Memoirs of the Distinguished Men of Science of Great Britain Living in the Years 1807-8

by William Walker

HENRY CORT.

Born 1740. Died 1800.

The sad history of this great inventor, who has been well surnamed "The Father of the iron trade," is comparatively soon told. Although his discoveries in the manufacture of iron were so important as to have been one of the chief causes in the establishment of our modern engineering, little is known of the life of the unfortunate inventor. He was born in 1740 at Lancaster, where his father carried on the trade of a builder and brickmaker. In 1765, at the age of twenty-five, he was engaged in the carrying on of the business of a navy agent in Surrey Street, Strand, in which he is said to have realized considerable profits. While conducting this business Cort became aware of the inferiority of British iron in comparison with that of foreign countries, and entered on a series of experiments with the object of improving its manufacture. In 1775 he relinquished his business as a navy agent and took a lease of some premises at Fonltey, near Fareham, where he erected a forge and an iron-mill. He afterwards took into partnership Samuel Jellicoe, son of Adam Jellicoe, then deputy-paymaster of seamen's wages, a connection which ultimately proved the cause of all Cort's subsequent misfortunes. Ford in 1747, Dr. Roebuck in 1762, the brothers Cranege in 1766, and Peter Onions, of Merthyr Tydvil, in 1783, had all introduced valuable additions to the then known processes of iron manufacture. In 1783-4 Cort took out his two patents which, while combining the inventions of his predecessors, specified so many valuable improvements of an original character, that they established a new era in the history of iron manufacture, and raised it to the highest state of prosperity. Mr. Truran,[51] in speaking of Cort, remarks "The mode of piling iron to form large pieces, as described in his inventions, is the one at use in the present day."—"The method of puddling iron now in use is the same as that patented by Henry Cort. There has been no essential departure from his process. Iron bottoms have been substituted for sand and by building the furnace somewhat larger, a second charge of cast-iron is introduced and partially heated during the finishing operations in the first, as conducted at the present day. All that has been done in the last seventy-three years has been in the way of adding to and perfecting Cort's furnaces, as experience has from time to time suggested." Cort's method of passing the piled wedged-shaped bars of iron through grooved rollers has been spoken of by another competent authority as of "high philosophical interest, being scarcely less than the discovery of a new mechanical power in reversing the action of the wedge, by the application of force to four surfaces so as to elongate the mass instead of applying force to a mass to divide the four surfaces." The principal iron masters soon heard of the success of Cort's new inventions, and visited his foundry for the purpose of examining his process, and of employing it at their own works if satisfied with the result. Among the first to try it were Richard Crawshaw of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of Penydarran (both in South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale. The two first-named at once entered into a contract to work under Cort's patents at 10s. a ton royalty; and the quality of the iron manufactured by the new process was found to be so superior to other kinds, that the Admiralty directed it, in 1787, to be used for the anchors and other iron-work in the ships of the Royal Navy. The merits of the invention were now generally conceded, and numerous contracts for licenses were entered into with Cort and his partner, by the manufacturers of bar-iron throughout the country, and licenses were taken at royalties estimated to yield 27,500l. to the owners of the patent. Cort himself made arrangements for carrying on the manufacture on a large scale, and with that object entered upon the possession of a wharf at Gosport belonging to Adam Jellicoe, his partner's father, where he succeeded in obtaining considerable government orders for iron made under his patents. This period, apparently the crowning point of Cort's fortunes, was but the commencement of his ruin. In August, 1789, Adam Jellicoe died, and defalcations were found in his public accounts to the extent of 39,676l. His papers and books were at once seized by Government, and on examination it was found that a sum of 54,853l. was owing to Jellicoe by the Cort partnership for moneys advanced by him at different times to enable Cort to pursue his experiments, which were necessarily of a very expensive character. Among the sums advanced by Jellicoe to Cort was found one of 27,500l. entrusted to Jellicoe for the payment of seamen and officers' wages. As Jellicoe had the reputation of being a rich man, Cort had not the slightest suspicion of the source from which the advances made to the firm were derived, nor has any connivance whatever on the part of Cort been suggested. The Government, however, bound to act with promptitude in such a case, at once adopted extraordinary measures to recover their money. The assignments of Cort's patents, which had been made to Jellicoe in consideration of his advances, were taken possession of, but, strange to say, Samuel Jellicoe, the son of the defaulter, was put in possession of the properties at Fonltey and Gosport and continued to enjoy them, to Cort's exclusion for a period of fourteen years. Notwithstanding this, the patent rights seem never to have been levied by the assignees, and the result was that the whole benefit of Cort's inventions was made over to the ironmasters and to the public, although there seems little reason to doubt, that had they been duly levied, the whole of the debt due to the government would have been paid in the course of a few years. As for Cort himself, on the death of Jellicoe he left his iron works a ruined man. He subsequently made many appeals to Government for the restoration of his patents, and offered to find security for payment of the debt due by his firm to the Crown, but in vain. In 1794 an appeal was made to Mr. Pitt by a number of influential members of parliament, on behalf of the inventor and his destitute family of twelve children, when a pension of 200l. was granted to him, which he enjoyed until the year 1800, when, broken in health and spirit, he died at the age of sixty. He was buried in Hampstead Church, where a stone marks the date of his death and is still to be seen; a few years ago it was illegible, but it has been restored by his surviving son Richard Cort.

