st
Bessemer's theories were several claimants to priority of invention.

Two men claimed that they had anticipated Bessemer in the invention of
a method of treating molten metal with air-blasts for the purpose of
"purifying" or decarbonizing iron. Both were Americans. Joseph Gilbert
Martien, of Newark, New Jersey, who at the time of Bessemer's address
was working at the plant of the Ebbw Vale Iron Works, in South Wales,
secured a provisional patent a few days before Bessemer obtained one of
his series of patents for making cast steel, a circumstance which
provided ammunition for those who wished to dispute Bessemer's somewhat
spectacular claims. William Kelly, an ironmaster of Eddyville,
Kentucky, brought into action by an American report of Bessemer's
British Association paper, opposed the granting of a United States
patent to Bessemer and substantiated, to the satisfaction of the
Commissioner of Patents, his claim to priority in the "air boiling"
process.

A third man, this one a Scot resident in England, intervened to claim
that he had devised the means whereby Martien's and Bessemer's ideas
could be made practical. He was Robert Mushet of Coleford,
Gloucestershire, a metallurgist and self-appointed "sage" of the
British iron and steel industry who also was associated with the Ebbw
Vale Iron Works as a consultant. He, like his American contemporaries,
has become established in the public mind as one upon whom Henry
Bessemer was dependent for the origin and success of his process. Since
Bessemer was the only one of the group to make money from the expansion
of the steel industry consequent upon the introduction of the new
technique, the suspicion has remained that he exploited the inventions
of the others, if indeed he did not steal them.

In this study, based largely upon the contemporary discussion in the
technical press, the relation of the four men to each other is
re-examined and an attempt is made to place the controversy of
1855-1865 in focus. The necessity for a reappraisal arises from the
fact that today's references to the origin of Bessemer steel[2] often
contain chronological and other inaccuracies arising in many cases from
a dependence on secondary and sometimes unreliable sources. As a
result, Kelly's contribution has, perhaps, been overemphasized, with
the effect of derogating from the work of another American, Alexander
Lyman Holley, who more than any man is entitled to credit for
establishing Bes