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1 Riley, James
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1840 Halifax, Englandd. 15 July 1910 Harrogate, England[br]English steelmaker who promoted the manufacture of low-carbon bulk steel by the open-hearth process for tin plate and shipbuilding; pioneer of nickel steels.[br]After working as a millwright in Halifax, Riley found employment at the Ormesby Ironworks in Middlesbrough until, in 1869, he became manager of the Askam Ironworks in Cumberland. Three years later, in 1872, he was appointed Blast-furnace Manager at the pioneering Siemens Steel Company's works at Landore, near Swansea in South Wales. Using Spanish ore, he produced the manganese-rich iron (spiegeleisen) required as an additive to make satisfactory steel. Riley was promoted in 1874 to be General Manager at Landore, and he worked with William Siemens to develop the use of the latter's regenerative furnace for the production of open-hearth steel. He persuaded Welsh makers of tin plate to use sheets rolled from lowcarbon (mild) steel instead of from charcoal iron and, partly by publishing some test results, he was instrumental in influencing the Admiralty to build two naval vessels of mild steel, the Mercury and the Iris.In 1878 Riley moved north on his appointment as General Manager of the Steel Company of Scotland, a firm closely associated with Charles Tennant that was formed in 1872 to make steel by the Siemens process. Already by 1878, fourteen Siemens melting furnaces had been erected, and in that year 42,000 long tons of ingots were produced at the company's Hallside (Newton) Works, situated 8 km (5 miles) south-east of Glasgow. Under Riley's leadership, steelmaking in open-hearth furnaces was initiated at a second plant situated at Blochairn. Plates and sections for all aspects of shipbuilding, including boilers, formed the main products; the company also supplied the greater part of the steel for the Forth (Railway) Bridge. Riley was associated with technical modifications which improved the performance of steelmaking furnaces using Siemens's principles. He built a gasfired cupola for melting pig-iron, and constructed the first British "universal" plate mill using three-high rolls (Lauth mill).At the request of French interests, Riley investigated the properties of steels containing various proportions of nickel; the report that he read before the Iron and Steel Institute in 1889 successfully brought to the notice of potential users the greatly enhanced strength that nickel could impart and its ability to yield alloys possessing substantially lower corrodibility.The Steel Company of Scotland paid dividends in the years to 1890, but then came a lean period. In 1895, at the age of 54, Riley moved once more to another employer, becoming General Manager of the Glasgow Iron and Steel Company, which had just laid out a new steelmaking plant at Wishaw, 25 km (15 miles) south-east of Glasgow, where it already had blast furnaces. Still the technical innovator, in 1900 Riley presented an account of his experiences in introducing molten blast-furnace metal as feed for the open-hearth steel furnaces. In the early 1890s it was largely through Riley's efforts that a West of Scotland Board of Conciliation and Arbitration for the Manufactured Steel Trade came into being; he was its first Chairman and then its President.In 1899 James Riley resigned from his Scottish employment to move back to his native Yorkshire, where he became his own master by acquiring the small Richmond Ironworks situated at Stockton-on-Tees. Although Riley's 1900 account to the Iron and Steel Institute was the last of the many of which he was author, he continued to contribute to the discussion of papers written by others.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, West of Scotland Iron and Steel Institute 1893–5. Vice-President, Iron and Steel Institute, 1893–1910. Iron and Steel Institute (London) Bessemer Gold Medal 1887.Bibliography1876, "On steel for shipbuilding as supplied to the Royal Navy", Transactions of the Institute of Naval Architects 17:135–55.1884, "On recent improvements in the method of manufacture of open-hearth steel", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 2:43–52 plus plates 27–31.1887, "Some investigations as to the effects of different methods of treatment of mild steel in the manufacture of plates", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 1:121–30 (plus sheets II and III and plates XI and XII).27 February 1888, "Improvements in basichearth steel making furnaces", British patent no. 2,896.27 February 1888, "Improvements in regenerative furnaces for steel-making and analogous operations", British patent no. 2,899.1889, "Alloys of nickel and steel", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 1:45–55.Further ReadingA.Slaven, 1986, "James Riley", in Dictionary of Scottish Business Biography 1860–1960, Volume 1: The Staple Industries (ed. A.Slaven and S. Checkland), Aberdeen: Aberdeen University Press, 136–8."Men you know", The Bailie (Glasgow) 23 January 1884, series no. 588 (a brief biography, with portrait).J.C.Carr and W.Taplin, 1962, History of the British Steel Industry, Harvard University Press (contains an excellent summary of salient events).JKA -
