The relevance of Sir Henry Bessemer's ideas to the steel industry in the twenty-first century

摘要

This Bessemer lecture provides a unique occasion for me to look at son of the issues I have been close to professionally, with a perspective spanning over three centuries, something that we do not often have the leisure to do in the steel industry. I would like to speak first briefly about Sir Henry Bessemer and the dynamic nineteenth century in which he was such an active player, although much has already been said on the occasion of the Bessemer Centenary Conference that celebrated the centenary of his death. There is certainly no need for another engineer to speak about him, after the Bessemer Memorial Lecture given by Frank Fitzgerald, which provided a fascinating overview of his life and his accomplishments and can serve as a critical framework within which to read Sir Henry's autobiography with insight and profit. Historians should now be given an opportunity to enrich the analysis of his life and put it into a broader perspective than that of scientists or engineers. Then I will skip over 100 years to 1970 and recollect some of the endeavours and achievements of the steel industry of the late twentieth century, which I witnessed at first hand. There were deep changes of course, but also intriguing continuity with Bessemer's time.