Industrial Biography

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The extraordinary expansion of the Scotch iron trade of late years
has been mainly due to the discovery by David Mushet of the Black
Band ironstone in 1801, and the invention of the Hot Blast by James
Beaumont Neilson in 1828. David Mushet was born at Dalkeith, near
Edinburgh, in 1772.*
[footnpote...
The Mushets are an old Kincardine family; but they were almost
extinguished by the plague in the reign of Charles the Second. Their
numbers were then reduced to two; one of whom remained at Kincardine,
and the other, a clergyman, the Rev. George Mushet , accompanied
Montrose as chaplain. He is buried in Kincardine churchyard.
...]
Like other members of his family he was brought up to metal-founding.
At the age of nineteen he joined the staff of the Clyde Iron Works,
near Glasgow, at a time when the Company had only two blast-furnaces
at work. The office of accountant, which he held, precluded him from
taking any part in the manufacturing operations of the concern. But
being of a speculative and ingenious turn of mind, the remarkable
conversions which iron underwent in the process of manufacture very
shortly began to occupy his attention. The subject was much discussed
by the young men about the works, and they frequently had occasion to
refer to Foureroy's well-known book for the purpose of determining
various questions of difference which arose among them in the course
of their inquiries. The book was, however, in many respects
indecisive and unsatisfactory; and, in 1793, when a reduction took
place in the Company's staff, and David Mushet was left nearly the
sole occupant of the office, he determined to study the subject for
himself experimentally, and in the first place to acquire a thorough
knowledge of assaying, as the true key to the whole art of
iron-making.

He first set up his crucible upon the bridge of the reverberatory
furnace used for melting pig-iron, and filled it with a mixture
carefully compounded according to the formula of the books; but,
notwithstanding the shelter of a brick, placed before it to break the
action of the flame, the crucible generally split in two, and not
unfrequently melted and disappeared altogether. To obtain better
results if possible, he next had recourse to the ordinary smith's
fire, carrying on his experiments in the evenings after office-hours.
He set his crucible upon the fire on a piece of fire brick, opposite
the nozzle of the bellows; covering the whole with coke, and then
exciting the flame by blowing. This mode of operating produced
somewhat better results, but still neither the iron nor the cinder
obtained resembled the pig or scoria of the blast-furnace, which it
was his ambition to imitate. From the irregularity of the results,
and the frequent failure of the crucibles, he came to the conclusion
that either his furnace, or his mode of fluxing, was in fault, and he
looked about him for a more convenient means of pursuing his
experiments. A small square furnace had been erected in the works for
the purpose of heating the rivets used for the repair of steam-engine
boilers; the furnace had for its chimney a cast-iron pipe six or
seven inches in diameter and nine feet long. After a few trials with
it, he raised the heat to such an extent that the lower end of the
pipe was melted off, without producing any very satisfactory results
on the experimental crucible, and his operations were again brought
to a standstill. A chimney of brick having been substituted for the
cast-iron pipe, he was, however, enabled to proceed with his trials.

He continued to pursue his experiments in assaying for about two
years, during which he had been working entirely after the methods
described in books; but, feeling the results still unsatisfactory, he
determined to borrow no more from the books, but to work out a system
of his own, which should ensure results similar to those produced at
the blast-furnace. This he eventually succeeded in effecting by
numerous experiments performed in the night; as his time was fully
occupied by his office-duties during the day. At length these patient
experiments bore their due fruits. David Mushet became the most
skilled assayer at the works; and when a difficulty occurred in
smelting a quantity of new ironstone which had been contracted for,
the manager himself resorted to the bookkeeper for advice and
information; and the skill and experience which he had gathered
during his nightly labours, enabled him readily and satisfactorily to
solve the difficulty and suggest a suitable remedy. His reward for
this achievement was the permission, which was immediately granted
him by the manager, to make use of his own assay-furnace, in which he
thenceforward continued his investigations, at the same time that he
instructed the manager's son in the art of assaying. This additional
experience proved of great benefit to him; and he continued to
prosecute his inquiries with much zeal, sometimes devoting entire
nights to experiments in assaying, roasting and cementing iron-ores
and ironstone, decarbonating cast-iron for steel and bar-iron, and
various like operations. His general practice, however, at that time
was, to retire between two and three o'clock in the morning, leaving
directions with the engine-man to call him at half-past five, so as
to be present in the office at six. But these praiseworthy
experiments were brought to a sudden end, as thus described by
himself: --