2 Talbot, Benjamin
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 19 September 1864 Wellington, Shropshire, Englandd. 16 December 1947 Solberge Hall, Northallerton, Yorkshire, England[br]Talbot, William Henry Fox English steelmaker and businessman who introduced a technique for producing steel "continuously" in large tilting basic-lined open-hearth furnaces.[br]After spending some years at his father's Castle Ironworks and at Ebbw Vale Works, Talbot travelled to the USA in 1890 to become Superintendent of the Southern Iron and Steel Company of Chattanooga, Tennessee, where he initiated basic open-hearth steelmaking and a preliminary slag washing to remove silicon. In 1893 he moved to Pennsylvania as Steel Superintendent at the Pencoyd works; there, six years later, he began his "continuous" steelmaking process. Returning to Britain in 1900, Talbot marketed the technique: after ten years it was in successful use in Britain, continental Europe and the USA; it promoted the growth of steel production.Meanwhile its originator had joined the Cargo Fleet Iron Company Limited on Teesside, where he was made Managing Director in 1907. Twelve years later he assumed, in addition, the same position in the allied South Durham Steel and Iron Company Limited. While remaining Managing Director, he was appointed Deputy Chairman of both companies in 1925, and Chairman in 1940. The companies he controlled survived the depressed 1920s and 1930s and were significant contributors to British steel output, with a capacity of more than half a million tonnes per year.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Iron and Steel Institute 1928, and (British) National Federation of Iron and Steel Manufacturers. Iron and Steel Institute (London) Bessemer Gold Medal 1908. Franklin Institute (Philadelphia), Elliott Cresson Gold Medal, and John Scott Medal 1908.Bibliography1900, "The open-hearth continuous steel process", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 57 (1):33–61.1903, "The development of the continuous open-hearth process", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 63(1):57–73.1905, "Segregation in steel ingots", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 68(2):204–23. 1913, "The production of sound steel by lateral compression of the ingot whilst its centre is liquid", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 87(1):30–55.Further ReadingG.Boyce, 1986, entry in Dictionary of Business Biography, Vol. V, ed. J.Jeremy, Butterworth.W.G.Willis, 1969, South Durham Steel and Iron Co. Ltd, South Durham Steel and Iron Company Ltd (includes a few pages specifically on Talbot, and a portrait photo). J.C.Carr and W.Taplin, 1962, History of the British Steel Industry, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press (mentions Talbot's business attitudes).JKA -
3 Saniter, Ernest Henry
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1863 Middlesbrough, Englandd. 2 November 1934 Rotherham, Yorkshire[br]English chemist and metallurgist who introduced a treatment to remove sulphur from molten iron.[br]Saniter spent three years as a pupil in J.E.Stead's chemical laboratory in Middlesbrough, and then from 1883 was employed in the same town as Assistant Chemist at the new North-Eastern Steelworks. In 1890 he became Chief Chemist to the Wigan Coal and Iron Company in Lancashire. There he devised a desulphurizing treatment for molten iron and steel, based upon the presence of abundant lime together with calcium chloride. Between 1898 and 1904 he was in the Middlesbrough district once more, employed by Dorman Long \& Co. and Bell Brothers in experiments which led to the establishment of Teesside's first large-scale basic open-hearth steel plant. Calcium fluoride (fluorspar), mentioned in Saniter's 1892 patent, soon came to replace the calcium chloride; with this modification, his method retained wide applicability throughout the era of open-hearth steel. In 1904 Saniter became chief metallurgist to Steel, Peech \& Tozer Limited of Sheffield, and he remained in this post until 1928. Throughout the last forty years of his life he participated in the discussion of steelmaking developments and practices.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsVice-President, Iron and Steel Institute 1927–34. Iron and Steel Institute (London) Bessemer Gold Medal 1910.Bibliography1892. "A new process for the purification of iron and steel from sulphur", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 2:216–22.1893. "A supplementary paper on a new process for desulphurising iron and steel", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 1:73–7. 29 October 1892, British patent no. 8,612.15 October 1892, British patent no. 8,612A. 29 July 1893, British patent no. 17, 692.28 October 1893, British patent no. 23,534.Further ReadingK.C.Barraclough, 1990, Steelmaking: 1850–1900 458, London: Institute of Metals, 271– 8.JKA -
