Everything about Benjamin Huntsman totally explained
Benjamin Huntsman (
4 June 1704 –
20 June 1776) was an
English inventor and manufacturer of
crucible steel. He was born the third son of a
Quaker farmer in
Epworth,
Lincolnshire. His parents were
Germans.
He started business as a clock, lock and tool maker at
Doncaster, and attained a considerable local reputation for scientific knowledge and skilled workmanship. He also practised surgery in an experimental fashion, and was frequently consulted as an
oculist.
Hampered by poor quality steel, Huntsman experimented in steel manufacture: first at Doncaster, and then at
Handsworth, near Sheffield, whither he removed in
1740 to secure cheaper fuel for his
furnaces. This cheaper fuel was coke which was more efficient than charcoal. After several years of trials, he produced a satisfactory cast steel, purer and harder than any contemporary steel. The
Sheffield cutlery manufacturers, however, refused to buy it on the ground that it was too hard, and for a long time Huntsman exported his whole output to
France. The English parliament prohibited the refining of
pig iron or the casting of iron in the American colonies, contributing to the
American Revolution.
The growing competition of imported French
cutlery made from Huntsman's cast-steel alarmed the Sheffield cutlers, who, after vainly endeavouring to get the exportation of the steel prohibited by the British government, were compelled in self-defence to use it. Huntsman hadn't patented his process, and its secret was discovered by a Sheffield iron-founder called Walker, who, according to a popular story, obtained admission to Huntsman's works in the disguise of a starving beggar asking to sleep by a fire for the night.
Benjamin Huntsman died in
1776, his business being subsequently greatly developed by his son, William Huntsman (1733-1809).
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