Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool MakersSmiles, Samuel
History
Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers
Smiles, Samuel
Industrial arts -- Biography; Iron industry and trade -- Great Britain -- Biography
"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
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