4 Alleyne, Sir John Gay Newton
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 8 September 1820 Barbadosd. 20 February 1912 Falmouth, Cornwall, England[br]English iron and steel manufacturer, inventor of the reversing rolling mill.[br]Alleyne was the heir to a baronetcy created in 1769, which he succeeded to on the death of his father in 1870. He was educated at Harrow and at Bonn University, and from 1843 to 1851 he was Warden at Dulwich College, to the founder of which the family claimed to be related.Alleyne's business career began with a short spell in the sugar industry at Barbados, but he returned to England to enter Butterley Iron Works Company, where he remained for many years. He was at first concerned with the production of rolled-iron girders for floors, especially for fireproof flooring, and deck beams for iron ships. The demand for large sections exceeded the capacity of the small mills then in use at Butterley, so Alleyne introduced the welding of T-sections to form the required H-sections.In 1861 Alleyne patented a mechanical traverser for moving ingots in front of and behind a rolling mill, enabling one person to manipulate large pieces. In 1870 he introduced his major innovation, the two-high reversing mill, which enabled the metal to be passed back and forth between the rolls until it assumed the required size and shape. The mill had two steam engines, which supplied the motion in opposite directions. These two inventions produced considerable economies in time and effort in handling the metal and enabled much heavier pieces to be processed.During Alleyne's regime, the Butterley Company secured some notable contracts, such as the roof of St Paneras Station, London, in 1868, with the then-unparalleled span of 240 ft (73 m). The manufacture and erection of this awe-inspiring structure was a tribute to Alleyne's abilities. In 1872 he masterminded the design and construction of the large railway bridge over the Old Maas at Dordrecht, Holland. Alleyne also devised a method of determining small quantities of phosphorus in iron and steel by means of the spectroscope. In his spare time he was a skilled astronomical observer and metalworker in his private workshop.[br]Bibliography1875, "The estimation of small quantities of phosphorus in iron and steel by spectrum analysis", Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute: 62.Further ReadingObituary, 1912, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute: 406–8.LRDBiographical history of technology > Alleyne, Sir John Gay Newton
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5 Martin, Pierre Emile
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 18 August 1824 Bourges, Franced. 23 May 1915 Fourchambault, France[br]French metallurgist, pioneer of open-hearth steelmaking.[br]His father Emile owned an iron-and steelworks at Sireuil, near Angoulême, and, through this, Pierre became interested in improving the steelmaking process. In England, C.W. Siemens had developed the regenerative principle of waste-heat recovery that produced a much higher furnace temperature. In 1863, the Martins applied this process in an open-hearth furnace built under licence from Siemens, with the aid of his engineers. They melted a mixture of pig-and wrought iron to produce steel with the required carbon content. Martin exhibited the product at the Paris Exhibition of 1867 and was awarded a gold medal. The open-hearth process was for a long time known as the Siemens-Martin process, but Martin did not share in the profits which others gained from its successful adoption. He had difficulty in obtaining patent rights as it was claimed that the principles of the process were already known and in use. The costs of litigation brought Martin to the brink of poverty, from which relief came only late in life, when in 1907 the Comité des Forges de France opened a subscription for him that was generously supported. A week before his death, the Iron and Steel Institute of London bestowed on him their Bessemer gold medal.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsIron and Steel Institute Bessemer Gold Medal 1915.Further ReadingObituary, 1915, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 91:466.LRD -
6 Monell, Ambrose
