4 Lange, Bessemer, Goranssojt and Mnshet. 



age of twenty-one, he married the daughter of his friend 

 Richard Allen — a happy partnership that lasted until her 

 death sixt}'-three }-ears later, in 1897, within a year of his 

 own death. 



Following upon his marriage, Bessemer invented his 

 beautiful and profitable process for the production of 

 imitation Utrecht velvet," and in 1843 he started his 

 secret process of manufacturing bronze powder, w^hich, 

 with the help of his brother-in-law, Richard Allen, junior, 

 was to run for nearly forty years, and which provided the 

 money for his early steel-making experiments. 



We now find Bessemer engaged in improvements in 

 sugar-making machinery and glass-making machinery, 

 which were exhibited in the International Exhibition of 

 1851.^ At this time, he had as confidential partner in his 

 drawing office, Robert Longsdon, who afterwards became 

 his brother-in-law.^ 



The Bessemer Steel Process. 

 The history of the Bessemer process begins with the 

 invention, in 1854, of a rotating projectile for the, then, 

 smooth-bore guns, and which the War Office, with its 

 usual conservatism, ignored. Bessemer, however, succeeded 

 in interesting Louis Napoleon, later Napoleon III, in his 

 invention, and money for experiments was advanced by 

 Napoleon, he himself being the author of an important 

 work on artillery." 



- Samples of some of the earliest pieces of this imitation embossed 

 Utrecht velvet came into the possession cf a friend of the family — Sir William 

 Bailey, of Salford — and some correspondence relating to the same will be 

 found in the Appendix, Note i. 



' See Appendix, Note 2. 



•* Another Longsdon (Alfred) ultimately became the representative of 

 Krupp, of Essen, in England. On the death of Alfred Longsdon — then a 

 director of Krupp — August Reichwald became the sole representative in the 

 United Kingdom for the Krupp Company. 



^ Napoleon, Etudes sur le passe et I'avenir de Taitilleiie. Paris, 1846. 



