Manchester Memoirs, VoL Ivii. (191 3), No. IT. 3 



the first copying-machine for reproducing engraved work. 

 At the time of the French Revolution, he fled to England, 

 narrowly escaping with his life. Here he married, and 

 settled in the little village of Charlton. Here, also, he 

 started the trade of type-founding, and, together with his 

 partner, Caslon by name, built up a flourishing business. 

 Here in this village, Henry Bessemer was born, and from 

 his earliest youth was brought into contact with the 

 skilled mechanical work of the type-foundry. When he 

 was seventeen years of age, the family removed to Camden 

 Town, in the north of London. Here he made the 

 acquaintance of the Aliens and Longsdons, an event of 

 great import for his future. 



Bessemer made his first step towards independence 

 by turning to commercial account his hobby of the making 

 of art-castings. When twenty years old, he was already 

 an exhibitor at the Royal Academy/ From this he 

 passed on to the production of decorative stamping-work, 

 in which his father's experience at the Paris Mint proved 

 useful. We find him also at this date considering a 

 method of preventing the transfer of Government stamps 

 from old to new deeds, a practice which, he was informed, 

 was causing the Stamp Ofiice a loss of revenue of about 

 i^ 100,000 a year. This he accomplished by his invention 

 of the method of dating stamps by perforation. Not 

 having patented this invention, he received no reward for 

 the same, in spite of official promises. Forty-five years 

 later, when wealthy and celebrated by reason of other 

 achievements, he was knighted for the invention thus so 

 unjustifiably appropriated. His unfortunate experience 

 with the Stamp Ofiice turned young Bessemer from an 

 amateur into a man of business, and we find him making 

 money by many ingenious mechanical processes. At the 

 ^ See Ure's " Diclionary of Arts, Manufactures and Mines." 