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1874 New York, USAd. 2 May 1921 Beacon, New York, USA[br]American metallurgist who gave his name to a successful nickel-copper alloy.[br]After graduating from Columbia University in 1896. Monell became a metallurgical engineer to the Carnegie Steel Company, rising in six years to be Assistant to the President. In 1900, while Manager of the company's open-hearth steelworks at Pittsburg, he patented a procedure for making high-carbon steel in basic conditions on the hearth of a fixed/stationary furnace; the method was intended to refine pig-iron containing substantial proportions of phosphorus and to do so relatively quickly. The process was introduced at the Homestead Works of the Carnegie Steel Company in February 1900, where it continued in use for some years. In April 1902 Monell was among those who launched the International Nickel Company of New Jersey in order to bring together a number of existing nickel interests; he became the new company's President. In 1904–5, members of the company's metallurgical staff produced an alloy of about 70 parts nickel and 30 copper which seemed to show great commercial promise on account of its high resistance to corrosion and its good appearance. Monell agreed to the suggestion that the new alloy should be given his name; for commercial reasons it was marketed as "Monel metal". In 1917, following the entry of the USA into the First World War, Monell was commissioned Colonel in the US Army (Aviation) for overseas service, relinquishing his presidency of the International Nickel Company but remaining as a director. At the time of his death he was also a director in several other companies in the USA.[br]Bibliography1900, British patent no. 5506 (taken out by O. Imray on behalf of Monell).Monell insinuated an account of his steel-making procedure at a meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute held in London and reported in The Journal of the Iron and SteelInstitute (1900) 1:71–80; some of the comments made by other speakers, particularly B.Talbot, were adverse. The following year (1901) Monell produced a general historical review: "A summary of development in open-hearth steel", Iron TradeReview 14(14 November):39–47.Further ReadingA.J.Wadhams, 1931, "The story of the nickel industry", Metals and Alloys 2(3):166–75 (mentions Monell among many others, and includes a portrait (p. 170)).JKA -
7 Brinell, Johann August
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 1849 Småland, Swedend. 17 November 1925 Stockholm, Sweden[br]Swedish metallurgist, inventor of the well-known method of hardness measurement which uses a steel-ball indenter.[br]Brinell graduated as an engineer from Boräs Technical School, and his interest in metallurgy began to develop in 1875 when he became an engineer at the ironworks of Lesjöfors and came under the influence of Gustaf Ekman. In 1882 he was appointed Chief Engineer at the Fagersta Ironworks, where he became one of Sweden's leading experts in the manufacture and heat treatment of tool steels.His reputation in this field was established in 1885 when he published a paper on the structural changes which occurred in steels when they were heated and cooled, and he was among the first to recognize and define the critical points of steel and their importance in heat treatment. Some of these preliminary findings were first exhibited at Stockholm in 1897. His exhibit at the World Exhibition at Paris in 1900 was far more detailed and there he displayed for the first time his method of hardness determination using a steel-ball indenter. For these contributions he was awarded the French Grand Prix and also the Polhem Prize of the Swedish Technical Society.He was later concerned with evaluating and developing the iron-ore deposits of north Sweden and was one of the pioneers of the electric blast-furnace. In 1903 he became Chief Engineer of the Jernkontoret and remained there until 1914. In this capacity and as Editor of the Jernkontorets Annaler he made significant contributions to Swedish metallurgy. His pioneer work on abrasion resistance, undertaken long before the term tribology had been invented, gained him the Rinman Medal, awarded by the Jernkontoret in 1920.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsMember of the Swedish Academy of Science 1902. Dr Honoris Causa, University of Upsala 1907. French Grand Prix, Paris World Exhibition 1900; Swedish Technical Society Polhem Prize 1900; Iron and Steel Institute Bessemer Medal 1907; Jernkontorets Rinman Medal 1920.Further ReadingAxel Wahlberg, 1901, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 59:243 (the first English-language description of the Brinell Hardness Test).Machinery's Encyclopedia, 1917, Vol. III, New York: Industrial Press, pp. 527–40 (a very readable account of the Brinell test in relation to the other hardness tests available at the beginning of the twentieth century).Hardness Test Research Committee, 1916, Bibliography on hardness testing, Proceedings of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers.ASD -