"In the midst of my career of investigation," says he,*
[footnote...
Papers on Iron and Steel. By David Mushet. London, 1840.
...]
"and without a cause being assigned, I was stopped short. My
furnaces, at the order of the manager, were pulled in pieces, and an
edict was passed that they should never be erected again. Thus
terminated my researches at the Clyde Iron Works. It happened at a
time when I was interested--and I had been two years previously
occupied--in an attempt to convert cast-iron into steel, without
fusion, by a process of cementation, which had for its object the
dispersion or absorption of the superfluous carbon contained in the
cast-iron,--an object which at that time appeared to me of so great
importance, that, with the consent of a friend, I erected an assay
and cementing Furnace at the distance of about two miles from the
Clyde Works. Thither I repaired at night, and sometimes at the
breakfast and dinner hours during the day. This plan of operation was
persevered in for the whole of one summer, but was found too
uncertain and laborious to be continued. At the latter end of the
year 1798 I left my chambers, and removed from the Clyde Works to the
distance of about a mile, where I constructed several furnaces for
assaying and cementing, capable of exciting a greater temperature
than any to which I before had access; and thus for nearly two years
I continued to carry on my investigations connected with iron and the
alloys of the metals.

"Though operating in a retired manner, and holding little
communication with others, my views and opinions upon the RATIONALE
of iron-making spread over the establishment. I was considered
forward in affecting to see and explain matters in a different way
from others who were much my seniors, and who were content to be
satisfied with old methods of explanation, or with no explanation at
all..... Notwithstanding these early reproaches, I have lived to see
the nomenclature of my youth furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art
of iron-making, which is used by many of the ironmasters of the
present day with freedom and effect, in communicating with each other
on the subject of their respective manufactures. Prejudices seldom
outlive the generation to which they belong, when opposed by a more
rational system of explanation. In this respect, Time (as my Lord
Bacon says) is the greatest of all innovators.

"In a similar manner, Time operated in my favour in respect to the
Black Band Ironstone.*
[footnote...
This valuable description of iron ore was discovered by Mr. Mushet,
as he afterwards informs us (Papers on Iron and Steel, 121),in the
year 1801, when crossing the river Calder, in the parish of Old
Monkland. Having subjected a specimen which he found in the river-bed
to the test of his crucible, he satisfied himself as to its
properties, and proceeded to ascertain its geological position and
relations. He shortly found that it belonged to the upper part of the
coal-formation, and hence he designated it carboniferous ironstone.
He prosecuted his researches, and found various rich beds of the
mineral distributed throughout the western counties of Scotland. On
analysis, it was found to contain a little over 50 per cent. of
protoxide of iron. The coaly matter it contained was not its least
valuable ingredient; for by the aid of the hot blast it was
afterwards found practicable to smelt it almost without any addition
of coal. Seams of black band have since been discovered and
successfully worked in Edinburghshire, Staffordshire, and North
Wales.
...]
The discovery of this was made in 1801, when I was engaged in
erecting for myself and partners the Calder Iron Works. Great
prejudice was excited against me by the ironmasters and others of
that day in presuming to class the WILD COALS of the country (as
Black Band was called) with ironstone fit and proper for the blast
furnace. Yet that discovery has elevated Scotland to a considerable
rank among the iron-making nations of Europe, with resources still in
store that may be considered inexhaustible. But such are the
consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer of 1801 is no longer
considered the intrusive visionary of the laboratory, but the
acknowledged benefactor of his country at large, and particularly of
an extensive class of coal and mine proprietors and iron masters, who
have derived, and are still deriving, great wealth from this
important discovery; and who, in the spirit of grateful
acknowledgment, have pronounced it worthy of a crown of gold, or a
monumental record on the spot where the discovery was first made.