Mr. Smiles thus concludes a long and interesting account of Cort in his 'Industrial Biography:'—"Though Cort died in comparative poverty, he laid the foundations of many gigantic fortunes. He may be said to have been, in a great measure, the author of our modern iron aristocracy, who still manufacture after the processes which he invented or perfected, but for which they never paid him one shilling of royalty. These men of gigantic fortunes have owed much, we might almost say everything, to the ruined projector of 'the little mill at Fonltey.' Their wealth has enriched many families of the older aristocracy, and has been the foundation of several modern peerages. Yet Henry Cort, the rock from which they were hewn, is already all but forgotten; and his surviving children, now aged and infirm, are dependent for their support upon the slender pittance,[52] wrung by repeated entreaty and expostulation, from the state."—Smiles's Industrial Biography. London, 1863.—Mechanics' Magazine, 1859-60-61.

JAMES IVORY, F.R.S., &c.

Born 1765. Died September 21, 1842.

This distinguished mathematician was born at Dundee and received the elements of his education in the public schools of that town. His father was a watchmaker and intended that his son should become a clergyman of the church of Scotland, for which purpose he sent him, when fourteen years old, to the University of St. Andrews. Here Ivory remained for six years, and had for his fellow student, Mr. (afterwards Sir John) Leslie, with whom, at the end of the above period he removed to the University of Edinburgh, where he remained one year to complete the course of study required as a qualification for admission into the church of Scotland. Circumstances, however, seem to have prevented Ivory from carrying out the intentions of his father, for, on leaving the university in 1786, he became an assistant teacher in an academy at that time recently established in Dundee. After remaining at this academy for three years, Ivory, in company with several others, established a factory for spinning flax at Douglastown, in Forfarshire. In this apparently uncongenial occupation he remained for fifteen years (from 1789 to 1804), but the undertaking proved unsuccessful and in 1804 the company ceased to exist. Mr. Ivory then obtained the appointment to a professorship of mathematics in the Royal Military College at Marlow, in Buckinghamshire (afterwards removed to Sandhurst), with which establishment he remained until his retirement from public service. This was the most active period of his life, for while fulfilling assiduously the duties of his professorship he continued unremittingly his scientific studies. His earliest writings were three memoirs, which he communicated in the years 1796, 1799, and 1802, to the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The first of these was entitled, 'A New Series for the Rectification of the Ellipse;' the second, 'A New Method of Resolving Cubic Equations;' and the third, 'A New and Universal Solution of Kepler's Problem;' all of them evincing great analytical skill, as well as originality of thought. Mr. Ivory contributed fifteen papers to 'The Transactions of the Royal Society of London,' nearly all of them relating to physical astronomy, and every one containing mathematical investigations of the most refined nature. The first, published in the 'Transactions of 1809,' and entitled, 'On the Attractions of Homogeneous Ellipsoids,' is his most celebrated paper, in which he completely and definitely resolved the problem of attraction for every class of ellipsoidal bodies. Many of Ivory's remaining contributions, ranging through a period of nearly thirty years, related to the subject of the attraction of spheroids and the theory of the figure of the Earth, and some of them are considered masterpieces of analytical skill. One of the last subjects which occupied his attention was the possible equilibrium of a spheroid with three unequal axes when revolving about one of the axes, a fact which Jacobi had discovered. This Ivory demonstrates in the volume for 1838 of the 'Philosophical Transactions.' The volumes in 1823 and 1838, contain Ivory's two papers on the 'Theory of Atmospheric Refraction,' a subject which, next to the Theory of Attractions, engaged most seriously his attention on account of its great importance in astronomy and the curious mathematical difficulties which its investigation presents. For each of these papers he was awarded the Royal medal by the Society. Of all his contributions to the 'Transactions,' only one is purely mathematical; this is contained in the volume for 1831, and is entitled, 'On the Theory of Elliptic Transcendants.' Besides these contributions to the Royal Society, Ivory wrote several papers in the Philosophical Magazine of 1821-27; in Maseres's 'Scriptores Logarithmici;' in Leybourne's 'Mathematical Repository;' and in the Supplement to the sixth edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. In the beginning of 1819 Ivory, finding that his health began to decline under the great exertions which he made in carrying on his scientific researches, and performing his duties as professor, resigned his professorship at Sandhurst and retired into private life. In consideration, however, of his great merit, the pension due for the full period of service required by the regulations was granted to him, although that period had not been completed. After his retirement, Ivory devoted himself entirely to his scientific researches, living in or near London until his death. In 1814 he had received the Copley medal for his communications to the Royal Society; in 1815 he became a Fellow of the same society. He was also an honorary fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; an honorary member of the Royal Irish Academy and of the Cambridge Philosophical Society; a corresponding member of the Institute of France, of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and of the Royal Society of Göttingen.

In the year 1831, in consideration of the great talent displayed in his investigations, Ivory was recommended by Lord Brougham, whom he had known in early life, to the notice of the King (Wm. IV.), who, with the Hanoverian Guelphic Order of Knighthood, gave him an annual pension of 300l., which he enjoyed during the rest of his life; and in 1839 he received the degree of Doctor in Laws from the University of St. Andrews.