8 Brearley, Harry
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 18 February 1871 Sheffield, Englandd. 14 July 1948 Torquay, Devon, England[br]English inventor of stainless steel.[br]Brearley was born in poor circumstances. He received little formal education and was nurtured rather in and around the works of Thomas Firth \& Sons, where his father worked in the crucible steel-melting shop. One of his first jobs was to help in their chemical laboratory where the chief chemist, James Taylor, encouraged him and helped him fit himself for a career as a steelworks chemist.In 1901 Brearley left Firth's to set up a laboratory at Kayser Ellison \& Co., but he returned to Firth's in 1904, when he was appointed Chief Chemist at their Riga works, and Works Manager the following year. In 1907 he returned to Sheffield to design and equip a research laboratory to serve both Firth's and John Brown \& Co. It was during his time as head of this laboratory that he made his celebrated discovery. In 1913, while seeking improved steels for rifle barrels, he used one containing 12.68 per cent chromium and 0.24 per cent carbon, in the hope that it would resist fouling and erosion. He tried to etch a specimen for microscopic examination but failed, from which he concluded that it would resist corrosion by, for example, the acids encountered in foods and cooking. The first knives made of this new steel were unsatisfactory and the 1914–18 war interrupted further research. But eventually the problems were overcome and Brearley's discovery led to a range of stainless steels with various compositions for domestic, medical and industrial uses, including the well-known "18–8" steel, with 18 per cent chromium and 8 per cent nickel.In 1915 Brearley left the laboratory to become Works Manager, then Technical Director, at Brown Bayley's steelworks until his retirement in 1925.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsIron and Steel Institute Bessemer Gold Medal 1920.BibliographyBrearley wrote several books, including: 1915 (?), with F.Ibbotson, The Analysis of Steelworks Materials, London.The Heat Treatment of Tool Steels. Ingots and Ingot Moulds.Later books include autobiographical details: 1946, Talks on Steelmaking, American Society for Metals.1941, Knotted String: Autobiography of a Steelmaker, London: Longmans, Green.Further ReadingObituary, 1948, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute: 428–9.LRD -
9 Mushet, Robert Forester
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 8 April 1811 Coleford, Gloucestershire, Englandd. 19 January 1891 Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England[br]English steelmaker who invented the first alloy steel.[br]Mushet acquired his metallurgical knowledge in his father's ironworks at Coleford in the Forest of Dean. In 1848 his attention seems to have been drawn to the use of manganese in ironworking, in the form of spiegeleisen, an alloy of iron and manganese derived from a Prussian iron ore consisting essentially of a double carbonate of iron and manganese. This alloy came into its own in 1856 with the invention of the Bessemer steelmaking process, for Mushet found that if molten spiegeleisen was added to the Bessemer iron the quality of the product was greatly improved. Mushet patented this process, but when he failed to pay the stamp duty due in 1859 his rights lapsed. Bessemer independently discovered the use of spiegeleisen, although Mushet continued to maintain his priority.Mushet's most important discovery was that of tungsten steel, the forerunner of a long line of alloy steels. While working a small crucible steelworks at Coleford, he was asked by a Scottish manufacturer to make a hard-metal tool, but he found that the metal was unsatisfactory. After experiments, he found that an alloy steel containing about 8 per cent tungsten possessed remarkable properties. It proved to be self-hardening, i.e. after forging and being allowed to cool, it was found to have become hardened, without the need for the heat treatment that was normally required. Also, unlike other hardened steels, it did not lose its hardness when heated even to dull-red heat. It would thus remain hard in a cutting tool that had run hot through deep cutting. Mushet's tungsten steel was brought into use in 1868 and was of great benefit to engineers, who were making increasing demands on cutting machines.[br]Further ReadingBiographical notice, 1878, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute: 1–4.LRDBiographical history of technology > Mushet, Robert Forester
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10 Cowper, Edward Alfred
