Industrial Biography: Iron Workers and Tool Makers

erved through a succession of ages, the persevering and unobtrusive efforts of genius, devel

judice being entertained against it on the part of the iron trade generally. It was not until the year 1825 that the Monkland Company used it alone, without any other mixture than the necessary quantity of limestone for a flux. "The success of this Company," says Mr. Mushet, "soon gave rise to the Gartsherrie and Dundyvan furnaces, in the midst of which progress came the use of raw pit-coal and th

at his colliery near Boroughstoness. He was next employed in a like capacity by Mr. Beaumont, the mineral-manager of the collieries of Mrs. Cunningham of Lainshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshire; after which he was appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subsequently at the Govan Coal Works near Glasgow, where he remained until his death. It was while working at the Irvine Works that he first became acquaint

rs as a gig boy on one of the winding engines at the Govan colliery. His parents now considered him of fit age to be apprenticed to some special trade, and as Beaumont had much of his father's tastes for mechanical pursuits, it was determined to put him apprentice to a working engineer. His elder brother John was then acting as engineman at Oakbank near Glasgow, and Beaumont was apprenticed under him to learn the trade. John was a person of a studious and serious turn of mind, and had been strongly attracted to follow the example of the brothers Haldane, wh

n the working of the colliery, while he held that office, was the laying down of an edge railway of cast-iron, in lengths of three feet, from the pit to the harbour of Irvine, a distance of three miles. At the age of 23 he married his first wife, Barbara Montgomerie, an Irvine lass, with a "tocher" of 250L. This little provision was all the more servic

manner, without either condenser, purifier, or gas-holder, and though he knew nothing of the art of gas-making, he had the courage to apply for the situation. He was one of twenty candidates, and the fortunate one; and in August, 1817, we find him appointed foreman of the Glasgow Gasworks, for five years, at the salary of 90L. a year. Before the expiry of his term he was reappointed

ch he was a diligent student at the Andersonian University, as well as of Natural Philosophy and Mathematics in their higher branches. In the next place it gave free scope for his ingenuity in introducing improvements in the manufacture of gas, then in its infancy. He w

iew to the establishment of a library, classes, and lectures, urging as a sufficient plea for not joining it, that they could not read, and that books would be of no use to them. At last Mr. Neilson succeeded, though with considerable difficulty, in inducing fourteen of the workmen to adopt his plan. Each member was to contribute a small sum monthly, to be laid out in books, the Gas Company providing the members with a comfortable room in which they might meet to read and converse in the evenings instead of going to the alehouse. The members were afterwards allowed to take the books home to read, and the room was used for the purpose of conversation on the subjects of the books read by them, and occasio

en themselves, and the gratitude of all. On the opening of the new and enlarged rooms in 1825, we find him delivering an admirable address, which was thought worthy of republicati

sible to purify the air blown into the blast furnaces, in like manner as carburetted hydrogen gas was purified. The ironmaster supposed that it was the presence of sulphur in the air that caused blast-furnaces to work irregularly, and to make bad iron in the summer months. Mr. Neilson was of opinion that this was not the true cause, and he was rather disposed to think it attributable to the want of a due proportion of oxygen in summer, w

if he were to heat it by passing it through a red-hot vessel, its volume would be increased, according to the well-known law, and the blast might thus be enabled to do more duty in the distant furnace. He proceeded to make a series of experiments at the Gas-works, trying the effect of heated air on the illuminating power of gas, by bringing up a stream of it in a tube so as

, which was to supply air as cold as possible, the prevailing idea being that the coldness of the air in winter was the cause of the best iron being then produced. Acting on these views, the efforts of the ironmasters had always been directed to the cooling of the blast, and various expedients were devised for the purpose. Thus the regulator was painted white, as being the coolest colour; the air was passed over cold water, and in some cases the air pipes were even surrounded by ice, all w

to introduce deflecting plates in the main or to put a bend in the pipe, so as to bring the blast more closely against the heated sides of the pipe, and also increase the area of heating surface, in order to raise the temperature to a higher point; but this was refused, and it was said that if even a bend were put in the pipe the furnace would stop working. These prejudices proved a serious difficulty in the way of our inventor, and several more years passed before he was allowed to put a bend in the blast-main. After many years of perseverance, he was, however, at length enabled to work out his plan into a definite shape at the Clyde Iron Works, and its practical value was at once admitted. At the meeting of the Mechanical Engineers' Society held in May, 1859, Mr. Neilson explained that his invention consisted solely in the principle of heating the blast between the engine and the furnace, and was not associated with any particular construction of the intermedia

men, able to support him in these respects, to share its profits; retaining for himself only three-tenths of the whole. His partners were Mr. Charles Macintosh, Mr. Colin Dunlop, and Mr. John Wilson of Dundyvan. The charge made by them was

ncreasing experience, various improvements were introduced in the process, more particularly in the shape of the air-heating vessels; the last form adopted being that of a congeries of tubes, similar to the tubular arrangement in the boiler of the locomotive, by which the greatest extent of heating surface was provided for the thorough heating of the air. By these modifications the temperature of the air introduced into the furnace has been raised from 24

lting the peculiar ores of that country-more especially Mushet's Black Band-a powerful combination was formed amongst the ironmasters to resist the patent. The litigation which ensued extended over five years, during which period some twenty actions were proceeding in Scotland, and several in England. Three juries sat upon the subject at different times, and on three o

e Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, where he is found ready to lend a hand in every good work-whether in agricultural improvement, railway extension, or the moral and social good of those about him. Mindful of the success of his Workmen's Institution at the Glasgow Gas-Works, he has, almost at his own door, erected a similar Institution for the use of the par

s that in many cases it contains sufficient coaly matter for purposes of calcination, without any admixture of coal whatever. Before its discovery, all the iron manufactured in Scotland was made from clay-band; but the use of the latter has in a great measure been discontinued wherever a sufficient supply of Black Band can be obtained. And it is found to exist very extensively in most of the midland Scotch counties,-the coal and iron measures stretching in a broad belt from the Firth of Forth to the Irish Channel at the Firth of Clyde. At the time when the hot blast was invented, the

extent. During the last year there were 125 furnaces in blast throughout Scotland, each employing about 400 men in making an average of 200 tons a week; and the money distri

. At the same time, many fortunes have been made by pushing and energetic men who have of late years entered upon this new branch of industry. Amongst these may be mentioned the Bairds of Gartsherrie, who vie with the Guests and Crawshays of South Wales, and hav

tyne in Glasgow Mechanic's

anic's Magazine,

h he was acquainted." Mr. Jessop, an extensive English iron manufacturer, declared it to be "of as great advantage in the iron trade as Arkwright's machinery was in the cotton-spinning trade"; and Mr. Fairbair

the water-tuyere belongs, we believe, to Mr. John

the use of hot blast." [Papers on Iron and Steel, 127.] The produce per furnace is now 200 tons a-week and upwards. The hot blast process was afterwards applied to the making of iron with the anthracite or stone coal of Wales; for which a patent was taken out by Georg

e saving on our present produce of 400,000 tons of pig-iron is 2,000,000 tons of coals, 200,000 tons of limestone, and #650,000 sterling per annum." But as

Engineer, Glasgow, before the Royal Scott