He had, however,
made the first false step, after which the downhill career of
dishonesty is rapid. His desperate attempts to set himself right only
involved him the deeper; his conscious breach of trust caused him a
degree of daily torment which he could not bear; and the discovery of
his defalcations, which was made only a few days before his death,
doubtless hastened his end.
The Government acted with promptitude, as they were bound to do in such
a case. The body of Jellicoe was worth nothing to them, but they could
secure the property in which he had fraudulently invested the public
moneys intrusted to him. With this object the them Paymaster of the
Navy proceeded to make an affidavit in the Exchequer that Henry Cort
was indebted to His Majesty in the sum of 27,500L. and upwards, in
respect of moneys belonging to the public treasury, which "Adam
Jellicoe had at different times lent and advanced to the said Henry
Cort, from whom the same now remains justly due and owing; and the
deponent saith he verily believes that the said Henry Cort is much
decayed in his credit and in very embarrassed circumstances; and
therefore the deponent verily believes that the aforesaid debt so due
and owing to His Majesty is in great danger of being lost if some more
speedy means be not taken for the recovery than by the ordinary process
of the Court." Extraordinary measures were therefore adopted. The
assignments of Cort's patents, which had been made to Jellicoe in
consideration of his advances, were taken possession of; but Samuel
Jellicoe, the son of the defaulter, singular to say, was put in
possession of the properties at Fontley and Gosport, and continued to
enjoy them, to Cort's exclusion, for a period of fourteen years. It
does not however appear that any patent right was ever levied by the
assignees, and the result of the proceeding was that the whole benefit
of Cort's inventions was thus made over to the ironmasters and to the
public. Had the estate been properly handled, and the patent rights
due under the contracts made by the ironmasters with Cort been duly
levied, there is little reason to doubt that the whole of the debt
owing to the Government would have been paid in the course of a few
years. "When we consider," says Mr. Webster, "how very simple was the
process of demanding of the contracting ironmasters the patent due
(which for the year 1789 amounted to 15,000L., in 1790 to 15,000L., and
in 1791 to 25,000L.), and which demand might have been enforced by the
same legal process used to ruin the inventor, it is not difficult to
surmise the motive for abstaining." The case, however, was not so
simple as Mr. Webster puts it; for there was such a contingency as that
of the ironmasters combining to dispute the patent right, and there is
every reason to believe that they were prepared to adopt that course.[9]
Although the Cort patents expired in 1796 and 1798 respectively, they
continued the subject of public discussion for some time after, more
particularly in connection with the defalcations of the deceased Adam
Jellicoe. It does not appear that more than 2654L. was realised by the
Government from the Cort estate towards the loss sustained by the
public, as a balance of 24,846L. was still found standing to the debit
of Jellicoe in 1800, when the deficiencies in the naval account's
became matter of public inquiry. A few years later, in 1805, the
subject was again revived in a remarkable manner. In that year, the
Whigs, Perceiving the bodily decay of Mr. Pitt, and being too eager to
wait for his removal by death, began their famous series of attacks
upon his administration. Fearing to tackle the popular statesman
himself, they inverted the ordinary tactics of an opposition, and fell
foul of Dundas, Lord Melville, then Treasurer of the Navy, who had
successfully carried the country through the great naval war with
revolutionary France. They scrupled not to tax him with gross
peculation, and exhibited articles of impeachment against him, which
became the subject of elaborate investigation, the result of which is
matter of history. In those articles, no reference whatever was made
to Lord Melville's supposed complicity with Jellicoe; nor, on the trial
that followed, was any reference made to the defalcations of that
official. But when Mr. Whitbread, on the 8th of April, 1805, spoke to
the "Resolutions" in the Commons for impeaching the Treasurer of the
Navy, he thought proper to intimate that he "had a strong suspicion
that Jellicoe was in the same partnership with Mark Sprott, Alexander
Trotter, and Lord Melville. He had been suffered to remain a public
debtor for a whole year after he was known to be in arrears upwards of
24,000L. During next year 11,000L. more had accrued. It would not
have been fair to have turned too short on an old companion. It would
perhaps, too, have been dangerous, since unpleasant discoveries might
have met the public eye. It looked very much as if, mutually conscious
of criminality, they had agreed to be silent, and keep their own
secrets."
In making these offensive observations Whitbread was manifestly
actuated by political enmity. They were utterly unwarrantable. In the
first place, Melville had been formally acquitted of Jellicoe's
deficiency by a writ of Privy Seal, dated 31st May, 1800; and secondly,
the committee appointed in that very year (1805) to reinvestigate the
naval accounts, had again exonerated him, but intimated that they were
of opinion there was remissness on his part in allowing Jellicoe to
remain in his office after the discovery of his defalcations.
the report made by the commissioners to the Houses of Parliament in
1805,[10] the value of Corts patents was estimated at only 100L.
Referring to the schedule of Jellicoe's alleged assets, they say "Many
of the debts are marked as bad; and we apprehend that the debt from Mr.
Henry Cort, not so marked, of 54,000L. and upwards, is of that
description." As for poor bankrupt Henry Cort, these discussions
availed nothing. On the death of Jellicoe, he left his iron works,
feeling himself a ruined man. He made many appeals to the Government
of the day for restoral of his patents, and offered to find security
for payment of the debt due by his firm to the Crown, but in vain. In
1794, an appeal was made to Mr. Pitt by a number of influential members
of Parliament, on behalf of the inventor and his destitute family of
twelve children, when a pension of 200L. a-year was granted him. This
Mr. Cort enjoyed until the year 1800, when he died, broken in health
and spirit, in his sixtieth year. He was buried in Hampstead
Churchyard, where a stone marking the date of his death is still to be
seen. A few years since it was illegible, but it has recently been
restored by his surviving son.
Though Cort thus died in comparative poverty, he laid the foundations
of many gigantic fortunes. He may be said to have been in a great
measure the author of our modern iron aristocracy, who still
manufacture after the processes which he invented or perfected, but for
which they never paid him a shilling of royalty. These men of gigantic
fortunes have owed much--we might almost say everything--to the ruined
projector of "the little mill at Fontley." Their wealth has enriched
many families of the older aristocracy, and has been the foundation of
several modern peerages. Yet Henry Cort, the rock from which they were
hewn, is already all but forgotten; and his surviving children, now
aged and infirm, are dependent for their support upon the slender
pittance wrung by repeated entreaty and expostulation from the state.
The career of Richard Crawshay, the first of the great ironmasters who
had the sense to appreciate and adopt the methods of manufacturing iron
invented by Henry Cort, is a not unfitting commentary on the sad
history we have thus briefly described. It shows how, as respects mere
money-making, shrewdness is more potent than invention, and business
faculty than manufacturing skill. Richard Crawshay was born at
Normanton near Leeds, the son of a small Yorkshire farmer. When a
youth, he worked on his father's farm, and looked forward to occupying
the same condition in life; but a difference with his father unsettled
his mind, and at the age of fifteen he determined to leave his home,
and seek his fortune elsewhere. Like most unsettled and enterprising
lads, he first made for London, riding to town on a pony of his own,
which, with the clothes on his back, formed his entire fortune. It
took him a fortnight to make the journey, in consequence of the badness
of the roads. Arrived in London, he sold his pony for fifteen pounds,
and the money kept him until he succeeded in finding employment. He
was so fortunate as to be taken upon trial by a Mr. Bicklewith, who
kept an ironmonger's shop in York Yard, Upper Thames Street; and his
first duty there was to clean out the office, put the stools and desks
in order for the other clerks, run errands, and act as porter when
occasion required. Young Crawshay was very attentive, industrious, and
shrewd; and became known in the office as "The Yorkshire Boy." Chiefly
because of his "cuteness," his master appointed him to the department
of selling flat irons. The London washerwomen of that day were very
sharp and not very honest, and it used to be said of them that where
they bought one flat iron they generally contrived to steal two. Mr.
Bicklewith thought he could not do better than set the Yorkshireman to
watch the washerwomen, and, by way of inducement to him to be vigilant,
he gave young Crawshay an interest in that branch of the business,
which was soon found to prosper under his charge. After a few more
years, Mr. Bicklewith retired, and left to Crawshay the cast-iron
business in York Yard. This he still further increased, There was not
at that time much enterprise in the iron trade, but Crawshay
endeavoured to connect himself with what there was of it. The price of
iron was then very high, and the best sorts were still imported from
abroad; a good deal of the foreign iron and steel being still landed at
the Steelyard on the Thames, in the immediate neighbourhood of
Crawshay's ironmongery store.