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 10 December 1819 London, Englandd. 9 May 1893 Weybridge, Surrey, England[br]English inventor of the hot-blast stove used in ironmaking.[br]Cowper was apprenticed in 1834 to John Braithwaite of London and in 1846 obtained employment at the engineers Fox \& Henderson in Birmingham. In 1851 he was engaged in the contract drawings for the Crystal Palace housing the Great Exhibition, and in the same year he set up in London as a consulting engineer. Cowper designed the 211 ft (64.3 m) span roof of Birmingham railway station, the first large-span station roof to be constructed. Cowper had an inventive turn of mind. While still an apprentice, he devised the well-known railway fog-signal and, at Fox \& Henderson, he invented an improved method of casting railway chairs. Other inventions included a compound steam-engine with receiver, patented in 1857; a bicycle wheel with steel spokes and rubber tyre (1868); and an electric writing telegraph (1879). Cowper's most important invention by far was the hot-blast stove, the first application of C.W. Siemens's regenerative principle to ironmaking, patented in 1857. Waste gases from the blast furnace were burnt in an iron chamber lined with a honeycomb of firebricks. When they were hot, the gas was directed to a second similar chamber while the incoming air blast for the blast furnace was heated by passing it through the first chamber. The stoves alternatively received and gave up heat and the heated blast, introduced by J.B. Neilson, led to considerable fuel economies in blast-furnace operation; the system is still in use. Cowper played an active part in the engineering institutions of his time, becoming President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in 1880–1. He was commissioned by the Science and Art Department to catalogue the collections of machinery and inventions at the South Kensington Museum, whose science collections now form the Science Museum, London.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsPresident, Institution of Mechanical Engineers 1880–1.Further ReadingObituary, 1893, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute: 172–3, London.W.K.V.Gale, 1969, Iron and Steel, London: Longmans, pp. 42, 75 (describes his hot-blast stoves).LRD -
11 Bedson, George
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 3 November 1820 Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, Englandd. 12 December 1884 Manchester (?), England[br]English metallurgist, inventor of the continuous rolling mill.[br]He acquired a considerable knowledge of wire-making in his father's works before he took a position in 1839 at the works of James Edleston at Warrington. From there, in 1851, he went to Manchester as Manager of Richard Johnson \& Sons' wire mill, where he remained for the rest of his life. It was there that he initiated several important improvements in the manufacture of wire. These included a system of circulating puddling furnace water bottoms and sides, and a galvanizing process. His most important innovation, however, was the continuous mill for producing iron rod for wiredrawing. Previously the red-hot iron billets had to be handled repeatedly through a stand or set of rolls to reduce the billet to the required shape, with time and heat being lost at each handling. In Bedson's continuous mill, the billet entered the first of a succession of stands placed as closely to each other as possible and emerged from the final one as rod suitable for wiredrawing, without any intermediate handling. A second novel feature was that alternate rolls were arranged vertically to save turning the piece manually through a right angle. That improved the quality as well as the speed of production. Bedson's first continuous mill was erected in Manchester in 1862 and had sixteen stands in tandem. A mill on this principle had been patented the previous year by Charles While of Pontypridd, South Wales, but it was Bedson who made it work and brought it into use commercially. A difficult problem to overcome was that as the piece being rolled lengthened, its speed increased, so that each pair of rolls had to increase correspondingly. The only source of power was a steam engine working a single drive shaft, but Bedson achieved the greater speeds by using successively larger gear-wheels at each stand.Bedson's first mill was highly successful, and a second one was erected at the Manchester works; however, its application was limited to the production of small bars, rods and sections. Nevertheless, Bedson's mill established an important principle of rolling-mill design that was to have wider applications in later years.[br]Further ReadingObituary, 1884, Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute 27:539–40. W.K.V.Gale, 1969, Iron and Steel, London: Longmans, pp. 81–2.LRD -
12 Percy, John
