William Kelly born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Pittsburgh is the second-largest city in the US Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Allegheny County. Regionally, it anchors the largest urban area of Appalachia and the Ohio River Valley, and nationally, it is the 22nd-largest urban area in the United States...

, was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 inventor. Kelly studied metallurgy

Metallurgy

Metallurgy is a domain of materials science that studies the physical and chemical behavior of metallic elements, their intermetallic compounds, and their mixtures, which are called alloys. It is also the technology of metals: the way in which science is applied to their practical use...

 at the Western University of Pennsylvania

University of Pittsburgh

The University of Pittsburgh, commonly referred to as Pitt, is a state-related research university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded as Pittsburgh Academy in 1787 on what was then the American frontier, Pitt is one of the oldest continuously chartered institutions of...

. Instead of getting a job as a scientist, Kelly, his brother, and his brother-in-law started a dry goods

Dry goods

Dry goods are products such as textiles, ready-to-wear clothing, and sundries. In U.S. retailing, a dry goods store carries consumer goods that are distinct from those carried by hardware stores and grocery stores, though "dry goods" as a term for textiles has been dated back to 1742 in England or...

 and commission business, which they called McShane & Kelly. After a fire destroyed their warehouse, William and his brother John decided to move to Eddyville, Kentucky

Eddyville, Kentucky

Eddyville is a city in Lyon County, Kentucky, United States. The population was 2,350 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lyon County . The Kentucky State Penitentiary is located in Eddyville.-History:...

 in 1847 to enter the iron industry.

Iron and steel making

In 1846, they purchased an iron manufacturing company in Lyon County

Lyon County, Kentucky

Lyon County is a county located in the U.S. state of Kentucky. As of 2000, the population was 8,080. Its county seat is Eddyville. Created from Caldwell County, Kentucky in 1854, the county was named for former Congressman Chittenden Lyon....

 on the Cumberland River

Cumberland River

The Cumberland River is a waterway in the Southern United States. It is long. It starts in Harlan County in far southeastern Kentucky between Pine and Cumberland mountains, flows through southern Kentucky, crosses into northern Tennessee, and then curves back up into western Kentucky before...

, called Eddyville iron-work. They then renamed the factory Kelly & Company.

Traditional methods

Before the technique of injecting air into molten iron was discovered by Kelly and by Bessemer

Henry Bessemer

Sir Henry Bessemer was an English engineer, inventor, and businessman. Bessemer's name is chiefly known in connection with the Bessemer process for the manufacture of steel.-Anthony Bessemer:...

, iron was available as cast iron

Cast iron

Cast iron is derived from pig iron, and while it usually refers to gray iron, it also identifies a large group of ferrous alloys which solidify with a eutectic. The color of a fractured surface can be used to identify an alloy. White cast iron is named after its white surface when fractured, due...

, a strong but brittle metal made in a blast furnace

Blast furnace

A blast furnace is a type of metallurgical furnace used for smelting to produce industrial metals, generally iron.In a blast furnace, fuel and ore and flux are continuously supplied through the top of the furnace, while air is blown into the bottom of the chamber, so that the chemical reactions...

 by treating iron ore with coke

Coke (fuel)

Coke is the solid carbonaceous material derived from destructive distillation of low-ash, low-sulfur bituminous coal. Cokes from coal are grey, hard, and porous. While coke can be formed naturally, the commonly used form is man-made.- History :...

 derived from coal

Coal

Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock usually occurring in rock strata in layers or veins called coal beds or coal seams. The harder forms, such as anthracite coal, can be regarded as metamorphic rock because of later exposure to elevated temperature and pressure...

, and wrought iron

Wrought iron

thumb|The [[Eiffel tower]] is constructed from [[puddle iron]], a form of wrought ironWrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon...

, a more malleable and flexible metal made by heating iron ore in a low oxygen

Oxygen

Oxygen is the element with atomic number 8 and represented by the symbol O. Its name derives from the Greek roots ὀξύς and -γενής , because at the time of naming, it was mistakenly thought that all acids required oxygen in their composition...

 environment in a bloomery

Bloomery

A bloomery is a type of furnace once widely used for smelting iron from its oxides. The bloomery was the earliest form of smelter capable of smelting iron. A bloomery's product is a porous mass of iron and slag called a bloom. This mix of slag and iron in the bloom is termed sponge iron, which...

 heated by charcoal

Charcoal

Charcoal is the dark grey residue consisting of carbon, and any remaining ash, obtained by removing water and other volatile constituents from animal and vegetation substances. Charcoal is usually produced by slow pyrolysis, the heating of wood or other substances in the absence of oxygen...

 and producing "blooms", which were 100 to 200 pound lumps of very low carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

 iron mixed with slag

Slag

Slag is a partially vitreous by-product of smelting ore to separate the metal fraction from the unwanted fraction. It can usually be considered to be a mixture of metal oxides and silicon dioxide. However, slags can contain metal sulfides and metal atoms in the elemental form...

