All About Inventions and Discoveries
The Romance of modern scientific and mechanical Achievements

48 All About Inventions the age of sixty, retired, a millionaire, from all active participation in the steel industry. The influence which Bessemer’s invention exer- cised upon the prosperity of these islands may be gathered from the fact that in 1855-6, when Bessemer lodged his first patents, only about 50,000 tons of steel per year were being produced by this country. In 1898, the year in which he died, the output had risen to 4,665,986 tons, of which 1,759,386 tons were produced by his process. During the year 1915 the United Kingdom produced 8,350,944 tons of steel, of which 1,301,224 tons were Bessemer, the balance of 7,049,720 tons being the product of the open-hearth process, which has superseded the Bessemer method of steel production to a pronounced degree. There is one curious incident in connection with the story of the invention which ushered in the steel age that is worth recording. At the age of sixty- eight Bessemer was knighted. But this honour was not conferred as a slender recognition of the far- reaching influence which his creative genius had ex- erted, but was bestowed for having saved the Govern- ment £100,000 a year by the invention which he evolved when an unknown lad of twenty ! This was the only reward he ever received for this achievement, and that forty-six years after it had been adopted! Even this acknowledgment of his services to the State would never have been extended had not the in- ventor, during the evening of his life, rudely stirred the memories of the powers that be by a recapitulation of forgotten and broken promises.