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 23 March 1817 Nottingham, Englandd. 19 June 1889 London, England[br]English metallurgist, first Professor of Metallurgy at the School of Mines, London.[br]After a private education, Percy went to Paris in 1834 to study medicine and to attend lectures on chemistry by Gay-Lussac and Thenard. After 1838 he studied medicine at Edinburgh, obtaining his MD in 1839. In that year he was appointed Professor of Chemistry at Queen's College, Birmingham, moving to Queen's Hospital at Birmingham in 1843. During his time at Birmingham, Percy became well known for his analysis of blast furnace slags, and was involved in the manufacture of optical glass. On 7 June 1851 Percy was appointed Metallurgical Professor and Teacher at the Museum of Practical Geology established in Jermyn Street, London, and opened in May 1851. In November of 1851, when the Museum became the Government (later Royal) School of Mines, Percy was appointed Lecturer in Metallurgy. In addition to his work at Jermyn Street, Percy lectured on metallurgy to the Advanced Class of Artillery at Woolwich from 1864 until his death, and from 1866 he was Superintendent of Ventilation at the Houses of Parliament. He served from 1861 to 1864 on the Special Committee on Iron set up to examine the performance of armour-plate in relation to its purity, composition and structure.Percy is best known for his metallurgical text books, published by John Murray. Volume I of Metallurgy, published in 1861, dealt with fuels, fireclays, copper, zinc and brass; Volume II, in 1864, dealt with iron and steel; a volume on lead appeared in 1870, followed by one on fuels and refractories in 1875, and the first volume on gold and silver in 1880. Further projected volumes on iron and steel, noble metals, and on copper, did not materialize. In 1879 Percy resigned from his School of Mines appointment in protest at the proposed move from Jermyn Street to South Kensington. The rapid growth of Percy's metallurgical collection, started in 1839, eventually forced him to move to a larger house. After his death, the collection was bought by the South Kensington (later Science) Museum. Now comprising 3,709 items, it provides a comprehensive if unselective record of nineteenth-century metallurgy, the most interesting specimens being those of the first sodium-reduced aluminium made in Britain and some of the first steel produced by Bessemer in Baxter House. Metallurgy for Percy was a technique of chemical extraction, and he has been criticized for basing his system of metallurgical instruction on this assumption. He stood strangely aloof from new processes of steel making such as that of Gilchrist and Thomas, and tended to neglect early developments in physical metallurgy, but he was the first in Britain to teach metallurgy as a discipline in its own right.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1847. President, Iron and Steel Institute 1885, 1886.Bibliography1861–80, Metallurgy, 5 vols, London: John Murray.Further ReadingS.J.Cackett, 1989, "Dr Percy and his metallurgical collection", Journal of the Hist. Met. Society 23(2):92–8.RLH -
13 Rosenhain, Walter
SUBJECT AREA: Metallurgy[br]b. 24 August 1875 Berlin, Germanyd. 17 March 1934 Kingston Hill, Surrey, England[br]German metallurgist, first Superintendent of the Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Chemistry at the National Physical Laboratory, Teddington, Middlesex.[br]His family emigrated to Australia when he was 5 years old. He was educated at Wesley College, Melbourne, and attended Queen's College, University of Melbourne, graduating in physics and engineering in 1897. As an 1851 Exhibitioner he then spent three years at St John's College, Cambridge, under Sir Alfred Ewing, where he studied the microstructure of deformed metal crystals and abandoned his original intention of becoming a civil engineer. Rosenhain was the first to observe the slip-bands in metal crystals, and in the Bakerian Lecture delivered jointly by Ewing and Rosenhain to the Royal Society in 1899 it was shown that metals deformed plastically by a mechanism involving shear slip along individual crystal planes. From this conception modern ideas on the plasticity and recrystallization of metals rapidly developed. On leaving Cambridge, Rosenhain joined the Birmingham firm of Chance Brothers, where he worked for six years on optical glass and lighthouse-lens systems. A book, Glass Manufacture, written in 1908, derives from this period, during which he continued his metallurgical researches in the evenings in his home laboratory and published several papers on his work.In 1906 Rosenhain was appointed Head of the Metallurgical Department of the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), and in 1908 he became the first Superintendent of the new Department of Metallurgy and Metallurgical Chemistry. Many of the techniques he introduced at Teddington were described in his Introduction to Physical Metallurgy, published in 1914. At the outbreak of the First World War, Rosenhain was asked to undertake work in his department on the manufacture of