ANTHONY BESSEMER, 1813.

Anthony Bessemer was a man of remarkable inventive genius. In his twentieth year he distinguished himself by the erection at Haarlem in Holland of pumping-engines to drain the turf pits; and before he had attained the age of twenty-five, he was elected a member of the Académie at Paris for improvements in the microscope. He subsequently turned his attention to letter founding, and established a foundry at Charlton, near Hitchin. Of the exact date of this undertaking we are uncertain; but, as his son, the present Sir Henry Bessemer, was born at Charlton in 1813, it is evident that the father was already settled there at that date. Hansard states[745] that “Mr. Bessimer” cut the Caslon Diamond letter. If the person referred to is Mr. Anthony Bessemer, as is probable, it would appear that during the early years of his business as a founder, he placed his energies occasionally at the disposal of his brethren in the art.

In 1821 he issued a specimen of Modern-cut Printing Types, and shortly afterwards took into partnership Mr. J. J. Catherwood, formerly a partner of Mr. Henry Caslon II, who, since his retirement from that business, appears for a short time to have had a foundry of his own at Charles Street, Hoxton.[746] Messrs. Bessemer {359} and Catherwood issued a Specimen in 1825, on the title-page of which the new partner styles himself “late of the Chiswell Street Foundry, London.”

Bessemer’s Romans were, in conformity with the fashion of the day, somewhat heavy, but finely cut. His chief performance was a Diamond, which was, as Hansard informs us, cut to eclipse the famous Diamond of Henri Didot, of Paris, at that time the smallest known. The execution of this feat, particularly in the Italic, was highly successful. The partnership between Messrs. Bessemer and Catherwood was not of long duration, and terminated either by the death or the retirement of the latter prior to 1830. Mr. Bessemer then removed his foundry to London, and established it at 54, Red Lion Street, Clerkenwell, whence, in 1830, he issued his final specimen book, consisting almost entirely of Roman founts.

In 1832 he retired from the business, and his foundry was put up to auction and dispersed. The Catalogue of the Sale mentions that the 2,500 punches included in the plant had been collected at an expense of £4,000, and that not a single strike had been taken from them but for the proprietor’s own use. From a marked copy of the Catalogue in our possession, it appears that several of the lots of punches and matrices fetched high prices. The list of implements and utensils shows that the foundry employed about seven casters and an equal number of rubbers and dressers.

Mr. Bessemer’s son, Henry, appears to have been for some time in his father’s foundry, where he mastered the mechanics of the trade. In 1838, being then twenty-five years old, he took out a patent for improvements in type-founding machinery, embodying several ingenious contrivances, some of which have since been adopted.

SPECIMENS.