Hi,
Just uploaded a newspaper cutting in which Wordsworth Harrison and others claim to own a process developed by John Perry Downing.
Do you know if the process worked? Wordsworth Harrison was twice bankrupt and although he claims to be "of" Harrison Ainslie, he left that partnership in 1869.


http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Personal-Album-9839/WordsworthHarrison.pdf 

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Not really something I know much about but fairly certain that the Gilchrist Thomas Process was used locally to deal with the phosphorus content in the ironstone.

Interesting read!

Interesting to see the reference to importing steel from Hindustan, that would have been wootz ingots - wonder why they weren't just making crucible steel instead by that date?

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I've had a quick glance at 'Cleveland Iron and Steel - Background and Nineteeth Century History' which devotes a whole chapter to steelmaking before the Gilchrist-Thomas Process in 1879 and couldn't spot either name mentioned.

The book does mention an 1868 patent (No. 2511) for a process from Richardson and Johnson involving the addition of a small quantity of high quality Swedish iron which sounds similar, but that seems to have later been exposed as a little fraudulent.

The fortune to be made from finding a way to remove the phosphorus from Cleveland Ironstone was immense, so I imagine a lot of dubious characters may have been trying to drum up support for unproven processes, so perhaps this twice bankrupt gentleman flogging a dead mans process was one ?

On a more charitable note, perhaps the process did work but was just eclipsed by the Gilchrist-Thomas Process which was announced just a couple of months later.

Thanks,
Sounds like it was just wishfull thinking. It would be a brave man who added the ammonium chloride though. I think it would break down to NH3 and HCl before it met the iron.

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Mr Harrison is mentioned quite a lot here:
http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/a2a/records.aspx?cat=025-bdkf&cid=11-24#11-24 

Best regards from Hannover
D.

Thanks Yorkshireman. That's the man but is was cataloguing box BD/KF133 that set this off. Yarker & Salmon were his solicitors and he had a long running dispute with the sewage authority about polution of his stream. Seems that sewers are not such a good idea when they don't run to a treatment plant. Did find this though:
http://www.aditnow.co.uk/documents/Personal-Album-9839/Newland-accounts.pdf 

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There's more plenty about Mr Harrison in the issues of the London Gazette at the time and in the letters of his lawyers. He seems to have spent all his money on court cases. His father's (Benson Harrison) will was so complex that it is now an example of case law in the UK and the USA.

"In the County Court of Lancashire, holden at Ulverston and at Barrow-in-Furness.
In the Matter of a Bankruptcy Petition against Wordsworth Harrison, of the Lund, Ulverston, in the county of Lancaster, Esquire, and also trading in partnership with Edward Fellowes, under the style or firm of Edward Fellowes and Company, of Birmingham, Bedstead Manufacturer.
UPON the hearing of this Petition this day, and upon proof satisfactory to the Court of the debt of the Petitioner, and of the trading, and of the act or acts of the Bankruptcy alleged to have been committed by the said Wordsworth Harrison having been given, it is ordered that the said Wordsworth Harrison be, and he is hereby, adjudged bankrupt.—Given under the Seal of the Court this 13th day of November, 1879.

This is probably the bankruptcy that was annulled in 1884 (source: Edinburgh Gazette).

He was involved in iron+steel, mining, iron bedsteads and rope-making. There's also a tenuous link to the far east and steamships.

As to Mr Perry:

This is about all there is about his patent.

July 1878

Patent no. 2338.
To John Perry Downing, of the Tyne
Steel Works, Redheugh, Gateshead, in the
County of Durham, Steel Manufacturer, for the
invention of " improvements in the manufacture
of steel and in the refinement of iron."

The only other mention of him is his address in a list of property deeds

Mr H appears in many of the other "Bundles" from the solicitors’ archives - it reveals him as a pretty cantankerous character. I quote:
"'It is of the utmost importance that Mr Harrison should not hold any further correspondence with the Pedders'." and
Above case; and Stowe Iron Ore Co.
'Mr Harrison wants to sue Pedder. If we do so and get judgement can we imprison him in default of payment - He has nothing we can seize except his body'.
July 10.
'[The Pedders] have got a new Company, called the Castle Iron Ore Company Limited, provisionally registered. The object of which is to purchase the Stowe Iron Ore Co. from Harrison and give him new shares for the amount in the new company'.

BTW: Stowe Nine Churches in Northants seems to have quite a strong connection with Mr H.

London Gazette again:
"In the Matter of the Stowe Iron Ore Company (Limited), and in the Matter of the CompaniesAct, 1862.

NOTICE is hereby given, that a petition for the winding up of the above-named Company by the Court was, on the 18th day of July, 1866, presented to the Master of the Rolls of England, by Wordsworth Harrison, of The Lund, Ulverstone, in the county of Lancashire, Esq., a creditor of the said Company ; and that the, said petition is directed to be heard before the Master of the Rolls, on the 27th day of July, 1866 ; and any person desirous to oppose the making of an Order for the winding up of the said Company under the above Act should appear at the time of hearing by himself, or his counsel, for that purpose, and a copy of the petition will be furnished to any creditor or contributory of the said Company requiring the same, by the undersigned, on payment of the regulated charge for the same."

And this has connections to the link you posted (very interesting indeed!):

"NOTICE is hereby given, that the Partnership carried on for some time past by Dorothy Harrison, Wordsworth
Harrison, Robert Francis Yarker, and Dorothy Bolland, the executors of Benson Harrison, deceased; Montague Aiuslie, Thomas Roper, the said Wordsworth Harrison, William George Ainslie, and Aymer Ainslie, under the name or style of Harrison, Ainslie, and Company, as Iron Masters, at Newland Furnace, Diversion, in the county of Lancaster, and Lorn Furnace, Bonaw, Argyleshire, and as Gunpowder Manufacturers, at Melfort, near Oban, Argyleshire, was, on the 1st day of July last, dissolved by mutual consent, so far as regards the said Wordsworth Harrison, in his own right.—Dated at Ulverston aforesaid, this 31st day of August, 1869."

Cheers
D.

Rope making??

I have given up trying to follow the share ownership in Harrison Ainslie. Wordsworth Harrison's 1/16 share was cancelled making the other shares 1/15ths. Then the 15 shares were divided into 1/1710ths. There was Harrison v Harrison, 1872, Roper v Dodgeson, and the Roper estate act, 1879. The result of various wills was that most of the shares fell into the hands of Walter Dowson, solicitor of Dowson Ainslie & Martinau. Mrs Wadham (nee Ainslie) sued him for mismanagement of the company in Wadham v Dowson. The case was settled like Jarndice v Jarndice by the money running out and the company in liquidation.
Having said that his share in Harrison Ainslie was cancelled, I have since learned that he left 228 shares to his sons.
It matters because we are always looking for a yarn to tell visitors to Newland.

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This sounds like a classic case of educated 2nd generation, dad does all the work, earns a few bob and pays to educate his offspring, educated offspring then uses his education to play the system to claim his pocket money off the uneducated oiks who are still doing the work for the company his dad started and he has inherited.
Still happens, even today, ( P.M. David who???). :lol: :lol:

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In this case Wordsworth Harrison was the third generation - 1st Matthew Harrison who managed the mines and forges when under the Knott family. Matthew bought out the remaining knott shares and hence Harrison Ainslie & Co. Benson Harrison was Matthew's only surviving son. Benson Harrison married twice. His second wife being Dorothy Wordsworth (cousin to the poet). Wordsworth Harrison was Benson's second son. Benson was elderly when he died - his much younger wife was reputed to be a spendthrift as were a number of his children.