It seems to have occurred to some London capitalists that money was
then to be made in the iron trade, and that South Wales was a good
field for an experiment. The soil there was known to be full of coal
and ironstone, and several small iron works had for some time been
carried on, which were supposed to be doing well. Merthyr Tydvil was
one of the places at which operations had been begun, but the place
being situated in a hill district, of difficult access, and the
manufacture being still in a very imperfect state, the progress made
was for some time very slow. Land containing coal and iron was deemed
of very little value, as maybe inferred from the fact that in the year
1765, Mr. Anthony Bacon, a man of much foresight, took a lease from
Lord Talbot, for 99 years, of the minerals under forty square miles of
country surrounding the then insignificant hamlet of Merthyr Tydvil, at
the trifling rental of 200L. a-year. There he erected iron works, and
supplied the Government with considerable quantities of cannon and iron
for different purposes; and having earned a competency, he retired from
business in 1782, subletting his mineral tract in four divisions--the
Dowlais, the Penydarran, the Cyfartha, and the Plymouth Works, north,
east, west, and south, of Merthyr Tydvil.
Mr. Richard Crawshay became the lessee of what Mr. Mushet has called
"the Cyfartha flitch of the great Bacon domain." There he proceeded to
carry on the works established by Mr. Bacon with increased spirit; his
son William, whom he left in charge of the ironmongery store in London,
supplying him with capital to put into the iron works as fast as he
could earn it by the retail trade. In 1787, we find Richard Crawshay
manufacturing with difficulty ten tons of bar-iron weekly, and it was
of a very inferior character,[11]--the means not having yet been
devised at Cyfartha for malleableizing the pit-coal cast-iron with
economy or good effect. Yet Crawshay found a ready market for all the
iron he could make, and he is said to have counted the gains of the
forge-hammer close by his house at the rate of a penny a stroke. In
course of time he found it necessary to erect new furnaces, and, having
adopted the processes invented by Henry Cort, he was thereby enabled
greatly to increase the production of his forges, until in 1812 we find
him stating to a committee of the House of Commons that he was making
ten thousand tons of bar-iron yearly, or an average produce of two
hundred tons a week. But this quantity, great though it was, has since
been largely increased, the total produce of the Crawshay furnaces of
Cyfartha, Ynysfach, and Kirwan, being upwards of 50,000 tons of
bar-iron yearly.
The distance of Merthyr from Cardiff, the nearest port, being
considerable, and the cost of carriage being very great by reason of
the badness of the roads, Mr. Crawshay set himself to overcome this
great impediment to the prosperity of the Merthyr Tydvil district; and,
in conjunction with Mr. Homfray of the Penydarran Works, he planned and
constructed the canal[12] to Cardiff, the opening of which, in 1795,
gave an immense impetus to the iron trade of the neighbourhood.
Numerous other extensive iron works became established there, until
Merthyr Tydvil attained the reputation of being at once the richest and
the dirtiest district in all Britain. Mr. Crawshay became known in the
west of England as the "Iron King," and was quoted as the highest
authority in all questions relating to the trade. Mr. George Crawshay,
recently describing the founder of the family at a social meeting at
Newcastle, said,--"In these days a name like ours is lost in the
infinity of great manufacturing firms which exist through out the land;
but in those early times the man who opened out the iron district of
Wales stood upon an eminence seen by all the world. It is preserved in
the traditions of the family that when the 'Iron King' used to drive
from home in his coach-and-four into Wales, all the country turned out
to see him, and quite a commotion took place when he passed through
Bristol on his way to the works. My great grandfather was succeeded by
his son, and by his grandson; the Crawshays have followed one another
for four generations in the iron trade in Wales, and there they still
stand at the head of the trade." The occasion on which these words
were uttered was at a Christmas party, given to the men, about 1300 in
number, employed at the iron works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, and Co.,
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded in 1754 by William
Hawks, a blacksmith, whose principal trade consisted in making
claw-hammers for joiners. He became a thriving man, and eventually a
large manufacturer of bar-iron. Partners joined him, and in the course
of the changes wrought by time, one of the Crawshays, in 1842, became a
principal partner in the firm.
Illustrations of a like kind might be multiplied to any extent, showing
the growth in our own time of an iron aristocracy of great wealth and
influence, the result mainly of the successful working of the
inventions of the unfortunate and unrequited Henry Cort. He has been
the very Tubal Cain of England--one of the principal founders of our
iron age. To him we mainly owe the abundance of wrought-iron for
machinery, for steam-engines, and for railways, at one-third the price
we were before accustomed to pay to the foreigner. We have by his
invention, not only ceased to be dependent upon other nations for our
supply of iron for tools, implements, and arms, but we have become the
greatest exporters of iron, producing more than all other European
countries combined. In the opinion of Mr. Fairbairn of Manchester, the
inventions of Henry Cort have already added six hundred millions
sterling to the wealth of the kingdom, while they have given employment
to some six hundred thousand working people during three generations.
And while the great ironmasters, by freely availing themselves of his
inventions, have been adding estate to estate, the only estate secured
by Henry Cort was the little domain of six feet by two in which he lies
interred in Hampstead Churchyard.
[1] Life of Brunel, p. 60.
[2] SCRIVENOR, History of the Iron Trade, 169.
[3] Although the iron manufacture had gradually been increasing since
the middle of the century, it was as yet comparatively insignificant in
amount. Thus we find, from a statement by W. Wilkinson, dated Dec. 25,
1791, contained in the memorandum-book of Wm. Reynolds of
Coalbrookdale, that the produce in England and Scotland was then
estimated to be
Coke Furnaces. Charcoal Furnaces.
In England ......73 producing 67,548 tons 20 producing 8500 tons
In Scotland......12 " 12,480 " 2 " 1000 "
---- ------ -- ----
85 " 80,028 " 22 " 9500 "
At the same time the annual import of Oregrounds iron from Sweden
amounted to about 20,000 tons, and of bars and slabs from Russia about
50,000 tons, at an average cost of 35L. a ton!
[4] "It is material to observe", says Mr. Webster, "that Cort, in this
specification, speaks of the rollers, furnaces, and separate processes,
as well known. There is no claim to any of them separately; the claim
is to the reducing of the faggots of piled iron into bars, and the
welding of such bars by rollers instead of by forge-hammers."--Memoir
of Henry Cort, in Mechanic's Magazine, 15 July, 1859, by Thomas
Webster, M.A., F.R.S.
[5] Letter by Mr. Truran in Mechanic's Magazine.
[6] In the memorandum-book of Wm. Reynolds appears the following entry
on the subject:--
"Copy of a paper given to H. Cort, Esq.
"W. Reynolds saw H. C. in a trial which he made at Ketley, Dec. 17,
1784, produce from the same pig both cold short and tough iron by a
variation of the process used in reducing them from the state of
cast-iron to that of malleable or bar-iron; and in point of yield his
processes were quite equal to those at Pitchford, which did not exceed
the proportion of 31 cwt. to the ton of bars. The experiment was made
by stamping and potting the blooms or loops made in his furnace, which
then produced a cold short iron; but when they were immediately
shingled and drawn, the iron was of a black tough."
The Coalbrookdale ironmasters are said to have been deterred from
adopting the process because of what was considered an excessive waste
of the metal--about 25 per cent,--though, with greater experience, this
waste was very much diminished.
[7] Mr. Webster, in the 'Case of Henry Cort,' published in the
Mechanic's Magazine (2 Dec. 1859), states that "licences were taken at
royalties estimated to yield 27,500L. to the owners of the patents."
[8] In the 'Case of Henry Cort,' by Mr. Webster, above referred to
(Mechanic's Magazine, 2 Dec. 1859), it is stated that Adam Jellicoe
"committed suicide under the pressure of dread of exposure," but this
does not appear to be confirmed by the accounts in the newspapers of
the day. He died at his private dwelling-house, No. 14, Highbury
Place, Islingtonn, on the 30th August, 1789, after a fortnight's
illness.
[9] This is confirmed by the report of a House of Commons Committee on
the subject Mr. Davies Gilbert chairman, in which they say, "Your
committee have not been able to satisfy themselves that either of the
two inventions, one for subjecting cast-iron to an operation termed
puddling during its conversion to malleable iron, and the other for
passing it through fluted or grooved rollers, were so novel in their
principle or their application as fairly to entitle the petitioners
[Mr. Cort's survivors] to a parliamentary reward." It is, however,
stated by Mr. Mushet that the evidence was not fairly taken by the
committee--that they were overborne by the audacity of Mr. Samuel
Homfray, one of the great Welsh ironmasters, whose statements were
altogether at variance with known facts--and that it was under his
influence that Mr. Gilbert drew up the fallacious report of the
committee. The illustrious James Watt, writing to Dr. Black in 1784,
as to the iron produced by Cort's process, said, "Though I cannot
perfectly agree with you as to its goodness, yet there is much
ingenuity in the idea of forming the bars in that manner, which is the
only part of his process which has any pretensions to novelty.... Mr.