optical glass. This soon made it possible to manufacture optical glass of high quality on an industrial scale in Britain. Much valuable work on refractory materials stemmed from this venture. Rosenhain's early years at the NPL were, however, inseparably linked with his work on light alloys, which between 1912 and the end of the war involved virtually all of the metallurgical staff of the laboratory. The most important end product was the well-known "Y" Alloy (4% copper, 2% nickel and 1.5% magnesium) extensively used for the pistons and cylinder heads of aircraft engines. It was the prototype of the RR series of alloys jointly developed by Rolls Royce and High Duty Alloys. An improved zinc-based die-casting alloy devised by Rosenhain was also used during the war on a large scale for the production of shell fuses.After the First World War, much attention was devoted to beryllium, which because of its strength, lightness, and stiffness would, it was hoped, become the airframe material of the future. It remained, however, too brittle for practical use. Other investigations dealt with impurities in copper, gases in aluminium alloys, dental alloys, and the constitution of alloys. During this period, Rosenhain's laboratory became internationally known as a centre of excellence for the determination of accurate equilibrium diagrams.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsFRS 1913. President, Institute of Metals 1828–30. Iron and Steel Institute Bessemer Medal, Carnegie Medal.Bibliography1908, Glass Manufacture.1914, An Introduction to the Study of Physical Metallurgy, London: Constable. Rosenhain published over 100 research papers.Further ReadingJ.L.Haughton, 1934, "The work of Walter Rosenhain", Journal of the Institute of Metals 55(2):17–32.ASD -
14 Haynes, Elwood
[br]b. 14 October 1857 Portland, Indiana, USAd. 13 April 1925 Kokomo, Indiana, USA[br]American inventor ofStellite cobalt-based alloys, early motor-car manufacturer and pioneer in stainless steels.[br]From his early years, Haynes was a practising Presbyterian and an active prohibitionist. He graduated in 1881 at Worcester, Massachusetts, and a spell of teaching in his home town was interrupted in 1884–5 while he attended the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. In 1886 he became permanently diverted by the discovery of natural gas in Portland. He was soon appointed Superintendent of the local gas undertaking, and then in 1890 he was hired by the Indiana Natural Gas \& Oil Company. While continuing his gas-company employment until 1901, Haynes conducted numerous metallurgical experiments. He also designed an automobile: this led to the establishment of the Haynes- Apperson Company at Kokomo as one of the earliest motor-car makers in North America. From 1905 the firm traded as the Haynes Automobile Company, and before its bankruptcy in 1924 it produced more than 50,000 cars. After 1905, Haynes found the first "Stellite" alloys of cobalt and chromium, and in 1910 he was publicizing the patented material. He then discovered the valuable hardening effect of tungsten, and in 1912 began applying the "improved" Stellite to cutting tools. Three years later, the Haynes Stellite Company was incorporated, with Haynes as President, to work the patents. It was largely from this source that Haynes became a millionaire in 1920. In April 1912, Haynes's attempt to patent the use of chromium with iron to render the product rustless was unsuccessful. However, he re-applied for a US patent on 12 March 1915 and, although this was initially rejected, he persevered and finally obtained recognition of his modified claim. The American Stainless Steel Company licensed the patents of Brearley and Haynes jointly in the USA until the 1930s.[br]Principal Honours and DistinctionsJohn Scott Medal 1919 (awarded for useful inventions).BibliographyHaynes was the author of more than twenty published papers and articles, among them: 1907, "Materials for automobiles", Proceedings of the American Society of MechanicalEngineers 29:1,597–606; 1910, "Alloys of nickel and cobalt with chromium", Journal of Industrial Engineeringand Chemistry 2:397–401; 1912–13, "Alloys of cobalt with chromium and other metals", Transactions of the American Institute of 'Mining Engineers 44:249–55;1919–20, "Stellite and stainless steel", Proceedings of the Engineering Society of WestPennsylvania 35:467–74.1 April 1919, US patent no. 1,299,404 (stainless steel).The four US patents worked by the Haynes Stellite Company were: 17 December 1907, patent no. 873,745.1 April 1913, patent no. 1,057,423.1 April 1913, patent no. 1,057, 828.17 August 1915, patent no. 1,150, 113.Further ReadingR.D.Gray, 1979, Alloys and Automobiles. The Life of Elwood Haynes, Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society (a closely documented biography).JKA
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