"At an advanced period of life, such considerations are soothing and
satisfactory. Many under similar circumstances have not, in their own
lifetime, had that measure of justice awarded to them by their
country to which they were equally entitled. I accept it, however, as
a boon justly due to me, and as an equivalent in some degree for that
laborious course of investigation which I had prescribed for myself,
and which, in early life, was carried on under circumstances of
personal exposure and inconvenience, which nothing but a frame of
iron could have supported. They atone also ,in part, for that
disappointment sustained in early life by the speculative habits of
one partner, and the constitutional nervousness of another, which
eventually occasioned my separation from the Calder Iron Works, and
lost me the possession of extensive tracts of Black Band iron-stone,
which I had secured while the value of the discovery was known only
to myself."

Mr. Mushet published the results of his laborious investigations in a
series of papers in the Philosophical Magazine,--afterwards reprinted
in a collected form in 1840 under the title of "Papers on Iron and
Steel." These papers are among the most valuable original
contributions to the literature of the iron-manufacture that have yet
been given to the world. They contain the germs of many inventions
and discoveries in iron and steel, some of which were perfected by
Mr. Mushet himself, while others were adopted and worked out by
different experimenters. In 1798 some of the leading French chemists
were endeavouring to prove by experiment that steel could be made by
contact of the diamond with bar-iron in the crucible, the carbon of
the diamond being liberated and entering into combination with the
iron, forming steel. In the animated controversy which occurred on
the subject, Mr. Mushet's name was brought into considerable notice;
one of the subjects of his published experiments having been the
conversion of bar-iron into steel in the crucible by contact with
regulated proportions of charcoal. The experiments which he made in
connection with this controversy, though in themselves unproductive
of results, led to the important discovery by Mr. Mushet of the
certain fusibility of malleable iron at a suitable temperature.

Among the other important results of Mr. Mushet's lifelong labours,
the following may be summarily mentioned: The preparation of steel
from bar-iron by a direct process, combining the iron with carbon;
the discovery of the beneficial effects of oxide of manganese on iron
and steel; the use of oxides of iron in the puddling-furnace in
various modes of appliance; the production of pig-iron from the
blast-furnace, suitable for puddling, without the intervention of the
refinery; and the application of the hot blast to anthracite coal in
iron-smelting. For the process of combining iron with carbon for the
production of steel, Mr. Mushet took out a patent in November, 1800;
and many years after, when he had discovered the beneficial effects
of oxide of manganese on steel, Mr. Josiah Heath founded upon it his
celebrated patent for the making of cast-steel, which had the effect
of raising the annual production of that metal in Sheffield from 3000
to 100,000 tons. His application of the hot blast to anthracite coal,
after a process invented by him and adopted by the Messrs. Hill of
the Plymouth Iron Works, South Wales, had the effect of producing
savings equal to about 20,000L. a year at those works; and yet,
strange to say, Mr. Mushet himself never received any consideration
for his invention.

The discovery of Titanium by Mr. Mushet in the hearth of a
blast-furnace in 1794 would now be regarded as a mere isolated fact,
inasmuch as Titanium was not placed in the list of recognised metals
until Dr. Wollaston, many years later, ascertained its qualities. But
in connection with the fact, it may be mentioned that Mr. Mushet's
youngest son, Robert, reasoning on the peculiar circumstances of the
discovery in question, of which ample record is left, has founded
upon it his Titanium process, which is expected by him eventually to
supersede all other methods of manufacturing steel, and to reduce
very materially the cost of its production.

While he lived, Mr. Mushet was a leading authority on all matters
connected with Iron and Steel, and he contributed largely to the
scientific works of his time. Besides his papers in the Philosophical
Journal, he wrote the article "Iron" for Napiers Supplement to the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; and the articles "Blast Furnace" and
"Blowing Machine" for Rees's Cyclopaedia. The two latter articles had
a considerable influence on the opposition to the intended tax upon
iron in 1807, and were frequently referred to in the discussions on
the subject in Parliament. Mr. Mushet died in 1847.

CHAPTER IX.

INVENTION OF THE HOT BLAST--JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON.

