Henry Bessemer, an English engineer, born in Bertfordshire in 1813. He early devoted himself to the improvement of machinery, and acquired celebrity about 20 years ago by his invention of a new practical process for the manufacture of steel (see Steel), which has been extensively adopted in Europe and in the United States, and the product of which is known in trade as Bessemer steel. Until 1870 his annual income from his patent amounted to nearly £100,000; but his royalty, which until then was one shilling per quintal, has since been considerably reduced. The jury on steel manufactures, in the exposition of 1802, remarked that of 127 patents for improvements in that industry in England, there was only one which had brought about any striking change in the mode of producing steel, or which had been attended with any real or practical commercial result, and this was the process patented by Mr. Bessemer. The report on the Paris universal exposition of 1867 states that "Mr. Bessemer was not the first to attempt the conversion of carburetted iron into steel, although he was the first to propose a practicable process for accomplishing so desirable an object."