My guess
(and it is no more) is that Hawkins was a member of the family who had a number
of ironworks around Newcastle upon Tyne.
However what I know about them relates mainly to an earlier period.
I
associate the name Sanderson with the Sheffield steel industry (rather than
with iron): see K. Barraclough, Steelmaking
before Bessemer: I Blister Steel (The Metals Society, London 1984),
104-6 – he refers to Sanderson Brothers.
Before Bessemer the iron and steel industries are best regarded as
distinct, steel being made (almost exclusively) from a particular variety of imported
Swedish iron, whereas iron came from a variety of sources (including Sweden and
Russia) in the 18th century but mainly British ones in the 19th.
Patents constitute
an interesting subject, but it needs to be born in mind that a considerable
number of 19th century ones were uneconomic, impracticable, or just
not implemented.
Peter King
-----Original
Message-----
From: Arch-Metals Group
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf
Of Robert Gordon
Sent: 25 March 2005 18:17
To: Peter King
Subject: Re: 19th C.
Direct-Process Iron Patents
For Gordon
Pollard from Carolyn Cooper:
English patents listed by Bennet Woodcroft
for patent granted from March 2, 1617 to October 1 1852. I will see if I can
find the American patents next time I am at 310 Prospect Street.
From the Bennet Woodcroft Alphabetical Index
of Patentees of Inventions (1854) reprinted
1969 by Evelyn, Adams & Mackay Ltd, London.:
Hawkins, John Isaac. Patent # 7142. 4th July 1836. Subject matter:
"Manufacturing iron and steel."
(Between 1800 and 1847, John Isaac Hawkins is listed as granted twelve
patents of many different subject matters, including the above and one other
concerning iron processing:
# 7194, 28th Sept. 1836, "Blowing-pipe of blast furnaces and
forges."}
Sanderson, Charles. Patent # 7828. 11th Oct. 1838. Subject matter
"Process of melting iron ores."
(Note the date of 1838 instead of 1839. If an error, or an omission of a
different patent in 1839 it is Woodcroft's, not mine. Yet if Woodcroft's, it
was not caught by A.A. Gomme (Transactions
of the Newcomen Society vol. 13, 1932-33, pp. 159-164 or by the
"staff of the National Reference Library of Science and Invention"
whose list of errors and additions of omitted patents was printed in an
appendix at the beginning of the 1969 edition. The other two patents Woodcroft
listed for Charles Sanderson were: # 5693, 4th Sept. 1828, "Making
sheer-steel" and # 10,9921, 4th Nov. 1845 , "Combining steel and iron
into bars for wheel-tires, and for other purposes.)
Gurlt, Adolf Frederick is listed only for patent #13, 283, 10th Oct. 1850,
"Extracting silver from argentiferous minerals."
(Since Woodcroft's list was published in 1854, it would not include a patent
granted in 1856. Gurlt's name looks German, but not exclusively. The
patent number 1679, if an English patent, would not be for 1856, since they
were numbered chronologically, and were already over 10,000 in the mid 1840s.
Something like 16,790 would make more sense. A very quick eyeball scan of
numbers in this volume finds nothing over the 14,000s, granted in 1852.)
Frederick Yates is not listed in Woodcroft; if he was granted a patent around
1860 it postdated this compilation.
Woodcroft's list was also published in two other forms, chronological and by
subject matter, but I don't have those volumes.
Bob Gordon