"Whilst the exploits of the conqueror and the intrigues of the
demagogue are faithfully preserved through a succession of ages, the
persevering and unobtrusive efforts of genius, developing the best
blessings of the Deity to man, are often consigned to oblivion."--
David Mushet.

The extraordinary value of the Black Band ironstone was not at first
duly recognised, perhaps not even by Mr. Mushet himself. For several
years after its discovery by him, its use was confined to the Calder
Iron Works, where it was employed in mixture with other ironstones of
the argillaceous class. It was afterwards partially used at the Clyde
Iron Works, but nowhere else, a strong feeling of prejudice being
entertained against it on the part of the iron trade generally. It
was not until the year 1825 that the Monkland Company used it alone,
without any other mixture than the necessary quantity of limestone
for a flux. "The success of this Company," says Mr. Mushet, "soon
gave rise to the Gartsherrie and Dundyvan furnaces, in the midst of
which progress came the use of raw pit-coal and the Hot Blast--the
latter one of the greatest discoveries in metallurgy of the present
age, and, above every other process, admirably adapted for smelting
the Blackband ironstone." From the introduction of this process the
extraordinary development of the iron-manufacture of Scotland may be
said to date; and we accordingly propose to devote the present
chapter to an account of its meritorious inventor.

James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a roadside village
about three miles eastward of Glasgow, on the 22nd of June, 1792. His
parents belonged to the working class. His father's earnings during
many laborious years of his life did not exceed sixteen shillings a
week. He had been bred to the trade of a mill-wright, and was for
some time in the employment of Dr. Roebuck as an engine-wright at his
colliery near Boroughstoness. He was next employed in a like capacity
by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs.
Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was
appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal
Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death. It was while
working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with his
future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Renfrewshire bleacher, a
woman remarkable through life for her clever, managing, and
industrious habits. She had the charge of Mrs. Cunningham's children
for some time after the marriage of that lady to Mr. Beaumont, and it
was in compliment to her former mistress and her husband that she
named her youngest son James Beaumont after the latter.

The boy's education was confined to the common elements of reading,
writing, and arithmetic, which he partly acquired at the parish
school of Strathbungo near Glasgow, and partly at the Chapel School,
as it was called, in the Gorbals at Glasgow. He had finally left
school before he was fourteen. Some time before he left, he had been
partially set to work, and earned four shillings a week by employing
a part of each day in driving a small condensing engine which his
father had put up in a neighbouring quarry. After leaving school, he
was employed for two years as a gig boy on one of the winding engines
at the Govan colliery. His parents now considered him of fit age to
be apprenticed to some special trade, and as Beaumont had much of his
father's tastes for mechanical pursuits, it was determined to put him
apprentice to a working engineer. His elder brother John was then
acting as engineman at Oakbank near Glasgow, and Beaumont was
apprenticed under him to learn the trade. John was a person of a
studious and serious turn of mind, and had been strongly attracted to
follow the example of the brothers Haldane, who were then exciting
great interest by their preaching throughout the North; but his
father set his face against his son's "preaching at the back o'
dikes," as he called it; and so John quietly settled down to his
work. The engine which the two brothers managed was a very small one,
and the master and apprentice served for engineman and fireman. Here
the youth worked for three years, employing his leisure hours in the
evenings in remedying the defects of his early education, and
endeavouring to acquire a knowledge of English grammar, drawing, and
mathematics.

On the expiry of his apprenticeship, Beaumont continued for a time to
work under his brother as journeyman at a guinea a week; after which,
in 1814, he entered the employment of William Taylor, coal-master at
Irvine, and he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery at a
salary of from 70L. to 80L. a year. One of the improvements which he
introduced in the working of the colliery, while he held that office,
was the laying down of an edge railway of cast-iron, in lengths of
three feet, from the pit to the harbour of Irvine, a distance of
three miles. At the age of 23 he married his first wife, Barbara
Montgomerie, an Irvine lass, with a "tocher" of 250L. This little
provision was all the more serviceable to him, as his master, Taylor,
becoming unfortunate in business, he was suddenly thrown out of
employment, and the little fortune enabled the newly-married pair to
hold their heads above water till better days came round. They took a
humble tenement, consisting of a room and a kitchen, in the
Cowcaddens, Glasgow, where their first child was born.

