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This page is part of a website
based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander
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Cort’s
promotion efforts 1783-86
Contacts with
Boulton, Watt, Wilkinson
Cort’s first
recorded contact with the firm of Boulton & Watt is a letter
to Matthew Boulton in1779. Apparently nothing comes of the approach, but
In December 1782 he visits the works in Birmingham.
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We had a visit to-day from a Mr. Cort of
Gosport who says he has a forge there and has found out some grand secret in the
making of Iron, by which he can make double the quantity at the same expense
and in the same time as usual. He says
he wants some kind of Engine but could not tell what.
From letter from James Watt to Matthew Boulton, 14 December 1782. |
Boulton is away in Cornwall.
Watt writes to him with his assessment of Cort as
"a simple good-natured man but not very knowing".
Much of subsequent
correspondence has been lost, but there is a letter from Cort asking Watt for
an introduction to John Wilkinson.
Once again the outcome is not
recorded, but some contact must have been established, as Wilkinson expects to
see a demonstration by Cort of his rolling process the following November. There is even a hint of a meeting between
them at Stourbridge.
Some time this
Week I shall go over to Stourton having been advised by Mr Cort that he is
ready & has already preformed to the Satisfaction of all present. – I
told him at Stourbridge that I shoul give him 10Days extra to be perfect
before I paid him a Visit. – I find he
has been attended by great Numbers of Spectators – among which was MR. Kier –
You will learn from him what the Trade can expect from Mr Corts method.
From letter of John Wilkinson to James
Watt, 3 November 1783 |
The demonstration takes place at a mill at Stourton owned by
Francis Homfray (I’m
not sure whether this is the father or the brother of the Homfrays
involved at Penydarren). For his demonstration, Cort needs to modify
the mill’s rollers, normally used for making nailing rods. However, the opportunity for Wilkinson to
witness Cort’s rolling process is lost.
My coming over depends
on an experiment Mr Cort is to make at Stourton Mill.
From letter of John Wilkinson to James
Watt, 22 October 1783 |
Read a letter
from Mr Cort that he had met with an Accident in his Mill &
that he woud advise when he was ready again to work
From letter of John Wilkinson to James
Watt, 6th November 1783. |
There is
firm evidence that Cort, on a later visit to the area, stays at the Bechers’ home in Shut End
(we note elsewhere that John Becher’s
presence there may be due to an iron trade connection). There is little doubt that he also uses it as
a base on these earlier visits.
Indeed,
it seems likely that John Becher has a hand in setting up the demonstration at
Stourton.
Probably
it is more than a coincidence that John Becher dies on 7 November 1783, barely
two days after the accident.
Have not learnt
the accident that has befell them – it must be more than breaking a Roll as
that is soon replac’d.
From letter of John Wilkinson to James
Watt, 8th November 1783 |
Nowhere
else do we discover the nature of the accident, but we can take it that
Wilkinson is right that it is “more than breaking a roll”.
The next
promotional activity of which we hear is the set of tests by the Navy into
Cort’s products, which in time will bear fruit.
Early
1784 promotions
In May
1784 Cort travels to Edinburgh to present the specification for his Scottish patent.
He has been using a Scottish lawyer, John Wauchope, as agent.
With Wauchope’s help he presents demonstrations of his puddling
process, probably adapting reverberatory furnaces already on site for
use in casting. Witnesses in Scotland
include Professor Joseph Black of Edinburgh University, local landowner Sir
John Dalrymple and future ironmaster John Mackenzie. Charles Gascoigne of Carron
Ironworks also shows interest.
Subsequent correspondence reveals Cort has
already given demonstrations at Cardigan and Newcastle, where two companies,
Landell & Chambers, and William Hawkes, take an interest.
