Robert Forester Mushet
| Robert Forester Mushet | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
8 April 1811 Coleford, Gloucestershire |
| Died | 29 January 1891 (aged 79) Cheltenham |
| Occupation | Metallurgist |
| Known for |
Developing an inexpensive way to make high quality steel, by perfecting the Bessemer Process Inventing the first commercially produced steel alloy. |
Developing an inexpensive way to make high quality steel, by perfecting the Bessemer Process
Robert Forester Mushet (8 April 1811 – 29 January 1891) was a British metallurgist and businessman, born on 8 April 1811, in Coleford, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. He was the youngest son of Scottish parents, Agnes Wilson and David Mushet; an ironmaster, formerly of the Clyde, Alfreton and Whitecliff Ironworks.
In 1818/9 David Mushet built a foundry named Darkhill Ironworks in the Forest of Dean. Robert spent his formative years studying metallurgy with his father and took over the management of Darkhill in 1845. In 1848 he moved to the newly constructed Forest Steel Works on the edge of the Darkhill site where he carried out over ten thousand experiments in ten years before moving to the Titanic Steelworks in 1862.
It seems that Mushet only began using his middle name 'Forester' in 1845, and only occasionally at first. In his later years he said he had been given the name from the Forest of Dean, although he variously spelled it both 'Forester' and 'Forrester'.
In 1876 he was awarded the Bessemer Gold Medal by the Iron and Steel Institute, their highest award.
Robert Mushet died on 29 January 1891 in Cheltenham. He is buried with his wife and daughter, Mary, in Cheltenham Cemetery.
In the summer of 1848, Henry Burgess, editor of The Bankers' Circular, brought to Mushet a lump of white crystallised metal which he said was found in Rhenish, Prussia.
... "Being familiar with alloys of iron and manganese," says Mr. Mushet, "I at once recognized this lump of metal as an alloy of these two metals and, as such, of great value in the making of steel. Later, I found that the white metallic alloy was the product of steel ore, called also spathose iron ore, being, in fact, a double carbonate of iron and manganese found in the Rhenish mountains, and that it was most carefully selected and smelted in small blast furnaces, charcoal fuel alone being employed and the only flux used being lime. The metal was run from the furnace into shallow iron troughs similar to the old refiners' boxes, and the cakes thus formed, when cold and broken up, showed large and beautifully bright facets and crystals specked with minute spots of uncombined carbon. It was called, from its brightness, 'spiegel glanz' or spiegel eisen, i.e., looking-glass iron. Practically its analysis was: Iron, 86…25; manganese, 8…50; and carbon, 5…25; making a total of 100…00."
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