Anthony Bessemer

Anthony Bessemer was a British engineer and industrialist, who spent large portions of his life in the Netherlands and France before returning to live in London and Hertfordshire. His son was Sir Henry Bessemer, the inventor of the Bessemer process for steel manufacture.[1][2][3] As an engineer his work included draining machinery and microscope manufacture.

After returning to England, he operated a type foundry in Charlton, Hertfordshire with his business partner J.J. Catherwood and then in London. He also acted as a punchcutter, an engraver of metal type, both for his own foundry and previously for foundries such as Vincent Figgins; according to Jeans he worked as a punchcutter for foundries on the continent while he lived there, including for Firmin Didot.[4][5][6] A letter from Bessemer to the London Society of Arts in May 1818 with regard to anti-forgery precautions on banknotes provides testimony on his work rate for the specific case of cutting 4pt punches: "the time required to engrave a diamond lower case alphabet and doubles, consisting of 33 punches, would be about 6 weeks, and that the same time would be required for a set of capitals of 28 punches."[7]

Bessemer's son Henry was born while he lived in Charlton in 1813. Henry Bessemer took an early interest in his father's business and some of his early patents are for improved type-casting machinery.[8][9] Bessemer retired in 1832.[10]

A reprint of his specimen of 1830 has been published by the Printing Historical Society.[9]

References

  1. ↑ Anthony Burton (3 August 2015). Iron Men: The Workers Who Created the New Iron Age. History Press. pp. 138–141. ISBN 978-0-7509-6563-7.
  2. ↑ Kenneth E. Hendrickson III (25 November 2014). The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 91–2. ISBN 978-0-8108-8888-3.
  3. ↑ Sir Sidney Lee (1901). Dictionary of National Biography: Supplement. Smith, Elder, & Company. pp. 185–6.
  4. ↑ Jeans, William T. (1884). The Creators of the Age of Steel. Chapman and Hall, limited. pp. 10–18.
  5. ↑ Mosley, James. "The Typefoundry of Vincent Figgins, 1792-1836". Motif (1): 29–36.
  6. ↑ Wolpe, Berthold (1967). Vincent Figgins: Type specimens, 1801 and 1815. London: Printing Historical Society. pp. 27–9.
  7. ↑ Report of the Committee of the Society of Arts (etc.) Together with the Approved Communications and Evidence Upon the Same, Relative to the Mode of Preventing the Forgery of Bank Notes. 1819. pp. 68–9.
  8. ↑ Talbot Baines Reed (1887). A History of the Old English Letter Foundries: With Notes, Historical and Bibliographical, on the Rise and Progress of English Typography. E. Stock. pp. 359–360.
  9. 1 2 "A. Bessemer's Specimen of Printing Types, 1830". Journal of the Printing Historical Society. 5.
  10. ↑ Theodore Low De Vinne (1899). The Practice of Typography: A Treatise on the Processes of Type-making, the Point System, the Names, Sizes, Styles, and Prices of Plain Printing Types. Century Company. pp. 101–2.
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