Publications on Cort

This page is part of a website based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort. Please email site controller Eric Alexander with any comments or queries.

PUBLICATIONS ABOUT HENRY CORT

Contemporary publications

The earliest publication focusing on Cort's work was written by Sir John Dalrymple in 1784. There is a copy in the Boulton-Watt archives in Birmingham.

Cort published a document "A brief state of facts..." in 1787 to promote his inventions. There is a copy among the Weale documents (Vol 3 leaves 169-180), and a transcript in the Annals of Agriculture (Vol 12 pp361 et seq).

Accounts before 1940

Most accounts of the history of ironmaking (Scrivenor, Percy, Smiles) contain a chapter about Cort.

Their information is based largely on hearsay, much of it derived from the (somewhat biased) recollections of Cort's son Richard in the 1850s.

The documents written by Charles H. Morgan in 1905-6 derived from the same sources, and need to be taken with a similar pinch of salt.

The case of Henry Cort is that of a ruined inventor, who first planted the metallurgy and manufacture of iron squarely on its feet, as a complete, practical, lasting success. He did this in the full view of keen ardent contemporaries and competitors who from the outset with singular unanimity, acknowledged his supremacy and priority and who eagerly sought contractual relations with him for the use of his inventions and payment of royalties therefor. But like Napoleon, the very stupendous scope and weight of Cort’s achievements crushed him. The sight of this man, master of the situation, reaping royalties that were running into the hundreds of thousands of pounds, was too much for poor, weak human nature. Quietly and undreamed of by him, the lines were drawn about him until every vestige of reward was wrested from him.

From unpublished monograph by Charles H. Morgan

The headstone was weather-worn, and the inscription upon it hardly legible. It seemed as if inanimate things have conspired to perpetuate the obscurity and neglect wrought by the malice of man. I have had this stone cleaned, and have obtained permission from the parish authorities to place in the Hampstead church a bronze tablet in honour of Henry Cort.

From Charles H. Morgan's article for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, quoted in Mott's original work on Cort.

Dickinson and Hulme

A paper by H.W. Dickinson, a former President of the Newcomen Society, was presented in 1940 to commemorate the (supposed) bicentenary of Cort's birth, and published in the society's Transactions.

We have little beyond Watt's opinion on which to base an estimate of the character of Cort, but he was good-natured, unassuming, lacking in push and unable to cope with unscrupulous pirates such as beset inventors.

From abstract of address by H.W. Dickinson to the Newcomen Society, November 1940.

Dickinson was apparently the first narrator to use the Weale documents. He nevertheless tends to take the same line as Morgan in ascribing Cort's misfortunes to the machinations of those in authority.

A totally different approach was taken by E.W. Hulme in 1952. It is flawed, however: based on false interpretation of evidence, bolstered by unsubstantiated assertions.

My task is a less pleasant one. It is to record the stages in the decay of the inventor's mentality and to estimate its reaction on the fortunes of the family.

From E.W Hulme monogram on Cort, 1952.

Hulme's main contribution is discovering the record of Cort's first marriage, but he assumes that the bride "walked out".

Mott and Singer

In the 1960s, Professor R.A. Mott made a far more concerted effort to discover facts about Cort. He unearthed records of a property in Hertfordshire, as well as much detail about the Lancaster Corts.

He missed much of the evidence at the PRO (not so surprising, since their catalogue was not computerised in those days) and overlooked the significance of Cort's relationship with John Becher.

The "monumental work" he produced was intended to show Cort's contribution to the development of the iron industry. It tried to cover both the industry's history and Cort's life in detail.

Mott was unable to find a publisher, but in 1983, when the Historical Metallurgy Society wished to commemorate the bicentenary of Cort's first patent, they drafted in Peter Singer to "edit" Mott's work, i.e. reduce in to a digestible size.

When the relevant MSS became available after World War II, he researched the life of Cort and... assembled a monumental work which forms the basis of this book.

From notes on Prof R A Mott, back cover of Henry Cort: The Great Finer (1983).

Since 1974 he had been interested in Henry Cort and his mill at Funtley, near Fareham, and had carried out considerable research with a view to writing a book, when the opportunity arose of seeing Dr Mott's monumental work.

From notes on Peter Singer, back cover of Henry Cort: The Great Finer.

Other relevant publications

It would be difficult to put Cort's achievements into perspective without the evidence from The Letterbook of Richard Crawshay, not published until 1990.

It is apparent from this book how much effort had to be put in after Cort’s patent to get the process to work with coke-smelted pig iron.

Another useful book is Charles K Hyde, Technological Change & The British Iron Industry 1700-1870, the only book to cover systematically the spread of Cort's processes at the end of the eighteenth century.

Hyde's story that Wilsontown adopted puddling in 1789 is, however, contradicted by other evidence; but his other information appears reliable.

Articles by Eric Alexander

Covering in more detail some of the information on this site

Key to the Henry Cort Story? An appraisal of the Weale document collection

Trans. Newcomen Soc. 75(2005) pp341-358

Henry Cort, puddling and Merthyr Tydfil

Merthyr Historian Vol 19 pp61-68

Henry Cort, navy agent

Mariner's Mirror Vol 89 no 1 pp82-83

Henry Cort comes to Hampshire

Hampshire Field Club and Archaeological Society Newsletter 40 pp28-29

Henry Cort and the Black Country