. The blooms then had to be worked repeatedly by hammering with a steam hammer

Steam hammer

A steam hammer is a power-driven hammer used to shape forgings. It consists of a hammer-like piston located within a cylinder. The hammer is raised by the pressure of steam injected into the lower part of a cylinder and falls down with a force by removing the steam. Usually, the hammer is made to...

 and folding it to work out the slag. This could in turn be converted to steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

 by heating it for prolonged periods sealed in stone boxes with charcoal, to add back carbon. The resulting steel could then be formed into larger shapes by heating it to welding

Welding

Welding is a fabrication or sculptural process that joins materials, usually metals or thermoplastics, by causing coalescence. This is often done by melting the workpieces and adding a filler material to form a pool of molten material that cools to become a strong joint, with pressure sometimes...

 temperature and hammering it together into a mass. Other laborious and expensive methods made small amounts of steel from special ore

Ore

An ore is a type of rock that contains minerals with important elements including metals. The ores are extracted through mining; these are then refined to extract the valuable element....

s.

Improvements by Kelly and Bessemer

Kelly started experimenting with his "air-boiling process," a process of blowing air up through molten iron to reduce the carbon content, in 1847. His initial goal was to reduce the amount of fuel required for iron and steel making, because of the immense amount of timber required to make the charcoal. He discovered that, contrary to the expectations of his iron workers, the injected air did not cool the molten iron, but instead combined with the carbon to cause the iron to boil and burn violently until the carbon was greatly reduced, improving the quality of the iron or converting it to steel. His experiments began in 1847. The same process was later independently invented and patented by Henry Bessemer

Henry Bessemer

Sir Henry Bessemer was an English engineer, inventor, and businessman. Bessemer's name is chiefly known in connection with the Bessemer process for the manufacture of steel.-Anthony Bessemer:...

.

Kelly was college-educated in metallurgy, while Bessemer in his autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 described no education, other than a practical knowledge of typecasting

Hot metal typesetting

In printing and typography, hot metal typesetting refers to 19th-century technologies for typesetting text in letterpress printing. This method injects molten type metal into a mold that has the shape of one or more glyphs...

 and machining

Machining

Conventional machining is a form of subtractive manufacturing, in which a collection of material-working processes utilizing power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, are used with a sharp cutting tool to physical remove material to achieve a desired...

 learned at his father's type foundry, stating in 1854, "My knowledge of iron metallurgy was at that time very limited...", but somehow he was able to build, without a long series of progressive improvements, a functioning converter to blow air into molten iron and convert it to steel. Kelly later asserted that English workmen at his plant had informed Bessemer of Kelly's experiments.

Gallery

Various types of converter are shown. No photo of a Kelly converter is currently available.

Kelly's patent

Kelly applied for a patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

 after Bessemer patented the process, and was granted patent 17,628 in 1857. The core claim of his patent was "Blowing blasts of air, either hot or cold, up and through a mass of liquid iron, the oxygen in the air combining with the carbon in the iron, causing a greatly increased heat and boiling commotion in the fluid mass and decarbonizing and refining the iron."

Renewal of patent

In 1871, the U.S. Patent Office granted Kelly a renewal of his patent for 7 years while rejecting applications for renewal by Bessemer and Robert Forester Mushet

Robert Forester Mushet

Robert Forester Mushet was a British metallurgist and businessman, born April 8, 1811, in Coleford, in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. He was the youngest son of Scottish parents, Agnes Wilson and David Mushet; an ironmaster, formerly of the Clyde, Alfreton and Whitecliff...

, who had also received patents for the process. Other sources say that Kelly and Bessemer devised the steel making technique independently.

Kelly's bankruptcy

The financial panic of 1857 resulted in Kelly's bankruptcy

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

, and he was forced to sell his patent. The Kelly patent and the Bessemer patent were licensed for steelmaking in Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...

, at the Cambria Iron Works

Cambria Iron Company

Cambria Iron Company is a National Historic Landmark located in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The company was founded in 1852 and made many important contributions to the iron and steel industry...

, starting in 1857. With the patents jointly licensed, invention priority disputes became of little interest to the business world. Kelly received only about 5% of the patent royalties

Royalties

Royalties are usage-based payments made by one party to another for the right to ongoing use of an asset, sometimes an intellectual property...

 paid to Bessemer, and Bessemer's name was used for the process. Bessemer already had a well known steel making operation in England, and Kelly was little known.

Bessemer Steel

The companies owning the Kelly and Bessemer patents began selling the product under the name "Bessemer Steel" in 1866. The Bessemer process, co-discovered by Kelly and Bessemer, greatly reduced the cost of steel and improved the quality, making possible the industrial growth of the United States from 1865 until the early 1900s. The Bessemer process was replaced by the open-hearth process

Open hearth furnace

Open hearth furnaces are one of a number of kinds of furnace where excess carbon and other impurities are burnt out of the pig iron to produce steel. Since steel is difficult to manufacture due to its high melting point, normal fuels and furnaces were insufficient and the open hearth furnace was...

 in the early 20th century.

Controversy

There is controversy over Kelly's contribution to the development of the air-blast process.

Kelly's later life

Kelly worked in Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville, Kentucky

Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...

 for the rest of his life, manufacturing axe

Axe

The axe, or ax, is an implement that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood; to harvest timber; as a weapon; and as a ceremonial or heraldic symbol...

s as well as working in real estate

Real estate

In general use, esp. North American, 'real estate' is taken to mean "Property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals, or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this; an item of real property; buildings or...

 and banking. He died there February 11, 1888.