Bessemer

Bessemer may refer to several related topics connected to Sir Henry Bessemer and to places named after him. It most commonly denotes the Bessemer process, a pioneering method for mass-producing steel, and the inventor who devised it.

Sir Henry Bessemer (1813–1898) was an English inventor and entrepreneur whose improvements to metallurgy facilitated inexpensive large-scale steel production. His most famous contribution is the Bessemer process, developed in the 1850s and patented in 1856. The process involves blowing air through molten pig iron in a converter to oxidize impurities and reduce carbon content, producing steel more rapidly and cheaply than prior methods. The Bessemer converter became a cornerstone of the industrial era, supporting rapid expansion of railways, construction, and manufacturing. Over time the process was refined and eventually supplanted in many applications by other technologies, such as the basic oxygen process.

In addition to the process and the inventor, the name Bessemer is used for various places and structures named in his honor. Notable examples include Bessemer, Alabama, a city in the Birmingham metropolitan area that grew around steel production, and Bessemer, Michigan, a smaller community in the Upper Peninsula.

The term also appears in references to equipment such as the Bessemer converter, the vessel used to carry out the process, and in historical discussions of 19th-century industrial chemistry and steelmaking.