Cort has, as you observe, been most illiberally treated by the trade:
they are ignorant brutes; but he exposed himself to it by showing them
the process before it was perfect, and seeing his ignorance of the
common operations of making iron, laughed at and despised him; yet they
will contrive by some dirty evasion to use his process, or such parts
as they like, without acknowledging him in it. I shall be glad to be
able to be of any use to him. Watts fellow-feeling was naturally
excited in favour of the plundered inventor, he himself having all his
life been exposed to the attacks of like piratical assailants.
[10] Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry. See also
Report of Select Committee on the 10th Naval Report. May, 1805.
[11] Mr. Mushet says of the early manufacture of iron at Merthyr Tydvil
that "A modification of the charcoal refinery, a hollow fire, was
worked with coke as a substitute for charcoal, but the bar-iron
hammered from the produce was very inferior." The pit-coal cast-iron
was nevertheless found of a superior quality for castings, being more
fusible and more homogeneous than charcoal-iron. Hence it was well
adapted for cannon, which was for some time the principal article of
manufacture at the Welsh works.
[12] It may be worthy of note that the first locomotive run upon a
railroad was that constructed by Trevithick for Mr. Homfray in 1803,
which was employed to bring down metal from the furnaces to the Old
Forge. The engine was taken off the road because the tram-plates were
found too weak to bear its weight without breaking.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE--DR. ROEBUCK DAVID MUSHET.
"Were public benefactors to be allowed to pass away, like hewers of
wood and drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and enterprise
would be deprived of their most coveted distinction."--Sir Henry
Englefield.
The account given of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopedia of Biography, recently
published in Glasgow, runs as follows:--"Roebuck, John, a physician and
experimental chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718; died, after ruining
himself by his projects, 1794." Such is the short shrift which the man
receives who fails. Had Dr. Roebuck wholly succeeded in his projects,
he would probably have been esteemed as among the greatest of
Scotland's benefactors. Yet his life was not altogether a failure, as
we think will sufficiently appear from the following brief account of
his labours:--
At the beginning of last century, John Roebuck's father carried on the
manufacture of cutlery at Sheffield,[1] in the course of which he
realized a competency. He intended his son to follow his own business,
but the youth was irresistibly attracted to scientific pursuits, in
which his father liberally encouraged him; and he was placed first
under the care of Dr. Doddridge, at Northampton, and afterwards at the
University of Edinburgh, where he applied himself to the study of
medicine, and especially of chemistry, which was then attracting
considerable attention at the principal seats of learning in Scotland.
While residing at Edinburgh young Roebuck contracted many intimate
friendships with men who afterwards became eminent in literature, such
as Hume and Robertson the historians, and the circumstance is supposed
to have contributed not a little to his partiality in favour of
Scotland, and his afterwards selecting it as the field for his
industrial operations.
After graduating as a physician at Leyden, Roebuck returned to England,
and settled at Birmingham in the year 1745 for the purpose of
practising his profession. Birmingham was then a principal seat of the
metal manufacture, and its mechanics were reputed to be among the most
skilled in Britain. Dr. Roebuck's attention was early drawn to the
scarcity and dearness of the material in which the mechanics worked,
and he sought by experiment to devise some method of smelting iron
otherwise than by means of charcoal. He had a laboratory fitted up in
his house for the purpose of prosecuting his inquiries, and there he
spent every minute that he could spare from his professional labours.
It was thus that he invented the process of smelting iron by means of
pit-coal which he afterwards embodied in the patent hereafter to be
referred to. At the same time he invented new methods of refining gold
and silver, and of employing them in the arts, which proved of great
practical value to the Birmingham trades-men, who made extensive use of
them in their various processes of manufacture.
Dr. Roebuck's inquiries had an almost exclusively practical direction,
and in pursuing them his main object was to render them subservient to
the improvement of the industrial arts. Thus he sought to devise more
economical methods of producing the various chemicals used in the
Birmingham trade, such as ammonia, sublimate, and several of the acids;
and his success was such as to induce him to erect a large laboratory
for their manufacture, which was conducted with complete success by his
friend Mr. Garbett. Among his inventions of this character, was the
modern process of manufacturing vitriolic acid in leaden vessels in
large quantities, instead of in glass vessels in small quantities as
formerly practised. His success led him to consider the project of
establishing a manufactory for the purpose of producing oil of vitriol
on a large scale; and, having given up his practice as a physician, he
resolved, with his partner Mr. Garbett, to establish the proposed works
in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh. He removed to Scotland with that
object, and began the manufacture of vitriol at Prestonpans in the year
1749. The enterprise proved eminently lucrative, and, encouraged by
his success, Roebuck proceeded to strike out new branches of
manufacture. He started a pottery for making white and brown ware,
which eventually became established, and the manufacture exists in the
same neighbourhood to this day.
The next enterprise in which he became engaged was one of still greater
importance, though it proved eminently unfortunate in its results as
concerned himself. While living at Prestonpans, he made the friendship
of Mr. William Cadell, of Cockenzie, a gentleman who had for some time
been earnestly intent on developing the industry of Scotland, then in a
very backward condition. Mr. Cadell had tried, without success, to
establish a manufactory of iron; and, though he had heretofore failed,
he hoped that with the aid of Dr. Roebuck he might yet succeed. The
Doctor listened to his suggestions with interest, and embraced the
proposed enterprise with zeal. He immediately proceeded to organize a
company, in which he was joined by a number of his friends and
relatives. His next step was to select a site for the intended works,
and make the necessary arrangements for beginning the manufacture of
iron. After carefully examining the country on both sides of the
Forth, he at length made choice of a site on the banks of the river
Carron, in Stirlingshire, where there was an abundant supply of wafer,
and an inexhaustible supply of iron, coal, and limestone in the
immediate neighbourhood, and there Dr. Roebuck planted the first
ironworks in Scotland.
In order to carry them on with the best chances of success, he brought
a large number of skilled workmen from England, who formed a nucleus of
industry at Carron, where their example and improved methods of working
served to train the native labourers in their art. At a subsequent
period, Mr. Cadell, of Carronpark, also brought a number of skilled
English nail-makers into Scotland, and settled them in the village of
Camelon, where, by teaching others, the business has become handed down
to the present day.
The first furnace was blown at Carron on the first day of January,
1760; and in the course of the same year the Carron Iron Works turned
out 1500 tons of iron, then the whole annual produce of Scotland.
Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved plans, and the
production steadily increased. Dr. Roebuck was indefatigable in his
endeavours to improve the manufacture, and he was one of the first, as
we have said, to revive the use of pit-coal in refining the ore, as
appears from his patent of 1762. He there describes his new process as
follows:--"I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron in a hearth heated with
pit-coal by the blast of bellows, and work the metal until it is
reduced to nature, which I take out of the fire and separate to pieces;
then I take the metal thus reduced to nature and expose it to the
action of a hollow pit-coal fire, heated by the blast of bellows, until
it is reduced to a loop, which I draw out under a common forge hammer
into bar-iron." This method of manufacture was followed with success,
though for some time, as indeed to this day, the principal production
of the Carron Works was castings, for which the peculiar quality of the
Scotch iron admirably adapts it. The well-known Carronades,[2] or
"Smashers," as they were named, were cast in large numbers at the
Carron Works. To increase the power of his blowing apparatus, Dr.
Roebuck called to his aid the celebrated Mr. Smeaton, the engineer, who
contrived and erected for him at Carron the most perfect apparatus of
the kind then in existence. It may also be added, that out of the
Carron enterprise, in a great measure, sprang the Forth and Clyde
Canal, the first artificial navigation in Scotland. The Carron
Company, with a view to securing an improved communication with
Glasgow, themselves surveyed a line, which was only given up in
consequence of the determined opposition of the landowners; but the
project was again revived through their means, and was eventually
carried out after the designs of Smeaton and Brindley.
While the Carron foundry was pursuing a career of safe prosperity, Dr.
Roebuck's enterprise led him to embark in coal-mining, with the object
of securing an improved supply of fuel for the iron works. He became
the lessee of the Duke of Hamilton's extensive coal-mines at
Boroughstoness, as well as of the salt-pans which were connected with
them. The mansion of Kinneil went with the lease, and there Dr.
