Originally Posted by
Neil Miller
I wouldn't be too sure about that...
As far as I am aware it was a golden era, a time when great strides forward were taken in this field. It would not be untoward to insist that it was a time of scientific revolution
Luminaries like Newton and Lavoisier (the father of modern chemistry) sparked it off and Francis Bacons analytical or empirical method provided a means of meaningful experimentation and comparison. Robert Boyle refined that method (Boyle's Law) and the list of names to which we owe much of our modern existence goes on and on: Tycho Brae, Gallileo, von Loevenhoek, Louis Pasteur, Lord Kelvin, Michael Faraday, Herscell, Priestly,
Most of the above innovators and pioneers represent inter-related fields, metallurgy being just one. To get more specific we must enter the realm of the iron and steel masters, men such as Abraham Darby, Wilkinson of iron coffin fame, Roebuck of the Carron Ironworks, Benjamin Huntsman, Matthew Boulton, David Mushet, Robert Forester Mushet, Henry Bessemer, Samuel Osbourne, etc, etc, etc.
So metallurgical knowledge was almost non existent? In a pigs eye, it was!
Regards,
Neil