Sir Henry Bessemer

Sir Henry Bessemer , English engineer and inventor, b. Charleton, Hertfordshire. He made experiments to obtain stronger material for gun manufacture and discovered the basic principle of the Bessemer process . In 1856 he read before the British Association at Cheltenham his important paper "The Manufacture of Iron without Fuel." He built a successful converter and later erected the Bessemer Steel Works at Sheffield, which began to operate in 1859 and soon produced iron so cheaply that he could undersell his competitors. In the United States the Bessemer process was patented in 1857, but Bessemer's priority right there was challenged by William Kelly, and in the end the battle between the two interests was settled by a consolidation of the rival companies. Bessemer received many honors for his signal achievement and was knighted in 1879.

Bibliography: See his autobiography (1905, new ed. 1924).

Bessemer, Sir Henry (1813–98). Bessemer distinguished himself as a professional inventor. His most successful invention was the process which bears his name for making steel—previously an expensive material in short supply—available in bulk. Invented in 1856, it involved blowing air through molten cast iron so that itcombined with excess carbon in the melt to produce mild steel in substantial quantities. Steel from ‘Bessemer converters’ came to be used extensively in railway lines, ship plate, and forgings for large guns.