Roebuck and his family took up their abode. Kinneil House was formerly
a country seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, and is to this day a stately
old mansion, reminding one of a French chateau. Its situation is of
remarkable beauty, its windows overlooking the broad expanse of the
Firth of Forth, and commanding an extensive view of the country along
its northern shores. The place has become in a measure classical,
Kinneil House having been inhabited, since Dr. Roebuck's time, by
Dugald Stewart, who there wrote his Philosophical Essays.[3] When Dr.
Roebuck began to sink for coal at the new mines, he found it necessary
to erect pumping-machinery of the most powerful kind that could be
contrived, in order to keep the mines clear of water. For this purpose
the Newcomen engine, in its then state, was found insufficient; and
when Dr. Roebuck's friend, Professor Black, of Edinburgh, informed him
of a young man of his acquaintance, a mathematical instrument maker at
Glasgow, having invented a steam-engine calculated to work with
increased power, speed, and economy, compared with Newcomen's; Dr.
Roebuck was much interested, and shortly after entered into a
correspondence with James Watt, the mathematical instrument maker
aforesaid on the subject. The Doctor urged that Watt, who, up to that
time, had confined himself to models, should come over to Kinneil
House, and proceed to erect a working; engine in one of the
outbuildings. The English workmen whom he had brought; to the Carron
works would, he justly thought, give Watt a better chance of success
with his engine than if made by the clumsy whitesmiths and blacksmiths
of Glasgow, quite unaccustomed as they were to first-class work; and he
proposed himself to cast the cylinders at Carron previous to Watt's
intended visit to him at Kinneil.
Watt paid his promised visit in May, 1768, and Roebuck was by this time
so much interested in the invention, that the subject of his becoming a
partner with Watt, with the object of introducing the engine into
general use, was seriously discussed. Watt had been labouring at his
invention for several years, contending with many difficulties, but
especially with the main difficulty of limited means. He had borrowed
considerable sums of money from Dr. Black to enable him to prosecute
his experiments, and he felt the debt to hang like a millstone round
his neck. Watt was a sickly, fragile man, and a constant sufferer from
violent headaches; besides he was by nature timid, desponding,
painfully anxious, and easily cast down by failure. Indeed, he was
more than once on the point of abandoning his invention in despair. On
the other hand, Dr. Roebuck was accustomed to great enterprises, a bold
and undaunted man, and disregardful of expense where he saw before him
a reasonable prospect of success. His reputation as a practical
chemist and philosopher, and his success as the founder of the
Prestonpans Chemical Works and of the Carron Iron Works, justified the
friends of Watt in thinking that he was of all men the best calculated
to help him at this juncture, and hence they sought to bring about a
more intimate connection between the two. The result was that Dr.
Roebuck eventually became a partner to the extent of two-thirds of the
invention, took upon him the debt owing by Watt to Dr. Black amounting
to about 1200L., and undertook to find the requisite money to protect
the invention by means of a patent. The necessary steps were taken
accordingly and the patent right was secured by the beginning of 1769,
though the perfecting of his model cost Watt much further anxiety and
study.
It was necessary for Watt occasionally to reside with Dr. Roebuck at
Kinneil House while erecting his first engine there. It had been
originally intended to erect it in the neighbouring town of
Boroughstoness, but as there might be prying eyes there, and Watt
wished to do his work in privacy, determined "not to puff," he at
length fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the mansion,
by the burnside in the glen, where there was abundance of water and
secure privacy. Watt's extreme diffidence was often the subject of
remark at Dr. Roebuck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed
quite painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under
apparently trivial difficulties. Roebuck's hopeful nature was his
mainstay throughout. Watt himself was ready enough to admit this; for,
writing to his friend Dr. Small, he once said, "I have met with many
disappointments; and I must have sunk under the burthen of them if I
had not been supported by the friendship of Dr. Roebuck."
But more serious troubles were rapidly accumulating upon Dr. Roebuck
himself; and it was he, and not Watt, that sank under the burthen. The
progress of Watt's engine was but slow, and long before it could be
applied to the pumping of Roebuck's mines, the difficulties of the
undertaking on which he had entered overwhelmed him. The opening out
of the principal coal involved a very heavy outlay, extending over many
years, during which he sank not only his own but his wife's fortune,
and--what distressed him most of all--large sums borrowed from his
relatives and friends, which he was unable to repay. The consequence
was, that he was eventually under the necessity of withdrawing his
capital from the refining works at Birmingham, and the vitriol works at
Prestonpans. At the same time, he transferred to Mr. Boulton of Soho
his entire interest in Watt's steam-engine, the value of which, by the
way, was thought so small that it was not even included among the
assets; Roebuck's creditors not estimating it as worth one farthing.
Watt sincerely deplored his partner's misfortunes, but could not help
him. "He has been a most sincere and generous friend," said Watt, "and
is a truly worthy man." And again, "My heart bleeds for him, but I can
do nothing to help him: I have stuck by him till I have much hurt
myself; I can do so no longer; my family calls for my care to provide
for them." The later years of Dr. Roebuck's life were spent in
comparative obscurity; and he died in 1794, in his 76th year.
He lived to witness the success of the steam-engine, the opening up of
the Boroughstoness coal,[4] and the rapid extension of the Scotch iron
trade, though he shared in the prosperity of neither of those branches
of industry. He had been working ahead of his age, and he suffered for
it. He fell in the breach at the critical moment, and more fortunate
men marched over his body into the fortress which his enterprise and
valour had mainly contributed to win. Before his great undertaking of
the Carron Works, Scotland was entirely dependent upon other countries
for its supply of iron. In 1760, the first year of its operations, the
whole produce was 1500 tons. In course of time other iron works were
erected, at Clyde Cleugh, Muirkirk, and Devon--the managers and
overseers of which, as well as the workmen, had mostly received their
training and experience at Carron--until at length the iron trade of
Scotland has assumed such a magnitude that its manufacturers are
enabled to export to England and other countries upwards of 500,000
tons a-year. How different this state of things from the time when
raids were made across the Border for the purpose of obtaining a store
of iron plunder to be carried back into Scotland!
The extraordinary expansion of the Scotch iron trade of late years has
been mainly due to the discovery by David Mushet of the Black Band
ironstone in 1801, and the invention of the Hot Blast by James Beaumont
Neilson in 1828. David Mushet was born at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, in
1772.[5] Like other members of his family he was brought up to
metal-founding. At the age of nineteen he joined the staff of the
Clyde Iron Works, near Glasgow, at a time when the Company had only two
blast-furnaces at work. The office of accountant, which he held,
precluded him from taking any part in the manufacturing operations of
the concern. But being of a speculative and ingenious turn of mind,
the remarkable conversions which iron underwent in the process of
manufacture very shortly began to occupy his attention. The subject
was much discussed by the young men about the works, and they
frequently had occasion to refer to Foureroy's well-known book for the
purpose of determining various questions of difference which arose
among them in the course of their inquiries. The book was, however, in
many respects indecisive and unsatisfactory; and, in 1793, when a
reduction took place in the Company's staff, and David Mushet was left
nearly the sole occupant of the office, he determined to study the
subject for himself experimentally, and in the first place to acquire a
thorough knowledge of assaying, as the true key to the whole art of
iron-making.
He first set up his crucible upon the bridge of the reverberatory
furnace used for melting pig-iron, and filled it with a mixture
carefully compounded according to the formula of the books; but,
notwithstanding the shelter of a brick, placed before it to break the
action of the flame, the crucible generally split in two, and not
unfrequently melted and disappeared altogether. To obtain better
results if possible, he next had recourse to the ordinary smith's fire,
carrying on his experiments in the evenings after office-hours. He set
his crucible upon the fire on a piece of fire brick, opposite the
nozzle of the bellows; covering the whole with coke, and then exciting
the flame by blowing. This mode of operating produced somewhat better
results, but still neither the iron nor the cinder obtained resembled
the pig or scoria of the blast-furnace, which it was his ambition to
imitate. From the irregularity of the results, and the frequent
failure of the crucibles, he came to the conclusion that either his
furnace, or his mode of fluxing, was in fault, and he looked about him
for a more convenient means of pursuing his experiments. A small
square furnace had been erected in the works for the purpose of heating
the rivets used for the repair of steam-engine boilers; the furnace had
for its chimney a cast-iron pipe six or seven inches in diameter and
nine feet long. After a few trials with it, he raised the heat to such
an extent that the lower end of the pipe was melted off, without
producing any very satisfactory results on the experimental crucible,
and his operations were again brought to a standstill. A chimney of
brick having been substituted for the cast-iron pipe, he was, however,
enabled to proceed with his trials.
