lenses. From this he was led to a series of interesting experiments on the application of solar heat for the production of high temperatures, and he hoped to do much with his solar furnace. He also laid out with characteristic originality and skill a diamond cutting and polishing plant for one of his grandsons.
The universal adoption of his inventions in the manufacture of steel gave Bessemer a world-wide pviblic reputation, although he made few contributions to technical literature. His famous British Association paper was excluded from the 'Transactions' of that body. In May 1859 he read a paper before the Institution of Civil Engineers on the 'Manufacture of Malleable Iron and Steel.' In 1886 he contributed a paper to the Iron and Steel Institute on 'Some Earlier Forms of the Bessemer Converter,' and again in 1891 he read a second paper 'On the Manufacture of Continuous Sheets of Malleable Iron or Steel direct from the Fluid Metal.' A more recent paper to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers on some early experiences of the Bessemer process concludes the list of his publications, though letters from him to the 'Times,' 'Engineering,' and other papers were not infrequent.
Considering the great services he rendered to the whole world, the recognitions he received were richly deserved. The legion of honour offered to him by the French emperor in 1856 he was not allowed to accept. The Albert gold medal was awarded him by the Society of Arts in 1872 for his services in developing the manufacture of steel. In 1868 his name appears as one of the founders of the Iron and Steel Institute, of which he was the president from 1871 to 1873. On retiring from office he presented the institute with an endowment for the annual presentation of a Bessemer gold medal. This has been bestowed on distinguished metallurgists of many nationalities. He was elected in 1877 a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers, which conferred on him the Telford gold medal in 1858 and the Howard quinquennial prize in 1878 ; and he became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1879. It was also in that year he was knighted for services rendered to the inland revenue office forty years before. He was given the freedom of the city of Hamburg, and on 13 May 1880 he was presented with the freedom of the city of London in a gold casket at a specially convened meeting in the Guildhall. He was also honorary member of many foreign technical societies, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that no less than six thriving manufacturing towns in the United States and one county (in Alabama) were named after him. The towns are in Michigan, Alabama (chief town of the county of Bessemer), Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wyoming, and North Carolina.
Sir Henry Bessemer died at his residence at Denmark Hill on 15 March 1898, and was buried at Norwood cemetery. He married in 1833 Anne, daughter of Richard Allen of Amersham ; she died a year before him. He was survived by two sons and a daughter.
His portrait, painted by Rudolph Lehmann, was bequeathed to the Iron and Steel Institute; another portrait hangs on the wall of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers' building in New York.
During the fifty-six years that intervened between Bessemer's first patent specification (that relating to an invention of machinery for casting type, dated 8 March 1838) and his last patent specification (that relating to his invention dealing with ships' saloons, which was completed in 1894), the records of the patent office show that he protected no fewer than 114 inventions, an average of two a year, although, as may be supposed, the number is not evenly distributed. His life may be divided into three epochs, each of them full of momentous consequences to himself, the last of the highest importance to the world. The events marking these epochs were : The invention of a means for defacing government stamps ; the invention of Bessemer bronze powder and gold paint; the invention of the Bessemer steel process. Nearly all the many minor incidents of an incessantly busy life may be said to have led up to, or to have grown out of, these three great inventions. The first saved the revenue 100,000l. a year; the second, conducted during forty years as a secret process, brought Bessemer a sufficient income to prosecute his experiments in the manufacture of steel ; and the third has revolutionised the commercial history of the world. 'The invention [of Bessemer steel] takes its rank with the great events which have changed the face of society since the time of the middle ages. The invention of printing, the construction of the magnetic compass, the discovery of America, and the introduction of the steam engine are the only capital events in modern history which belong to the same category as the Bessemer process' (Address of the Hon, Abram S. Hewitt to the Iron and Steel Institute, 1890).
