Thread: Why Sheffield was home to famous razors

Was doing a bit of research on the steel/industrial age for a work project and came across a bit of history I thought others here might find interesting: Why Sheffield England was home to so many popular, last razor makers...

In 1740 Benjamin Huntsman developed the crucible technique for steel manufacturing at his workshop in the Handsworth district of Sheffield. The crucible method was a method of making cast steel using clay pots or crucibles.

It produced much stronger steel than existing techniques but was still quite expensive - meaning the use of steel was still limited to small items such as cutlery. Ironically, local cutlery manufactures initially rejected the steel produced by Huntsman because it was harder than the German steel they were accustomed to using.

The real breakthrough however came in 1858 when Sir Henry Bessemer partnered with W&J Galloway to start producing steel in Sheffield using pig iron imported from Sweden...

Three years earlier Bessemer patented the Bessemer process - a process of forcing high pressure air through the molten iron. This burned off impurities... which caused the iron to get even hotter... which burned off even more impurities... which caused the iron to grow even hotter... etc., etc.

This 'positive feedback loop' produced a batch of hotter, purer molten iron which converted to steel much easier.

As a result it dropped the price of steel from 40 GBP a ton to 7 GBP a ton - and along with the concept of 'mass production' helped to usher in the second industrial age'.

Very interesting, thanks for posting it.

You might be interested in this article for your project. I posted it earlier in the forums.

Regards - Walt

Good article!

However, Bessemer took the kudos for something which he imperfectly understood. Initially, his process seemed to work well (luckily he had started with an iron ore that included an essential mineral that not all ores contain), but it was found that it didn't work for all iron ores, in fact it worked for only one kind of ore and not at all for others, producing steel with serious flaws - valueless to industry. In frustration after spending a fortune trying to perfect his invention Bessemer consulted the eminent metallurgist Robert Forester Mushet - a man who had such bad luck and made such poor judgements of people he called his friends that he was severely let down time after time and badly used. Mushet came up trumps for Bessemer, and perfected the Bessemer process for him.

The perfected process should have brought immense wealth to both Mushet and Bessemer, but how did Bessemer reward him? He didn't. At the time he didn't even acknowledge the help Mushet had given him, much less reward him. Mushets fortunes went from bad to worse, and he was a broken man, both in health and wealth. 16 years later his daughter sought out Bessemer and severely berated him. That, and the possible threat of legal action prompted Bessemer (along with the Steel Institute which had also steadfastly chosen to ignore most of Mushets inestimable contributions to the understanding and alloying of steel - for instance, he could be said to have solely contributed to the rise of the steel industry in Scotland, but never profited by it) to allow Mushet a pension of £200 per annum (small by the standards of other pensions awarded for lesser achievements) and the Bessemer Gold Medal.

In short, it should have been called the Mushet/Bessemer process, but history tends to record individuals who aggrandize themselves rather than the modest types like Mushet.

Regards,
Neil

Great post, Neil.

This Robert Forester Mushet surely must be a relation of David Mushet - the discoverer of 'Blackband' ironstone in the Monklands area of Scotland which resulted in the massive iron producing boom in Coatbridge and Airdrie?

Originally Posted by barrieduncan

This Robert Forester Mushet surely must be a relation of David Mushet - the discoverer of 'Blackband' ironstone in the Monklands area of Scotland which resulted in the massive iron producing boom in Coatbridge and Airdrie?

Robert was the son of David. Robert Mushet is buried in the cemetery a very short distance from my house in Cheltenham!

Gareth

The history of the steel industry sounds worse than Academia, and that's saying something!

James.

It was indeed, James - with so much money involved it was bound to be this way! Thanks for confirming the link between the Mushets, Gareth. I worked at Summerlee Industrial Museum in Coatbridge for a year and found the industrial history really interesting (I was surprised as I'm more of a military history kind of person). Just a shame that all that is a thing of the past; there is very little heavy industry round this neck of the woods nowadays.

I've always enjoyed Industrial history.

I know the Mushet connections as I was actually walking a friend's dog at the old Darkhill ironworks site in the Forest of Dean last week!

Darkhill Ironworks

Robert was born in Coleford in the Forest, not far from the ironworks at Gorsty Knoll. In fact, Coleford has a Mushet Industrial park!

Gareth