He continued to pursue his experiments in assaying for about two years,
during which he had been working entirely after the methods described
in books; but, feeling the results still unsatisfactory, he determined
to borrow no more from the books, but to work out a system of his own,
which should ensure results similar to those produced at the
blast-furnace. This he eventually succeeded in effecting by numerous
experiments performed in the night; as his time was fully occupied by
his office-duties during the day. At length these patient experiments
bore their due fruits. David Mushet became the most skilled assayer at
the works; and when a difficulty occurred in smelting a quantity of new
ironstone which had been contracted for, the manager himself resorted
to the bookkeeper for advice and information; and the skill and
experience which he had gathered during his nightly labours, enabled
him readily and satisfactorily to solve the difficulty and suggest a
suitable remedy. His reward for this achievement was the permission,
which was immediately granted him by the manager, to make use of his
own assay-furnace, in which he thenceforward continued his
investigations, at the same time that he instructed the manager's son
in the art of assaying. This additional experience proved of great
benefit to him; and he continued to prosecute his inquiries with much
zeal, sometimes devoting entire nights to experiments in assaying,
roasting and cementing iron-ores and ironstone, decarbonating cast-iron
for steel and bar-iron, and various like operations. His general
practice, however, at that time was, to retire between two and three
o'clock in the morning, leaving directions with the engine-man to call
him at half-past five, so as to be present in the office at six. But
these praiseworthy experiments were brought to a sudden end, as thus
described by himself:--
"In the midst of my career of investigation," says he,[6] "and without
a cause being assigned, I was stopped short. My furnaces, at the order
of the manager, were pulled in pieces, and an edict was passed that
they should never be erected again. Thus terminated my researches at
the Clyde Iron Works. It happened at a time when I was interested--and
I had been two years previously occupied--in an attempt to convert
cast-iron into steel, without fusion, by a process of cementation,
which had for its object the dispersion or absorption of the
superfluous carbon contained in the cast-iron,--an object which at that
time appeared to me of so great importance, that, with the consent of a
friend, I erected an assay and cementing Furnace at the distance of
about two miles from the Clyde Works. Thither I repaired at night, and
sometimes at the breakfast and dinner hours during the day. This plan
of operation was persevered in for the whole of one summer, but was
found too uncertain and laborious to be continued. At the latter end
of the year 1798 I left my chambers, and removed from the Clyde Works
to the distance of about a mile, where I constructed several furnaces
for assaying and cementing, capable of exciting a greater temperature
than any to which I before had access; and thus for nearly two years I
continued to carry on my investigations connected with iron and the
alloys of the metals.
"Though operating in a retired manner, and holding little communication
with others, my views and opinions upon the RATIONALE of iron-making
spread over the establishment. I was considered forward in affecting
to see and explain matters in a different way from others who were much
my seniors, and who were content to be satisfied with old methods of
explanation, or with no explanation at all..... Notwithstanding these
early reproaches, I have lived to see the nomenclature of my youth
furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art of iron-making, which is used
by many of the ironmasters of the present day with freedom and effect,
in communicating with each other on the subject of their respective
manufactures. Prejudices seldom outlive the generation to which they
belong, when opposed by a more rational system of explanation. In this
respect, Time (as my Lord Bacon says) is the greatest of all innovators.
"In a similar manner, Time operated in my favour in respect to the
Black Band Ironstone.[7] The discovery of this was made in 1801, when
I was engaged in erecting for myself and partners the Calder Iron
Works. Great prejudice was excited against me by the ironmasters and
others of that day in presuming to class the WILD COALS of the country
(as Black Band was called) with ironstone fit and proper for the blast
furnace. Yet that discovery has elevated Scotland to a considerable
rank among the iron-making nations of Europe, with resources still in
store that may be considered inexhaustible. But such are the
consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer of 1801 is no longer
considered the intrusive visionary of the laboratory, but the
acknowledged benefactor of his country at large, and particularly of an
extensive class of coal and mine proprietors and iron masters, who have
derived, and are still deriving, great wealth from this important
discovery; and who, in the spirit of grateful acknowledgment, have
pronounced it worthy of a crown of gold, or a monumental record on the
spot where the discovery was first made.
"At an advanced period of life, such considerations are soothing and
satisfactory. Many under similar circumstances have not, in their own
lifetime, had that measure of justice awarded to them by their country
to which they were equally entitled. I accept it, however, as a boon
justly due to me, and as an equivalent in some degree for that
laborious course of investigation which I had prescribed for myself,
and which, in early life, was carried on under circumstances of
personal exposure and inconvenience, which nothing but a frame of iron
could have supported. They atone also, in part, for that
disappointment sustained in early life by the speculative habits of one
partner, and the constitutional nervousness of another, which
eventually occasioned my separation from the Calder Iron Works, and
lost me the possession of extensive tracts of Black Band iron-stone,
which I had secured while the value of the discovery was known only to
myself."
Mr. Mushet published the results of his laborious investigations in a
series of papers in the Philosophical Magazine,--afterwards reprinted
in a collected form in 1840 under the title of "Papers on Iron and
Steel." These papers are among the most valuable original
contributions to the literature of the iron-manufacture that have yet
been given to the world. They contain the germs of many inventions and
discoveries in iron and steel, some of which were perfected by Mr.
Mushet himself, while others were adopted and worked out by different
experimenters. In 1798 some of the leading French chemists were
endeavouring to prove by experiment that steel could be made by contact
of the diamond with bar-iron in the crucible, the carbon of the diamond
being liberated and entering into combination with the iron, forming
steel. In the animated controversy which occurred on the subject, Mr.
Mushet's name was brought into considerable notice; one of the subjects
of his published experiments having been the conversion of bar-iron
into steel in the crucible by contact with regulated proportions of
charcoal. The experiments which he made in connection with this
controversy, though in themselves unproductive of results, led to the
important discovery by Mr. Mushet of the certain fusibility of
malleable iron at a suitable temperature.
Among the other important results of Mr. Mushet's lifelong labours, the
following may be summarily mentioned: The preparation of steel from
bar-iron by a direct process, combining the iron with carbon; the
discovery of the beneficial effects of oxide of manganese on iron and
steel; the use of oxides of iron in the puddling-furnace in various
modes of appliance; the production of pig-iron from the blast-furnace,
suitable for puddling, without the intervention of the refinery; and
the application of the hot blast to anthracite coal in iron-smelting.
For the process of combining iron with carbon for the production of
steel, Mr. Mushet took out a patent in November, 1800; and many years
after, when he had discovered the beneficial effects of oxide of
manganese on steel, Mr. Josiah Heath founded upon it his celebrated
patent for the making of cast-steel, which had the effect of raising
the annual production of that metal in Sheffield from 3000 to 100,000
tons. His application of the hot blast to anthracite coal, after a
process invented by him and adopted by the Messrs. Hill of the Plymouth
Iron Works, South Wales, had the effect of producing savings equal to
about 20,000L. a year at those works; and yet, strange to say, Mr.
Mushet himself never received any consideration for his invention.
The discovery of Titanium by Mr. Mushet in the hearth of a
blast-furnace in 1794 would now be regarded as a mere isolated fact,
inasmuch as Titanium was not placed in the list of recognised metals
until Dr. Wollaston, many years later, ascertained its qualities. But
in connection with the fact, it may be mentioned that Mr. Mushet's
youngest son, Robert, reasoning on the peculiar circumstances of the
discovery in question, of which ample record is left, has founded upon
it his Titanium process, which is expected by him eventually to
supersede all other methods of manufacturing steel, and to reduce very
materially the cost of its production.
While he lived, Mr. Mushet was a leading authority on all matters
connected with Iron and Steel, and he contributed largely to the
scientific works of his time. Besides his papers in the Philosophical
Journal, he wrote the article "Iron" for Napiers Supplement to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; and the articles "Blast Furnace" and "Blowing
Machine" for Rees's Cyclopaedia. The two latter articles had a
considerable influence on the opposition to the intended tax upon iron
in 1807, and were frequently referred to in the discussions on the
subject in Parliament. Mr. Mushet died in 1847.
[1] Dr. Roebuck's grandson, John Arthur Roebuck, by a singular
coincidence, at present represents Sheffield in the British Parliament.
[2] The carronade was invented by General Robert Melville [Mr. Nasmyth
says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for discharging
68 lb, shot with low charges of powder, in order to produce the
increased splintering or SMASHING effects which were known to result
from such practice. The first piece of the kind was cast at the Carron
Foundry, in 1779, and General Melville's family have now in their
possession a small model of this gun, with the inscription:--"Gift of
the Carron Company to Lieutenant-general Melville, inventor of the
smashers and lesser carronades, for solid, ship, shell, and carcass
shot, &c. First used against French ships in 1779."