About this time a gas-work, the first in Glasgow, was projected, and
the company having been formed, the directors advertised for a
superintendent and foreman, to whom they offered a "liberal salary."
Though Beaumont had never seen gaslight before, except at the
illumination of his father's colliery office after the Peace of
Amiens, which was accomplished in a very simple and original manner,
without either condenser, purifier, or gas-holder, and though he knew
nothing of the art of gas-making, he had the courage to apply for the
situation. He was one of twenty candidates, and the fortunate one;
and in August, 1817, we find him appointed foreman of the Glasgow
Gasworks, for five years, at the salary of 90L. a year. Before the
expiry of his term he was reappointed for six years more, at the
advanced salary of 200L., with the status of manager and engineer of
the works. His salary was gradually increased to 400L. a year, with a
free dwelling-house, until 1847, when, after a faithful service of
thirty years, during which he had largely extended the central works,
and erected branch works in Tradeston and Partick, he finally
resigned the management.

The situation of manager of the Glasgow Gas-works was in many
respects well suited for the development of Mr. Neilson's peculiar
abilities. In the first place it afforded him facilities for
obtaining theoretical as well as practical knowledge in Chemical
Science, of which he was a diligent student at the Andersonian
University, as well as of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in their
higher branches. In the next place it gave free scope for his
ingenuity in introducing improvements in the manufacture of gas, then
in its infancy. He was the first to employ clay retorts; and he
introduced sulphate of iron as a self-acting purifier, passing the
gas through beds of charcoal to remove its oily and tarry elements.
The swallow-tail or union jet was also his invention, and it has
since come into general use.

While managing the Gas-works, one of Mr.Neilson's labours of love was
the establishment and direction by him of a Workmen's Institution for
mutual improvement. Having been a workman himself, and experienced
the disadvantages of an imperfect education in early life, as well as
the benefits arising from improved culture in later years, he desired
to impart some of these advantages to the workmen in his employment,
who consisted chiefly of persons from remote parts of the Highlands
or from Ireland. Most of them could not even read, and his principal
difficulty consisted in persuading them that it was of any use to
learn. For some time they resisted his persuasions to form a
Workmen's Institution, with a view to the establishment of a library,
classes, and lectures, urging as a sufficient plea for not joining
it, that they could not read, and that books would be of no use to
them. At last Mr. Neilson succeeded, though with considerable
difficulty, in inducing fourteen of the workmen to adopt his plan.
Each member was to contribute a small sum monthly, to be laid out in
books, the Gas Company providing the members with a comfortable room
in which they might meet to read and converse in the evenings instead
of going to the alehouse. The members were afterwards allowed to take
the books home to read, and the room was used for the purpose of
conversation on the subjects of the books read by them, and
occasionally for lectures delivered by the members themselves on
geography, arithmetic, chemistry, and mechanics. Their numbers
increased so that the room in which they met became insufficient for
their accommodation, when the Gas Company provided them with a new
and larger place of meeting, together with a laboratory and workshop.
In the former they studied practical chemistry, and in the latter
they studied practical mechanics, making for themselves an air pump
and an electrifying machine, as well as preparing the various models
used in the course of the lectures. The effects on the workmen were
eminently beneficial, and the institution came to be cited as among
the most valuable of its kind in the kingdom.*
[footnote...
Article by Dugald Bannatyne in Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, No. 53,
Dec. 1824.
...]
Mr. Neilson throughout watched carefully over its working, and
exerted himself in all ways to promote its usefulness, in which he
had the zealous co-operation of the leading workmen themselves, and
the gratitude of all. On the opening of the new and enlarged rooms in
1825, we find him delivering an admirable address, which was thought
worthy of republication, together with the reply of George
Sutherland, one of the workmen, in which Mr. Neilson's exertions as
its founder and chief supporter were gratefully and forcibly
expressed.*
[footnote...
Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, vol. iii. p. 159.
...]

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