Space forbids us mentioning other worthy names in the steel and iron
trade, although we cannot pass by Sir John Brown, founder of the Atlas
Steel-works, Sheffield (1857), and one of the first to adopt the
Bessemer process. He was also the pioneer of armour-plate making. The
immense strides he made in business may be judged from the fact that
when he started in 1857 his employees numbered 200, with a turnover of
£3000 a year; in 1867 they numbered 4000, and the turnover was
£1,000,000. The weekly pay roll amounted to £7000 in 1883, and when he
handed over the business to his successors, he was paid £200,000 for the
goodwill.
KRUPP'S IRON AND STEEL WORKS AT ESSEN.
One of the largest iron and steel manufacturing establishments in the
world is that founded by the late Alfred Krupp, the famous German
cannon-founder, whose name is so well known in connection with modern
improvements in artillery. His principal works are situated at Essen, in
Prussia, in the midst of a district productive of both iron and coal.
The town of Essen, which at the beginning of the present century
contained less than four thousand inhabitants, has become an important
industrial centre, with a population of nearly eighty thousand persons,
this increase being chiefly due to the growth of the ironworks, and the
consequent demand for labour. In the vicinity of the town, numerous coal
and iron mines, many of which are owned by the Krupp firm, are in active
working, and furnish employment to the large population of the
surrounding district. Much of the output of iron ore and coal from these
mines is destined for consumption in the vast Krupp works within the
town. Those works had their origin in a small iron forge established at
Essen in the year 1810 by Frederick Krupp, the father of Alfred Krupp.
The elder Krupp was not prosperous; and a lawsuit in which he became
involved, and which lasted for ten years, though finally decided in his
favour, reduced him nearly to bankruptcy. He died in 1826, in
impoverished circumstances, leaving a widow and three sons, the eldest
of whom was Alfred, aged fourteen. The business was continued by the
widow, who managed, though with difficulty, to procure a good education
for her sons. When the eldest, Alfred, took control of the works in
1848, he found there, as he himself has described, 'three workmen, and
more debts than fortune.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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