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Mr. Cort .has
made such a Discovery in the Art of makeing tough Iron as will undoubtedly
give to this Island the monopoly of that Business; he has shewn us an example
of his Process here in the presence of a few Freinds and he wishes to have an
opportunity of shewing it to Mr. Bolton & you; you will probably be
astonished as I was at the simplicity & propriety of it & will wonder
that it was not discovered sooner. From letter of Joseph Black to James Watt,
28 May1784, in Birmingham archives. |
Previous to
your letter I had heard much of Mr Cort's process for making barrs and have
seen a great deal of his iron, though I cannot perfectly agree with you as to
its goodness yet there is much Ingenuity in the Idea of forming the barrs in
that manner, which is the only part of his process which has any pretensions
to novelty. From letter of James Watt to Joseph Black,
6 June 1784, quoted in Robinson & McKie, Partners in Science. |
You
have formed a hasty and mistaken notion of Corts Process, the mechanical
improvements were those he first contrived and got a Patent for which others
attempted to elude and cheat him out of - But he afterwards contrived an
improvement in the Chemical Part which I maintain still is Capital and for
which he has a second Patent. From letter of Joseph Black to James Watt,
26 June 1784, in Birmingham archives. |
There is also reference, in one of Joseph
Black’s letters to James Watt, to “illiberal treatment”
of Cort by the iron trade.
On leaving Scotland, Cort
travels rapidly to the West Midlands. On
3rd June he writes to Matthew Boulton from Shut End, but Boulton is
about to leave for Cornwall.
Cort fits in a demonstration at
the Wright & Jesson
works at West Bromwich before moving on to London for the specification for his
second English patent.
During all these puddling
demonstrations Cort is frustrated because “I could not go thro' the whole of
the Process for the Iron was all drawn out by hammers and I had not the benefit
of the Grooved Rollers which I have found to improve the Iron very materially”.
Later 1784 promotions
In October 1784 Cort heads back
to Shut End, which serves as his base for a further six days of demonstrations
at Wednesbury and the Shropshire
sites of Pitchford and Ketley.
At Wednesbury he at last secures
the presence of Matthew Boulton, along with ironmasters such as Benjamin
Gibbons and Thomas Homfray.
The Ketley demonstration is at
William Reynolds’s works. In
preparation, Cort sends his employee Henry Foxall, who may already know Reynolds through
ironworking experience before his arrival at Fontley. Foxall stays for several months.
Reynolds is engaged in
extending the works, and wishes to test new fining processes. He has already sampled a process devised by
Peter Onions, and found it wanting.
Aftermath
Later reports that Reynolds
agrees to install puddling furnaces at Ketley are contrary to all contemporary
evidence. Nevertheless Cort becomes
suspicious that Reynolds is pirating his processes.
He hires legal experts in
London (probably engaged by James Watson) to give
their opinions, but does not follow them up.
More likely Reynolds has been
influenced by developments in Scotland, where Sir John Dalrymple has been
preparing to set up ironworks on his own land, intending to use Cort’s
processes. The difficulties he
encounters are probably instrumental in dissuading other ironmasters from
taking up puddling at this time.
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Mr Cort came to this County last summer & was with me in the
Country. I took a great liking to him
because he was ingenious & ingenuous.
I attended his experiment & took a much better judge with me
Doctor Black who declared that the invention was a noble National one. Upon this I made preparations to set up a
furnace & a forge upon my Estate.
But last winter being a very severe one I could do nothing. I therefore employed the intermediate time
in making experiments. Mr Cort's
proposition was that three tons of Pig made two tons of bar which would have
made one of the most profitable trades in the world. He sent us a set of experiments made in
different places in England in presence of the different Iron Masters then
infinately accurate in all particulars which confirmed this proportion. A Gentleman from the Country perfectly
master of the subject went to Gosport to make the experiment with his own
hands & reported that the proportions were as above. Notwithstanding all this all the
experiments which I made brought out only one ton of bar from three of Pig,
which would be a very poor trade. The
experiments were made at Edinburgh, Glasgow and a third place, and at
different times. I almost roasted my
eyes out in watching them. These differences make me pause a little because the erection of
such works is a serious affair. I
observe in your last book, you speak highly of Wright and Jesson's process,
but say nothing of Cort's, which makes me imagine the character of it is not
high. Now what I have to ask of Yr
Lordship is that, as the Iron people are about you just now, you would let me
know what they think of Cort's process, and how it has succeeded with them.
From letter of Sir John Dalrymple to Lord Sheffield, circa April 1785,
in Weale collection. |
The only works that agrees to
adopt puddling at this stage is at Rotherhithe.
henrycort.net
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