Robert Forester Mushet (8 April 1811 – 29 January 1891) was a British
metallurgist
Metallurgy is a domain of materials science and engineering that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their inter-metallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are known as alloys.
Metallurgy encompasses both the sc ...
and businessman, born on 8 April 1811, in
Coleford, in the
Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...
, Gloucestershire, England. He was the youngest son of Scottish parents, Agnes Wilson and
David Mushet
David Mushet (2 October 1772 – 7 June 1847) was a Scottish engineer, known for his inventions in the field of metallurgy. Mushet was an early advocate of animal rights.
Early life
Mushet was born on 2 October 1772 in Dalkeith near Edin ...
; an
ironmaster
An ironmaster is the manager, and usually owner, of a forge or blast furnace for the processing of iron. It is a term mainly associated with the period of the Industrial Revolution, especially in Great Britain.
The ironmaster was usually a large ...
, formerly of the Clyde, Alfreton and
Whitecliff Ironworks.
In 1818/9 David Mushet built a foundry named
Darkhill Ironworks
Darkhill Ironworks, and the neighbouring Titanic Steelworks, are internationally important industrial remains associated with the development of the iron and steel industries. Both are scheduled monuments. They are located on the edge of a small ...
in the
Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean is a geographical, historical and cultural region in the western part of the county of Gloucestershire, England. It forms a roughly triangular plateau bounded by the River Wye to the west and northwest, Herefordshire to the n ...
. Robert spent his formative years studying metallurgy with his father and took over the management of Darkhill in 1845.
[ Anstis p. 85.] 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
[ Anstis p. 157] 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'.
[ Anstis pp. 175–176.]
In 1876 he was awarded the
Bessemer Gold Medal
The Bessemer Gold Medal is awarded annually by the Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) "for outstanding services to the steel industry, to the inventor or designer of any significant innovation in the process employed in the manufact ...
by the
Iron and Steel Institute The Iron and Steel Institute was an English association organized by the iron trade of the north of England. Its object was the discussion of practical and scientific questions connected with the manufacture of iron and steel.
History
The first mee ...
, their highest award.
Webb
Webb most often refers to James Webb Space Telescope which is named after James E. Webb, second Administrator of NASA.
It may also refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Webb Glacier (South Georgia)
* Webb Glacier (Victoria Land)
*Webb Névé, Victoria ...
p. 14.
Robert Mushet died on 29 January 1891 in
Cheltenham
Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...
. He is buried with his wife and daughter, Mary, in Cheltenham Cemetery.
High quality steel
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
The Rhineland (german: Rheinland; french: Rhénanie; nl, Rijnland; ksh, Rhingland; Latinised name: ''Rhenania'') is a loosely defined area of Western Germany along the Rhine, chiefly its middle section.
Term
Historically, the Rhinelands ...
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
.
''... "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."''
Mushet carried out many experiments with the metal, discovering that a small amount added during the manufacture of steel rendered it more workable when heated. It was not until 1856, however, that he realised the true potential of this property when his friend Thomas Brown brought him a piece of steel, made using the
Bessemer Process
The Bessemer process was the first inexpensive industrial process for the mass production of steel from molten pig iron before the development of the open hearth furnace. The key principle is steelmaking, removal of impurities from the iron by ox ...
, asking if he could improve its poor quality. Mushet carried out experiments on the sample, based on those he had previously carried out with spiegeleisen.
Henry Bessemer
Sir Henry Bessemer (19 January 1813 – 15 March 1898) was an English inventor, whose steel-making process would become the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century for almost one hundred years from 1856 to 1950. He ...
himself had realised that the problem of quality was due to impurities in the iron and concluded that the solution lay in knowing when to turn off the flow of air in his process; so that the impurities had been burned off, but just the right quantity of carbon remained. Despite spending tens of thousands of pounds on experiments, however, he could not find the answer.
[ Anstis p. 147.]
Mushet's solution was simple, but elegant; he first burnt off, as far as possible, ''all'' the impurities and carbon, then reintroduced carbon and manganese by adding an exact amount of spiegeleisen. This had the effect of improving the quality of the finished product, increasing its malleability – its ability to withstand rolling and forging at high temperatures.
[ Anstis p. 140.]
''I saw then that the Bessemer process was perfected and that, with fair play, untold wealth would reward Mr. Bessemer and myself..."''
Mushet's dream was never to be fulfilled. While others made fortunes from his discoveries, he failed to capitalise on his successes and by 1866 was destitute and in ill health. In that year his 16-year-old daughter, Mary, travelled to London alone, to confront Bessemer at his offices, arguing that his success was based on the results of her father's work.
[''Sir Henry Bessemer, F.R.S.