[3] Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland
studying the subject of his "Penny Wedding;" and Dugald Stewart found
for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he introduced
in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary inhabitants
as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn, once an occupant
of the place, still "haunting" some of the unoccupied chambers. Dugald
Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was going to bed, of the unearthly
wailings which he himself had heard proceeding from the ancient
apartments; but to him at least they had been explained by the door
opening out upon the roof being blown in on gusty nights, when a
jarring and creaking noise was heard all over the house. One advantage
derived from the house being "haunted" was, that the garden was never
broken into, and the winter apples and stores were at all times kept
safe from depredation in the apartments of the Lady Lilburn.
[4] Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he did
not know it. Mr. Ralph Moore, in his "Papers on the Blackband
Ironstones" (Glasgow, 1861), observes:--"Strange to say, he was leaving
behind him, almost as the roof of one of the seams of coal which he
worked, a valuable blackband ironstone, upon which Kinneil Iron Works
are now founded. The coal-field continued to be worked until the
accidental discovery of the blackband about 1845. The old coal-pits
are now used for working the ironstone."
[5] The Mushets are an old Kincardine family; but they were almost
extinguished by the plague in the reign of Charles the Second. Their
numbers were then reduced to two; one of whom remained at Kincardine,
and the other, a clergyman, the Rev. George Mushet, accompanied
Montrose as chaplain. He is buried in Kincardine churchyard.
[6] Papers on Iron and Steel. By David Mushet. London, 1840.
[7] This valuable description of iron ore was discovered by Mr. Mushet,
as he afterwards informs us (Papers on Iron and Steel, 121), in the
year 1801, when crossing the river Calder, in the parish of Old
Monkland. Having subjected a specimen which he found in the river-bed
to the test of his crucible, he satisfied himself as to its properties,
and proceeded to ascertain its geological position and relations. He
shortly found that it belonged to the upper part of the coal-formation,
and hence he designated it carboniferous ironstone. He prosecuted his
researches, and found various rich beds of the mineral distributed
throughout the western counties of Scotland. On analysis, it was found
to contain a little over 50 per cent. of protoxide of iron. The coaly
matter it contained was not its least valuable ingredient; for by the
aid of the hot blast it was afterwards found practicable to smelt it
almost without any addition of coal. Seams of black band have since
been discovered and successfully worked in Edinburghshire,
Staffordshire, and North Wales.
CHAPTER IX.
INVENTION OF THE HOT BLAST--JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON.
"Whilst the exploits of the conqueror and the intrigues of the
demagogue are faithfully preserved through a succession of ages, the
persevering and unobtrusive efforts of genius, developing the best
blessings of the Deity to man, are often consigned to oblivion."--David
Mushet.
The extraordinary value of the Black Band ironstone was not at first
duly recognised, perhaps not even by Mr. Mushet himself. For several
years after its discovery by him, its use was confined to the Calder
Iron Works, where it was employed in mixture with other ironstones of
the argillaceous class. It was afterwards partially used at the Clyde
Iron Works, but nowhere else, a strong feeling of prejudice being
entertained against it on the part of the iron trade generally. It was
not until the year 1825 that the Monkland Company used it alone,
without any other mixture than the necessary quantity of limestone for
a flux. "The success of this Company," says Mr. Mushet, "soon gave
rise to the Gartsherrie and Dundyvan furnaces, in the midst of which
progress came the use of raw pit-coal and the Hot Blast--the latter one
of the greatest discoveries in metallurgy of the present age, and,
above every other process, admirably adapted for smelting the Blackband
ironstone." From the introduction of this process the extraordinary
development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland may be said to date;
and we accordingly propose to devote the present chapter to an account
of its meritorious inventor.
James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a roadside village
about three miles eastward of Glasgow, on the 22nd of June, 1792. His
parents belonged to the working class. His father's earnings during
many laborious years of his life did not exceed sixteen shillings a
week. He had been bred to the trade of a mill-wright, and was for some
time in the employment of Dr. Roebuck as an engine-wright at his
colliery near Boroughstoness. He was next employed in a like capacity
by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs.
Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was
appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal
Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death. It was while
working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with his
future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Renfrewshire bleacher, a
woman remarkable through life for her clever, managing, and industrious
habits. She had the charge of Mrs. Cunningham's children for some time
after the marriage of that lady to Mr. Beaumont, and it was in
compliment to her former mistress and her husband that she named her
youngest son James Beaumont after the latter.
The boy's education was confined to the common elements of reading,
writing, and arithmetic, which he partly acquired at the parish school
of Strathbungo near Glasgow, and partly at the Chapel School, as it was
called, in the Gorbals at Glasgow. He had finally left school before
he was fourteen. Some time before he left, he had been partially set
to work, and earned four shillings a week by employing a part of each
day in driving a small condensing engine which his father had put up in
a neighbouring quarry. After leaving school, he was employed for two
years as a gig boy on one of the winding engines at the Govan colliery.
His parents now considered him of fit age to be apprenticed to some
special trade, and as Beaumont had much of his father's tastes for
mechanical pursuits, it was determined to put him apprentice to a
working engineer. His elder brother John was then acting as engineman
at Oakbank near Glasgow, and Beaumont was apprenticed under him to
learn the trade. John was a person of a studious and serious turn of
mind, and had been strongly attracted to follow the example of the
brothers Haldane, who were then exciting great interest by their
preaching throughout the North; but his father set his face against his
son's "preaching at the back o' dikes," as he called it; and so John
quietly settled down to his work. The engine which the two brothers
managed was a very small one, and the master and apprentice served for
engineman and fireman. Here the youth worked for three years,
employing his leisure hours in the evenings in remedying the defects of
his early education, and endeavouring to acquire a knowledge of English
grammar, drawing, and mathematics.
On the expiry of his apprenticeship, Beaumont continued for a time to
work under his brother as journeyman at a guinea a week; after which,
in 1814, he entered the employment of William Taylor, coal-master at
Irvine, and he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery at a salary
of from 70L. to 80L. a year. One of the improvements which he
introduced in the working of the colliery, while he held that office,
was the laying down of an edge railway of cast-iron, in lengths of
three feet, from the pit to the harbour of Irvine, a distance of three
miles. At the age of 23 he married his first wife, Barbara
Montgomerie, an Irvine lass, with a "tocher" of 250L. This little
provision was all the more serviceable to him, as his master, Taylor,
becoming unfortunate in business, he was suddenly thrown out of
employment, and the little fortune enabled the newly-married pair to
hold their heads above water till better days came round. They took a
humble tenement, consisting of a room and a kitchen, in the Cowcaddens,
Glasgow, where their first child was born.
About this time a gas-work, the first in Glasgow, was projected, and
the company having been formed, the directors advertised for a
superintendent and foreman, to whom they offered a "liberal salary."
Though Beaumont had never seen gaslight before, except at the
illumination of his father's colliery office after the Peace of Amiens,
which was accomplished in a very simple and original manner, without
either condenser, purifier, or gas-holder, and though he knew nothing
of the art of gas-making, he had the courage to apply for the
situation. He was one of twenty candidates, and the fortunate one; and
in August, 1817, we find him appointed foreman of the Glasgow Gasworks,
for five years, at the salary of 90L. a year. Before the expiry of his
term he was reappointed for six years more, at the advanced salary of
200L., with the status of manager and engineer of the works. His
salary was gradually increased to 400L. a year, with a free
dwelling-house, until 1847, when, after a faithful service of thirty
years, during which he had largely extended the central works, and
erected branch works in Tradeston and Partick, he finally resigned the
management.
The situation of manager of the Glasgow Gas-works was in many respects
well suited for the development of Mr. Neilson's peculiar abilities.
In the first place it afforded him facilities for obtaining theoretical
as well as practical knowledge in Chemical Science, of which he was a
diligent student at the Andersonian University, as well as of Natural
Philosophy and Mathematics in their higher branches. In the next place
it gave free scope for his ingenuity in introducing improvements in the
manufacture of gas, then in its infancy. He was the first to employ
clay retorts; and he introduced sulphate of iron as a self-acting
purifier, passing the gas through beds of charcoal to remove its oily
and tarry elements. The swallow-tail or union jet was also his
invention, and it has since come into general use.
