Talk:Henry Bessemer

Untitled
What do people mean by his father was "born to a cow in London"? Is this a joke or actually a myth? Can someone take it out/clarify?
 * This article has been sbjected to a continuous barrage of vandalism for many months Chevin (talk) 08:04, 21 March 2008 (UTC)


 * This article is extremely sketchy as to Bessemer's education and as to when he started experimenting on the air injection process which made him famous. Needs substantial editing.Edison 23:13, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
 * Nine years on, and there is currently nothing at all about Bessemer's education. Maybe someone vandalized whatever was there. Valetude (talk) 11:36, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

Cleanup example
From the article: "Five firms applied without delay for licences to work under his patents, success did not at once attend his efforts; indeed, after several ironmasters had put the process to practical trial and failed to get good results, it was in danger of being thrust aside and entirely forgotten. Its author, however, instead of being discouraged by this lack of success, continued his experiments, and in two years was able to turn out a product, the quality of which was not inferior to that yielded by the older methods. But when he now tried to induce makers to take up his improved system, he met with general rebuffs, and finally was driven to undertake the exploitation of the process himself."

The first sentence is a run-on and the comma usage is excessive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timhoooey (talk • contribs) 03:52, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Just a guess, but I suspect the authors of the Encyclopædia Britannica, which this article is taken from, were well aware of their house style... —  iride  scent  16:42, 17 October 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the notice that you reverted my edits of the Henry Bessemer article. I was unaware that it was copied word-for-word from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition.  I'm a fairly busy student and I added the cleanup tag to the article because I had trouble quickly reading certain sections of it.  You seem very knowledgeable of Wikipedia.  Do you think that the goal of the encyclopedia should be to adhere to authoritative texts - even when the style of writing is foreign and difficult to read for most users - or to present information in a simple and readable way?  I advocate the latter point.  Wikipedia articles should be easy to read and presentable as to a layperson.  A more appropriate place for preserving the exact wording of the article as it appeared in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition is the Wikisource project pertaining to it.  I am not alone in my view.  There is a Wikipedia content guideline regarding the usage of primary sources.  It states that material from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica may be used as the basis of an article and that primary source material should be stored in an appropriate repository. Timhoooey 02:22, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

More cleanup needed
This paragraph needs cleaning/fixing because of ambiguity--


 * Henry Bessemer's father, Anthony, was born in London, but moved to Paris when he was 21 years old. He was an inventor who while he was engaged by the Paris Mint, made his fortune with a machine for making medallions that could produce steel dies from a larger model. He became a member of the French Academy of Science, for his improvements to the optical microscope, when he was only 26. He was forced to leave Paris by the French Revolution, and returned to Britain. There he invented a process and dies for making gold chains, which was quite successful, and enabled him to buy a small estate in the village of Charlton, near Hitchin in Hertfordshire.

My problem with it is: Where does Anthony Bessemer's part in this paragraph end? You introduce the object of the sentence (Henry) and then talk about his father (Anthony) on and on and on, or so one would believe. Can we have some lucidity and clarity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linmhall (talk • contribs) 03:49, 13 December 2007 (UTC)

January 2008
Would somebody knowledgable check the edits made by certain unknown contributors. Chevin (talk) 10:21, 29 January 2008 (UTC)

Steel Guy
Hey Watsup? Heard you guys like Henry Bessemer. I'm doin a report on him right now. Okay. See ya guys later. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sickened (talk • contribs) 16:11, 26 March 2009 (UTC) How did that report come out?Longinus876 (talk) 14:07, 5 December 2018 (UTC)

Patent battles
Does anyone have any objections to me moving the second paragraph in Patent battles up into the Bessemer process section, where I think it would be more relevant.Obscurasky (talk) 16:18, 1 September 2009 (UTC)<br
 * ✅ Obscurasky (talk) 14:59, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Father's membership in the Academy
Many Google Books sources claim Antony Bessemer was a member of the French Academy of Sciences, but if you go to the in-memorium section of the Academy Web site, there's no Bessemer to be found. This is inconsistent. --Wtshymanski (talk) 15:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Unreferenced or hoax?
I can't find a "Doctor Henry Bessemer" on Google. Owner of the yacht "Eos" on non-Wikicontaminated sites is not him. I can't find a "Bessemer Industries" on Google or Google Books aside from a Hong Kong handbag maker. If he's a well known billionaire, he'd have at least a Wikipedia article and some real-world non-Web-hosted sources. I think this is an attempted hoax. --Wtshymanski (talk) 16:44, 3 December 2010 (UTC)


 * I bet you were right about this, and I'm glad that you noticed it and acted upon it. Nice work. — ¾-10 14:36, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Patent battles
The sub-section Patent battles is overkill in this article, which is about the man Henry Bessemer; not specifically his process. I'd like to remove the sub-section and move it to the article Bessemer process (without making any alterations), where it would be more appropriate. Comments anyone? Obscurasky (talk) 13:25, 8 January 2011 (UTC)


 * Support. I think that's a great idea. In my opinion, the best execution of it would be to leave some small but explicit mention of his patent battles in this article, with a pipe link that leads any interested readers to the main discussion of the topic. I'm quite pleased that you thought to move the info rather than just delete it. I think that's really smart, so I'm always happy to see other editors suggesting it. — ¾-10 14:35, 8 January 2011 (UTC)
 * ✅ Obscurasky (talk) 20:58, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

With a little help from his friends
I have taken the liberty of amending the phrase abt Bessemer buying the Sheffield land with the help of friends, and also cross-linking my edit to W & J Galloway & Sons. The people involved were friends, but the agreement was a formal, legally binding business partnership arrangement until its dissolution in 1877. As such, I think using "friends" word is a little loose and may not get the full story across to readers. Obviously, revert if there is disagreement.

I've been (still am) working on the Galloway article and there is a section therein about Bessemer some of the content of which might usefully be incorporated into this article. I don't mean merging but a copy/paste/tweak of whatever is useful, complete with the citations. Thoughts? Sitush (talk) 19:08, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


 * Sounds good. John's portrait is priceless. Maybe he wasn't thinking "WTF", but I like to imagine that he was. — ¾-10 19:52, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Link to autobiography
The link to 'Bessemer's Autobiography' leads to a page that says 'This page cannot be displayed'. Can this be rectified? Valetude (talk) 11:27, 22 March 2015 (UTC)

External links modified
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Formal Training?
I don't see a reference to any formal education for Henry Bessemer.Longinus876 (talk) 14:03, 5 December 2018 (UTC)