An Autobiography'', ]
Bessemer, whose own process for producing steel was not economically viable without Mushet's method for improving quality, decided to pay Mushet an annual pension of £300, a very considerable sum, which he paid for over 20 years; possibly with a view to keeping the Mushets from legal action.
Steel rails
In 1857 Mushet was the first to make durable
rails
Rail or rails may refer to:
Rail transport
*Rail transport and related matters
*Rail (rail transport) or railway lines, the running surface of a railway
Arts and media Film
* ''Rails'' (film), a 1929 Italian film by Mario Camerini
* ''Rail'' ( ...
of steel rather than cast iron, providing the basis for the development of
rail transportation
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prep ...
throughout the world in the late nineteenth century. The first of Mushet's steel rails was sent to
Derby Midland railway station
Derby railway station (, also known as Derby Midland) is a main line railway station serving the city of Derby in Derbyshire, England. Owned by Network Rail and managed by East Midlands Railway, the station is also used by CrossCountry services ...
, where it was laid down at a particularly heavily used part of the station approach where the iron rails had to be renewed at least every six months, and occasionally every three. Six years later, in 1863, the rail seemed as perfect as ever, although some 700 trains had passed over it daily. During its 16 years "life" 1,252,000 detached engines and tenders at the least, apart from trains, had passed over that rail.
Dozzles
When steel solidifies in a mould, uneven cooling causes a central cavity or 'pipe' to form in the casting. In 1861 Mushet invented the 'Dozzle'; a clay cone or sleeve, heated white hot and inserted into the top of the ingot mould near the end of the pour, and then filled with molten steel. Its purpose was to maintain a reservoir of molten steel, which drained down and filled the pipe as the casting cooled. Mushet claimed this, and other small inventions of his, saved the steelmakers of Sheffield 'many millions of pounds' (in 19th century money), yet he received neither payment nor recognition for these inventions.
Webb
Webb most often refers to James Webb Space Telescope which is named after James E. Webb, second Administrator of NASA.
It may also refer to:
Places Antarctica
* Webb Glacier (South Georgia)
* Webb Glacier (Victoria Land)
*Webb Névé, Victoria ...
p. 15. Dozzles, now called
hot tops or feeder heads, are still in use today.
Steel alloys
In a second key advance in metallurgy Mushet invented
'R Mushet's Special Steel' (RMS) in 1868.
[''Sheffield Steel and America: A Century of Commercial and Technological Independence'' By Geoffrey Tweedale -- Cambridge University Press 1987 Page 66--68] It was both the first true
tool steel
Tool steel is any of various carbon steels and alloy steels that are particularly well-suited to be made into tools and tooling, including cutting tools, dies, hand tools, knives, and others. Their suitability comes from their distinctive har ...
and the first
air-hardening steel
Tool steel is any of various carbon steels and alloy steels that are particularly well-suited to be made into tools and tooling, including cutting tools, dies, hand tools, knives, and others. Their suitability comes from their distinctive ha ...
.
[,] Previously, the only way to make steel hard enough for machine tools had been to quench it, by rapid cooling in water. With self-hardening (or tungsten) steel,
machine tools
A machine tool is a machine for handling or machining metal or other rigid materials, usually by cutting, boring, grinding, shearing, or other forms of deformations. Machine tools employ some sort of tool that does the cutting or shaping. All m ...
could run much faster and were able to cut harder metals than had been possible previously. RMS revolutionised the design of machine tools and the progress of industrial metalworking, and was the forerunner of
high speed steel
High-speed steel (HSS or HS) is a subset of tool steels, commonly used as cutting tool material.
It is often used in power-saw blades and drill bits. It is superior to the older high-carbon steel tools used extensively through the 1940s in that ...
.
See also
*
Crucible steel
Crucible steel is steel made by melting pig iron (cast iron), iron, and sometimes steel, often along with sand, glass, ashes, and other flux (metallurgy), fluxes, in a crucible. In ancient times steel and iron were impossible to melt using char ...
*
Spathic iron ore
Siderite is a mineral composed of iron(II) carbonate (FeCO3). It takes its name from the Greek word σίδηρος ''sideros,'' "iron". It is a valuable iron mineral, since it is 48% iron and contains no sulfur or phosphorus. Zinc, magnesium and ...
References
Bibliography
*
*
*
Further reading
* Fred M. Osborn, ''The Story of the Mushets,'' London, Thomas Nelson & Sons (1952)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mushet, Robert Forester
1811 births
1891 deaths
Businesspeople in steel
English inventors
History of Sheffield
British metallurgists
People from Coleford, Gloucestershire
People of the Industrial Revolution
Bessemer Gold Medal