While managing the Gas-works, one of Mr. Neilson's labours of love was
the establishment and direction by him of a Workmen's Institution for
mutual improvement. Having been a workman himself, and experienced the
disadvantages of an imperfect education in early life, as well as the
benefits arising from improved culture in later years, he desired to
impart some of these advantages to the workmen in his employment, who
consisted chiefly of persons from remote parts of the Highlands or from
Ireland. Most of them could not even read, and his principal
difficulty consisted in persuading them that it was of any use to
learn. For some time they resisted his persuasions to form a Workmen's
Institution, with a view to the establishment of a library, classes,
and lectures, urging as a sufficient plea for not joining it, that they
could not read, and that books would be of no use to them. At last Mr.
Neilson succeeded, though with considerable difficulty, in inducing
fourteen of the workmen to adopt his plan. Each member was to
contribute a small sum monthly, to be laid out in books, the Gas
Company providing the members with a comfortable room in which they
might meet to read and converse in the evenings instead of going to the
alehouse. The members were afterwards allowed to take the books home
to read, and the room was used for the purpose of conversation on the
subjects of the books read by them, and occasionally for lectures
delivered by the members themselves on geography, arithmetic,
chemistry, and mechanics. Their numbers increased so that the room in
which they met became insufficient for their accommodation, when the
Gas Company provided them with a new and larger place of meeting,
together with a laboratory and workshop. In the former they studied
practical chemistry, and in the latter they studied practical
mechanics, making for themselves an air pump and an electrifying
machine, as well as preparing the various models used in the course of
the lectures. The effects on the workmen were eminently beneficial,
and the institution came to be cited as among the most valuable of its
kind in the kingdom.[1]
Mr. Neilson throughout watched carefully over its working, and exerted
himself in all ways to promote its usefulness, in which he had the
zealous co-operation of the leading workmen themselves, and the
gratitude of all. On the opening of the new and enlarged rooms in
1825, we find him delivering an admirable address, which was thought
worthy of republication, together with the reply of George Sutherland,
one of the workmen, in which Mr. Neilson's exertions as its founder and
chief supporter were gratefully and forcibly expressed.[2]
It was during the period of his connection with the Glasgow Gas-works
that Mr. Neilson directed his attention to the smelting of iron. His
views in regard to the subject were at first somewhat crude, as appears
from a paper read by him before the Glasgow Philosophical Society early
in 1825. It appears that in the course of the preceding year his
attention had been called to the subject by an iron-maker, who asked
him if he thought it possible to purify the air blown into the blast
furnaces, in like manner as carburetted hydrogen gas was purified. The
ironmaster supposed that it was the presence of sulphur in the air that
caused blast-furnaces to work irregularly, and to make bad iron in the
summer months. Mr. Neilson was of opinion that this was not the true
cause, and he was rather disposed to think it attributable to the want
of a due proportion of oxygen in summer, when the air was more
rarefied, besides containing more aqueous vapour than in winter. He
therefore thought the true remedy was in some way or other to throw in
a greater proportion of oxygen; and he suggested that, in order to dry
the air, it should be passed, on its way to the furnace, through two
long tunnels containing calcined lime. But further inquiry served to
correct his views, and eventually led him to the true theory of
blasting.
Shortly after, his attention was directed by Mr. James Ewing to a
defect in one of the Muirkirk blast-furnaces, situated about half a
mile distant from the blowing-engine, which was found not to work so
well as others which were situated close to it. The circumstances of
the case led Mr. Neilson to form the opinion that, as air increases in
volume according to temperature, if he were to heat it by passing it
through a red-hot vessel, its volume would be increased, according to
the well-known law, and the blast might thus be enabled to do more duty
in the distant furnace. He proceeded to make a series of experiments
at the Gas-works, trying the effect of heated air on the illuminating
power of gas, by bringing up a stream of it in a tube so as to surround
the gas-burner. He found that by this means the combustion of the gas
was rendered more intense, and its illuminating power greatly
increased. He proceeded to try a similar experiment on a common
smith's fire, by blowing the fire with heated air, and the effect was
the same; the fire was much more brilliant, and accompanied by an
unusually intense degree of heat.
Having obtained such marked results by these small experiments, it
naturally occurred to him that a similar increase in intensity of
combustion and temperature would attend the application of the process
to the blast-furnace on a large scale; but being only a gas-maker, he
had the greatest difficulty in persuading any ironmaster to permit him
to make the necessary experiment's with blast-furnaces actually at
work. Besides, his theory was altogether at variance with the
established practice, which was to supply air as cold as possible, the
prevailing idea being that the coldness of the air in winter was the
cause of the best iron being then produced. Acting on these views, the
efforts of the ironmasters had always been directed to the cooling of
the blast, and various expedients were devised for the purpose. Thus
the regulator was painted white, as being the coolest colour; the air
was passed over cold water, and in some cases the air pipes were even
surrounded by ice, all with the object of keeping the blast cold.
When, therefore, Mr. Neilson proposed entirely to reverse the process,
and to employ hot instead of cold blast, the incredulity of the
ironmasters may well be imagined. What! Neilson, a mere maker of gas,
undertake to instruct practical men in the manufacture of iron! And to
suppose that heated air can be used for the purpose! It was
presumption in the extreme, or at best the mere visionary idea of a
person altogether unacquainted with the subject!
At length, however, Mr. Neilson succeeded in inducing Mr. Charles
Macintosh of Crossbasket, and Mr. Colin Dunlop of the Clyde Iron Works,
to allow him to make a trial of the hot air process. In the first
imperfect attempts the air was heated to little more than 80 degrees
Fahrenheit, yet the results were satisfactory, and the scoriae from the
furnace evidently contained less iron. He was therefore desirous of
trying his plan upon a more extensive scale, with the object, if
possible, of thoroughly establishing the soundness of his principle.
In this he was a good deal hampered even by those ironmasters who were
his friends, and had promised him the requisite opportunities for
making a fair trial of the new process. They strongly objected to his
making the necessary alterations in the furnaces, and he seemed to be
as far from a satisfactory experiment as ever. In one instance, where
he had so far succeeded as to be allowed to heat the blast-main, he
asked permission to introduce deflecting plates in the main or to put a
bend in the pipe, so as to bring the blast more closely against the
heated sides of the pipe, and also increase the area of heating
surface, in order to raise the temperature to a higher point; but this
was refused, and it was said that if even a bend were put in the pipe
the furnace would stop working. These prejudices proved a serious
difficulty in the way of our inventor, and several more years passed
before he was allowed to put a bend in the blast-main. After many
years of perseverance, he was, however, at length enabled to work out
his plan into a definite shape at the Clyde Iron Works, and its
practical value was at once admitted. At the meeting of the Mechanical
Engineers' Society held in May, 1859, Mr. Neilson explained that his
invention consisted solely in the principle of heating the blast
between the engine and the furnace, and was not associated with any
particular construction of the intermediate heating apparatus. This,
he said, was the cause of its success; and in some respects it
resembled the invention of his countryman, James Watt, who, in
connection with the steam-engine, invented the plan of condensing the
steam in a separate vessel, and was successful in maintaining his
invention by not limiting it to any particular construction of the
condenser. On the same occasion he took the opportunity of
acknowledging the firmness with which the English ironmasters had stood
by him when attempts were made to deprive him of the benefits of his
invention; and to them he acknowledged he was mainly indebted for the
successful issue of the severe contests he had to undergo. For there
were, of course, certain of the ironmasters, both English and Scotch,
supporters of the cause of free trade in others' inventions, who sought
to resist the patent, after it had come into general use, and had been
recognised as one of the most valuable improvements of modern times.[3]
The patent was secured in 1828 for a term of fourteen years; but, as
Mr. Neilson did not himself possess the requisite capital to enable him
to perfect the invention, or to defend it if attacked, he found it
necessary to invite other gentlemen, able to support him in these
respects, to share its profits; retaining for himself only three-tenths
of the whole. His partners were Mr. Charles Macintosh, Mr. Colin
Dunlop, and Mr. John Wilson of Dundyvan. The charge made by them was
only a shilling a ton for all iron produced by the new process; this
low rate being fixed in order to ensure the introduction of the patent
into general use, as well as to reduce to a minimum the temptations of
the ironmasters to infringe it.
