Gilchrist-Thomas method for producing steel invented

Historical Context Note

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.07: English Writing and Culture of the Victorian Period, 1837-1901.
Vol. editors: Gillian Fenwick (University of Toronto), Grace Moore (University of Otago)

Domains

Metal and metal alloys

Dates

Date of occurrence 1878

Places

United Kingdom (Location)

During the 1850s, Henry Bessemer had developed the first inexpensive process for making steel out of molten pig iron. By blowing air through the iron, impurities could be oxidised and thus removed from the final product. This did not, however, solve the problem that most iron ore contained high levels of phosporus, which made the steel brittle. When a young science enthusiast, Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, heard in a Chemistry class at Birkbeck that solving this problem would be a huge breakthrough and earn its discoverer a fortune, he resolved to do just that. His cousin, Percy Carlyle Gilchrist, was appointed analytical chemist at Blaenavon Ironworks in Wales, and the pair eventually met the challenge by designing a lining for the Bessemer …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

151 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Gilchrist-Thomas method for producing steel invented". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 30 August 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/stopics.php?rec=true&UID=5230, accessed 23 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here

Gilchrist-Thomas method for producing steel invented

Domains

Dates

Places

Save this article

Leave Feedback