Anthony Bessemer
Bessemer's father, Anthony, was born in London, but moved to Paris when he was 21 years old. He was an inventor who, while he was engaged by the Paris Mint, made a machine for making medallions that could produce steel dies from a larger model. He became a member of the French Academy of Science, for his improvements to the optical microscope, when he was only 26. He was forced to leave Paris by the French Revolution, and returned to Britain. There he invented a process for making gold chains, which was successful, and enabled him to buy a small estate in the village of Charlton, near Hitchin in Hertfordshire, where Henry was born in 1813.
Early inventions
The invention from which Henry Bessemer made his first fortune was a series of six steam-powered machines for making bronze powder, used in the manufacture of gold paint. As he relates in his autobiography, he examined the bronze powder made in Nuremberg which was the only place where it was made at the time. He then copied and improved the product and made it capable of being made on a simple production line. It was an early example of reverse engineering where a product is analysed, and then reconstituted. The process was kept a closely guarded secret, with only members of his immediate family having access to the factory. It was a widely used alternative to a patent, and such trade secrets are still used today. The Nuremberg powder, which was made by hand, retailed in London for £5 12s per pound and he eventually reduced the price to half a crown, or about 1/40th. The profits from sale of the paint allowed him to pursue his other inventions. Bessemer patented a method for making a continuous ribbon of plate glass in 1848, but it was not commercially successful (see his autobiography, chapter 8). However, he gained experience in design of furnaces, which was to be of great use for his new steel-making process.