The first trials of the process were made at the blast-furnaces of
Clyde and Calder; from whence the use of the hot blast gradually
extended to the other iron-mining districts. In the course of a few
years every furnace in Scotland, with one exception (that at Carron),
had adopted the improvement; while it was also employed in half the
furnaces of England and Wales, and in many of the furnaces on the
Continent and in America. In course of time, and with increasing
experience, various improvements were introduced in the process, more
particularly in the shape of the air-heating vessels; the last form
adopted being that of a congeries of tubes, similar to the tubular
arrangement in the boiler of the locomotive, by which the greatest
extent of heating surface was provided for the thorough heating of the
air. By these modifications the temperature of the air introduced into
the furnace has been raised from 240 degrees to 600 degrees, or the
temperature of melting lead. To protect the nozzle of the air-pipe as
it entered the furnace against the action of the intense heat to which
it was subjected, a spiral pipe for a stream of cold water constantly
to play in has been introduced within the sides of the iron tuyere
through which the nozzle passes; by which means the tuyere is kept
comparatively cool, while the nozzle of the air-pipe is effectually
protected.[4]
This valuable invention did not escape the usual fate of successful
patents, and it was on several occasions the subject of protracted
litigation. The first action occurred in 1832; but the objectors
shortly gave in, and renewed their licence. In 1839, when the process
had become generally adopted throughout Scotland, and, indeed, was
found absolutely essential for smelting the peculiar ores of that
country--more especially Mushet's Black Band--a powerful combination
was formed amongst the ironmasters to resist the patent. The
litigation which ensued extended over five years, during which period
some twenty actions were proceeding in Scotland, and several in
England. Three juries sat upon the subject at different times, and on
three occasions appeals were carried to the House of Lords. One jury
trial occupied ten days, during which a hundred and two witnesses were
examined; the law costs on both sides amounting, it is supposed, to at
least 40,000L. The result was, that the novelty and merit of Mr.
Neilson's invention were finally established, and he was secured in the
enjoyment of the patent right.
We are gratified to add, that, though Mr. Neilson had to part with
two-thirds of the profits of the invention to secure the capital and
influence necessary to bring it into general use, he realized
sufficient to enable him to enjoy the evening of his life in peace and
comfort. He retired from active business to an estate which he
purchased in 1851 in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, where he is found
ready to lend a hand in every good work--whether in agricultural
improvement, railway extension, or the moral and social good of those
about him. Mindful of the success of his Workmen's Institution at the
Glasgow Gas-Works, he has, almost at his own door, erected a similar
Institution for the use of the parish in which his property is
situated, the beneficial effects of which have been very marked in the
district. We may add that Mr. Neilson's merits have been recognised by
many eminent bodies--by the Institution of Civil Engineers, the
Chemical Society, and others--the last honour conferred on him being
his election as a Member of the Royal Society in 1846.
The invention of the hot blast, in conjunction with the discovery of
the Black Band ironstone, has had an extra ordinary effect upon the
development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland. The coals of that
country are generally unfit for coking, and lose as much as 55 per
cent. in the process. But by using the hot blast, the coal could be
sent to the blast-furnace in its raw state, by which a large saving of
fuel was effected.[5] Even coals of an inferior quality were by its
means made available for the manufacture of iron. But one of the
peculiar qualities of the Black Band ironstone is that in many cases it
contains sufficient coaly matter for purposes of calcination, without
any admixture of coal whatever. Before its discovery, all the iron
manufactured in Scotland was made from clay-band; but the use of the
latter has in a great measure been discontinued wherever a sufficient
supply of Black Band can be obtained. And it is found to exist very
extensively in most of the midland Scotch counties,--the coal and iron
measures stretching in a broad belt from the Firth of Forth to the
Irish Channel at the Firth of Clyde. At the time when the hot blast
was invented, the fortunes of many of the older works were at a low
ebb, and several of them had been discontinued; but they were speedily
brought to life again wherever Black Band could be found. In 1829, the
year after Neilson's patent was taken out, the total make of Scotland
was 29,000 tons. As fresh discoveries of the mineral were made, in
Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, new works were erected, until, in 1845, we
find the production of Scotch pig-iron had increased to 475,000 tons.
It has since increased to upwards of a million of tons,
nineteen-twentieths of which are made from Black Band ironstone.[6]
Employment has thus been given to vast numbers of our industrial
population, and the wealth and resources of the Scotch iron districts
have been increased to an extraordinary extent. During the last year
there were 125 furnaces in blast throughout Scotland, each employing
about 400 men in making an average of 200 tons a week; and the money
distributed amongst the workmen may readily be computed from the fact
that, under the most favourable circumstances, the cost of making iron
in wages alone amounts to 36s. a-ton.[7]
An immense additional value was given to all land in which the Black
Band was found. Mr. Mushet mentions that in 1839 the proprietor of the
Airdrie estate derived a royalty of 16,500L. from the mineral, which
had not before its discovery yielded him one farthing. At the same
time, many fortunes have been made by pushing and energetic men who
have of late years entered upon this new branch of industry. Amongst
these may be mentioned the Bairds of Gartsherrie, who vie with the
Guests and Crawshays of South Wales, and have advanced themselves in
the course of a very few years from the station of small farmers to
that of great capitalists owning estates in many counties, holding the
highest character commercial men, and ranking among the largest
employers of labour in the kingdom.
[1] Article by Dugald Bannatyne in Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, No. 53,
Dec. 1824.
[2] Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 159.
[3] Mr. Mushet described it as "a wonderful discovery," and one of the
"most novel and beautiful improvements in his time." Professor Gregory
of Aberdeen characterized it as "the greatest improvement with which he
was acquainted." Mr. Jessop, an extensive English iron manufacturer,
declared it to be "of as great advantage in the iron trade as
Arkwright's machinery was in the cotton-spinning trade"; and Mr.
Fairbairn, in his contribution on "Iron" in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, says that it "has effected an entire revolution in the iron
industry of Great Britain, and forms the last era in the history of
this material."
[4] The invention of the tubular air-vessels and the water-tuyere
belongs, we believe, to Mr. John Condie, sometime manager of the Blair
Iron Works.
[5] Mr. Mushet says, "The greatest produce in iron per furnace with the
Black Band and cold blast never exceeded 60 tons a-week. The produce
per furnace now averages 90 tons a-week. Ten tons of this I attribute
to the use of raw pit-coal, and the other twenty tons to the use of hot
blast." [Papers on Iron and Steel, 127.] The produce per furnace is
now 200 tons a-week and upwards. The hot blast process was afterwards
applied to the making of iron with the anthracite or stone coal of
Wales; for which a patent was taken out by George Crane in 1836.
Before the hot blast was introduced, anthracite coal would not act as
fuel in the blast-furnace. When put in, it merely had the effect of
putting the fire out. With the aid of the hot blast, however, it now
proves to be a most valuable fuel in smelting.
[6] It is stated in the North British Review for Nov. 1845, that "As in
Scotland every furnace--with the exception of one at Carron--now uses
the hot blast the saving on our present produce of 400,000 tons of
pig-iron is 2,000,000 tons of coals, 200,000 tons of limestone, and
#650,000 sterling per annum." But as the Scotch produce is now above a
million tons of pig-iron a year, the above figures will have to be
multiplied by 2 1/2 to give the present annual savings.
[7] Papers read by Mr. Ralph Moore, Mining Engineer, Glasgow, before
the Royal Scottish Society of Arts, Edin. 1861, pp. 13, 14.
CHAPTER X.
MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS.
"L'invention nest-elle pas la poesie de la science? . . . Toutes les
grandes decouvertes portent avec elles la trace ineffacable d'une
pensee poetique. Il faut etre poete pour creer. Aussi, sommes-nous
convaincus que si les puissantes machines, veritable source de la
production et de l'industrie de nos jours, doivent recevoir des
modifications radicales, ce sera a des hommes d'imagination, et non
point a dea hommes purement speciaux, que l'on devra cette
transformation."--E. M. BATAILLE, Traite des Machines a Vapeur.
Tools have played a highly important part in the history of
civilization. Without tools and the ability to use them, man were
indeed but a "poor, bare, forked animal,"--worse clothed than the
birds, worse housed than the beaver, worse fed than the jackal. "Weak
in himself," says Carlyle, "and of small stature, he stands on a basis,
at most for the flattest-soled, of some half square foot, insecurely
enough; has to straddle out his legs, Jest the very wind supplant him.
Feeblest of bipeds! Three quintals are a crushing load for him; the
steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste rag. Nevertheless he
can use tools, can devise tools: with these the granite mountain melts
into light dust before him; he kneads glowing iron as if it were soft
paste; seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unvarying
steeds. Nowhere do you find him without tools: without tools he is
nothing; with tools he is all." His very first contrivances to support
life were tools of the simplest and rudest construction; and his latest
achievements in the substitution of machinery for the relief of the
human hand and intellect are founded on the use of tools of a still
higher order. Hence it is not without good reason that man has by some
philosophers been defined as A TOOL-MAKING ANIMAL.