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LIFE OF HENRY CORT
Cort's birth is supposed to have been in
Lancaster in 1740.
Nothing
is known of his early life, though some accounts say his father was a builder.
The first documentary evidence comes in
October 1757, when Cort is working as clerk to a navy agent, Thomas Bell, in
London.
The Navy Office at this time is near the
Tower of London, on the corner of Crutched Friars and Seething Lane. Henry soon takes up residence in Crutched
Friars.
It is easy enough to follow his career. He must have had some useful financial
backing, for he has taken over the firm by 1764 and runs it for ten years.
During this period he marries twice. Little is known about
his first wife, but the marriage doesn't last
long.
His second wife is Elizabeth Haysham, the sister-in-law
of one of his clients, John Becher.
More significantly, she springs from the Attwick
family: granddaughter of John Attwick, who has built up a big
business in Gosport supplying ironmongery and other items to the Navy in
Portsmouth.
John is dead by the time Cort arrives on
the scene, and the business is being run by his son William, Elizabeth's uncle.
In 1772 William Attwick is hoping to
retire.
Cort suggests another of his clients, Thomas Morgan, as a
suitable person to take over the firm.
Morgan first becomes William's partner,
then sole owner.
When the American rebellion breaks out, Morgan re-enlists in the Navy.
Cort moves
to Gosport to take over the business.
Morgan owes him money, but the whole
enterprise is buttressed by a complex web of loans in which one of the main
lenders is a Navy Office clerk, Adam Jellicoe.
Early in 1781 the financial arrangements
are simplified: Jellicoe becomes the main creditor, Cort the main debtor
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Mr
Cort agreed the 8 January 1781 to sell Mr A Jellicoe: One half of the Iron Mill;
One half of Gosport works demised by Mr Attwick; One half of Child's Wharf
laid out with improvement; One half of his Contracts at a price to be settled
by two indifferent persons; One half of his Stock in trade at a valuation. And in consideration of Mr A Jellicoe
settling Mr Cort's affairs and paying his Debts to allow Mr Saml Jellicoe
half the Profits of his Contracts and Trade. From Watson-Dundas memorandum, 1790 |
Among the debts to Cort
that he assigns to Jellicoe are those of Thomas Morgan
and Revd Roger Parry. Cort takes on
Jellicoe's son Samuel as partner.
Jellicoe continues to finance the
enterprise. It looked a promising
investment.
Anchors and chains are forged at Gosport,
but most of the ironmongery is purchased elsewhere in the country: probably in
the West Midlands, although the Cramond works in Scotland is
the main supplier of nails for a period.
Cort, however, is experimenting with new
techniques in iron manufacture. The Navy at this time prefers to use imported
iron.
When France enters
the war in 1778, supplies from overseas become more difficult to obtain and
prices rise steeply.
The Navy is particularly concerned about
the price of hoops,
used to seal the casks and barrels that hold ships' provisions.
Cort enters into an arrangement to supply
the Navy with iron hoops.
He takes over an old iron mill at Fontley
on the River Meon, some 12km from Gosport, and installs new equipment at
some considerable cost.
In 1783 and 1784 there are patents awarded for
the processes he has developed: two patents in England and Wales, one in
Scotland.
The most important process later becomes
known as puddling. Its purpose is to remove excess carbon
that the iron has absorbed during smelting, to make
it workable by a blacksmith. The iron
emerges from the puddling furnace as a spongy solid, which is next squashed
using a "shingling" hammer.
The
final stage is to pass lumps of this solid between rollers, so that it emerges
as long bars.
By fitting collars and grooves to his
rollers, he can control the size and shape of a bar's cross-section: this part
of the process is later adapted for rolling steel.
Before Cort introduced this
stage of the process, bars were shaped using heavy hammers, like the
water-driven tilthammer said to be at Fonrtley Iron Mill when Cort took it over.
The Navy spends a few years checking the
efficacy of Cort's product.
But he is confident enough to start
travelling round the country (Wales and Scotland included) to demonstrate his process to
other ironmasters. He expects them to
adopt it and pay him royalties.
Although they seem to be impressed at
first, only one company, at Rotherhithe, gets involved at this stage. There is a snag in the process when
freshly-smelted iron is used, caused by impurities which accumulate in the
puddling furnace over time.
Cort never appreciates this, because he
always works with recycled iron, which does not contain these impurities.
In 1787, however, a new enterprise in South
Wales, under Richard Crawshay, takes an interest in Cort's process.
Crawshay adopts it in a big way, installing
twelve puddling furnaces where Cort used just one.
Crawshay still runs into the impurity
problem, and by the summer of 1789 the agreement with Cort and Jellicoe has
broken down.
But Cort has another problem. Some of the money Adam Jellicoe has lent him
is Navy money, earmarked for paying seamen's wages.
The point is never reached when money for
wages isn't available: nevertheless Jellicoe's bosses at the Navy Office get
nervous when they find out what he has done.
He assures them he will soon get the money back.
This hasn't happened at the time of Jellicoe's death in
August 1789.
The Navy determines to recover the missing
money from Cort, and persuades the judiciary that he owes £27,500 to the Crown.
They seize his property and assets, leaving
him unable to meet the demands of other creditors. He therefore applies for bankruptcy, granted
in October 1789.
The generosity of friends and admirers enables him
to set up house in London and pay off the debts
not outstanding to the Crown.
In the summer of 1791 a group petitions the Prime Minister on his behalf,
and in 1794 he is granted a
meagre pension.
He has a wife and
twelve children ranging in age from 4 to 25.
He lives for another six years, during
which one of his children dies and another is confined to a mental hospital in Calcutta for
over a year.
In the following years some of his children
attempt to gain public recognition and recompense for his work, and myths are created suggesting he is a victim of conspiracy.
It is in this atmosphere that The Times
publishes the 1856
accolade. Accounts like this
have coloured subsequent appraisals of Cort, but much has been disproved by
evidence recently unearthed at the National Archives
and elsewhere.
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Related pages |
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“Cortship” of Henry’s second
wife |
Cort’s processes in iron
manufacture Cort’s promotion efforts
1783-6 Significance of the Melville trial |
henrycort.net
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