Robert Forester Mushet ALS about his dispute with Henry Bessemer 1867

MUSHET, Robert Forester – An autograph letter signed to Charles Humfrey about resolution to his dispute with Henry Bessemer, a key moment in the history of steel manufacture and British industry.

Autograph letter signed (“Robt. Mushet”) to Charles Humfrey, engineer and advocate. Cheltenham, 15 February 1867.
 
4pp., 8vo (210 × 135 mm). On bifolium with embossed crest at head, old folds from posting, minor toning, otherwise very well preserved.
 
Robert Forester Mushet was the metallurgist whose crucial discovery — the addition of spiegeleisen (a ferromanganese alloy) at the end of the Bessemer “blow” — transformed Henry Bessemer’s steelmaking process from failure to triumph. Bessemer’s 1856 converter could produce steel cheaply and at scale, but it was brittle and unworkable. Mushet’s corrective method restored carbon and manganese, making the process commercially viable and laying the foundation of modern steel production.
 
Despite this, Mushet initially received little credit or financial reward. Bessemer had no legal obligation to him (Mushet had not patented his discovery), and for a decade their relationship was marked by bitterness and dispute. By 1866, however, Bessemer belatedly acknowledged Mushet’s role, granting a liberal annuity to Mushet’s wife and children. This letter, written the following February to the engineer Charles Humfrey (1821–1898), who likely acted as an intermediary and advocate during the dispute, records the reconciliation:
 
Transcription:
Cheltenham, 15th Feby. 1867
My dear Sir,
I have no doubt you will be glad to learn that Mr. Bessemer and myself have buried all animosity and have resolved that “bygones shall be bygones.” Immediately after we had come to this resolution Mr. Bessemer very handsomely secured to Mrs. Mushet and my children for their lives a liberal annuity. I think you will agree with me that this act deserved much to Mr. Bessemer’s credit; and the more so because we had previously differed seriously. I think very few men indeed would have acted so magnanimously under such circumstances.
I am, dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
Robt. Mushet
25 Great George Street, Westminster.
 
The reconciliation was not technically necessary: by 1867, the steel industry was already using Mushet’s corrective insight, whether he approved. But it was symbolically and historically important. For Mushet, it meant security for his family and vindication after years of neglect. For Bessemer, it was an act of magnanimity that helped repair his public reputation, showing that he had not ignored the man who had “saved” his process.
 
This letter therefore matters not because the friendship enabled the technology — the process was already entrenched — but because it records the moment of recognition and restitution between two men whose combined contributions created the backbone of industrial Britain. It is rare first-hand evidence of that rapprochement.