op his other ideas. He was awarded a gold medal by Prince Albert for the highly-efficient sugar cane press he invented and he began making optical sheet glass and patented an improved method of silvering mirrors.
With the coming of the Crimean War the need was for armaments. His involvement with gun design led to the work for which Bessemer is most famous – the “Bessemer Process” of steel manufacture. Previously Swedish bar-iron, costing up to £20 a ton, was used for making steel. The expensive conversion process took ten days and a mere 50 pounds of steel could be made at a time. Also the type of metal obtained, while being excellent for making knives and other cutting implements, was unsuitable and too costly for other uses.
Bessemer’s process used the much cheaper crude pig iron and 5 tons of steel could be produced in just half an hour. Instead of days in a furnace, using large quantities of coke, by the “Bessemer Process” the iron once melted was kept in a molten state in the converter by the burning of its own impurities while a stream of air was continuously blown through it. The steel obtained was of a higher quality than that made in the old way.
Bessemer set up his own factory and other manufacturers in England and abroad used his process under licence, from which he gained a royalty of £2 a ton.
Henry Bessemer made over a million pounds from this process before he died in 1898. His knowledge of business methods had obviously improved over the years!
Posted in Historical articles, History, Industry, London, Politics, Railways, Royalty on Wednesday, 5 February 2014
This edited article about Queen Victoria first appeared in Look and Learn issue number 543 published on 10 June 1972.
Victoria and Albert arrive by train on a Royal Visit, by Ron Embleton
In his arms above the font, the Archbishop of Canterbury held the beautiful, chubby Royal baby. He was about to christen her when a heated argument arose between the Duke of Kent, who was the father, and the Prince Regent. Others joined in, while the Archbishop – and the baby – waited.
That was the scene in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace on June 24, 1819.
It was the strangest Royal christening on record. The first name, Alexandrina, was accepted by all. The second christian name, the father demanded, must be Elizabeth.
Although the baby girl was only fifth in succession to the Throne, the Duke of Kent firmly believed that his daughter would one day be Queen of England. He wanted a name that would be fittingly regal, and he had set his heart on her becoming Queen Elizabeth the Second.
The Prince Regent thought that “Elizabeth” was too regal. He did not want people looking forward to a new Elizabethan age when other relatives were so much closer to the Throne than this baby girl. It was asking for trouble, he believed.
The argument ended when the Prince suggested his mother’s name – Victoria. The relieved Archbishop quickly intoned “Alexandrina Victoria” and it was too late for further discussion.
So it was that a tiny baby, exactly one month old, was given a name that was to mark an age of unparalleled material progress and social change for Britain – the Victorian age.
Yet the family background of the baby girl who was to become ruler of the great world-wide British Empire and the most powerful woman on earth, was one of financial distress and even poverty.
It is impossible to imagine today a member of our Royal Family being in the position in which the Duke of Kent found himself. He had debts of nearly £250,000 and the House of Commons refused to help him by increasing his grant. So in order to economise he rented a small house at Sidmouth in Devon. There he lived in very poor circumstances with his wife, a former German princess, and their baby daughter.
Before Victoria was a year old her father died from a lung infection. Six days later King George the Third died, and his eldest son, the Prince Regent, became George the Fourth.
The Duchess, mother of the child who was now third in succession to the Throne, was penniless. She did not even have the fare from S