William Kelly (1811-1888)—Pittsburgh Engineer and Henry Bessemer and Steel Making

摘要

William Kelly was born in Pittsburgh on Aug. 21, 1811, and later studied metallurgy at the Western University (now University of Pittsburgh). In the early 1840s, Kelly and his brother set up the profitable Eddyville Iron Works. William Kelly invented the process in which air is blown through molten pig iron to oxidize and remove unwanted impurities to save fuel and produce the first inexpensive steel. Between 1851 and 1856, Kelly built a series of experimental furnaces in the woods behind his plant. When Kelly learned of the Bessemer patent in 1856, he objected to Bessemer applying in the U.S. and Kelly received a patent in 1857. In 1859, Kelly renewed his experiments at the Cambria Iron Works in Johnstown, PA, and by 1862 built a steel plant in Wyandotte, MI. Within two years, he produced the first commercial steel, using the Kelly process. In 1863, the Kelly Pneumatic Process Company was organized. Kelly merged with the Bessemer interests in 1866, and thereafter steel production expanded rapidly. William Kelly lived in quiet retirement in Louisville, KY, until his death on Feb. 11, 1888. Henry Bessemer in the U.K. (1813-1898) did produce the first patent and became known for the steel making process. Bessemer invented over 100 items in the fields of iron, steel, and glass. Unlike most inventors, he managed to bring his own projects to fruition and profited financially from their success. Bessemer planned Sheffield, England. In 1865, Andrew Carnegie started managing the Keystone Bridge Company. From about 1872-73, at about age 38, he began concentrating on steel, founding near Pittsburgh the J. Edgar Thomson Steel Works, which would eventually evolve into the Carnegie Steel Company. In the 1870s Carnegie's new company built the first steel plants in the United States to use the new Bessemer steelmaking process, borrowed from Britain and William Kelly.