Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ivii. (1913), A^^. 17. n 



In his autobiography Bessemer gives a somewhat 

 naive account of the failures that followed his Cheltenham 

 paper. 



The first converters were erected at Messrs. Galloways' 

 at Manchester, at Dowlais in Wales, and at the Govan 

 Ironworks at Glasgow, and, in each case, the results of the 

 trials were most disastrous. Bessemer says : — 



" The ordinary pig-iron used for bar-iron making was 

 "found to contain so much phosphorus as to render it 

 " wholly unfit for making iron by my process. This startling 

 "fact came on me suddenly, like a bolt from the blue ; its 

 "effect was absolutely overwhelming. The transition from 

 " what appeared to be a crowning success to one of utter 

 " failure well nigh paralysed all my energies. Day by day 

 " fresh reports of failure arrived ; the cry was taken up in 

 " the press ; every paper had its letters from correspondents, 

 "and leaders, denouncing the whole scheme as the dream 

 "of a wild enthusiast, such as no sensible man could for a 

 "moment have entertained. I well remember that one 

 "paper, after rating me in pretty strong terms, spoke of my 

 "invention as 'a brilliant meteor that had flitted across the 

 " metallurgical horizon for a short space, only to die out in 

 " a train of sparks, and then to vanish into total darkness.' ^" 



"I was present at some of these trials, and saw the 

 " utter failure that resulted with the quality of metal operated 

 "upon. It is a curious and scarcely credible fact that not 

 " one of the ironmasters who had previously felt such 

 "abundant confidence in the success of the process, as to 

 " back their opinions with large sums of money, took any 

 " trouble whatever or offered any practical or scientific 

 " help towards getting over this unlooked-for difficulty. They 

 "all stood by, mere passive and inert observers of the fact, 

 " not one of them lifting up a finger, or stretching out a hand 

 " to save the wreck.'' 



At this juncture, Bessemer saw that it was necessary 

 for him to know what the constituents of commercial pig- 

 iron were, and he, accordingly, called in the aid of Dr. 



^ " So universal was the condemnation, that the Council of the British 

 Association, in spite of the reception given to the paper and the proofs 

 afforded of its correctness in principle, decided to omit all mention of the 

 paper in their published Transactions. See Appendix, Note 3. 



