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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. |
IMAGES OF HENRY
CORT
All those seen show profile,
facing left.
Mezzotint
Now in British Museum annex
near Olympia, open one morning every two weeks.
Probably the original
likeness.
Inscribed with quotation from The Times.
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To the Iron Trade of Great Britain This Portrait of the late HENRY CORT The TUBAL CAIN of our century & of
our country THE FATHER OF THE BRITISH IRON TRADE - Times July 29th 1856 Caption below mezzotint |
Henry Cort b 1749 d 1800 Iron Master inventor of the puddling process Caption,
reverse side of mezzotint |
The stamp on the reverse side
shows the picture was given to the museum in 1931.
Lithograph
Also in British Museum annex.
Probably derived from
mezzotint, though the appearance is quite different.
No further information on the
identity of Adam White, who donated it to the museum. Caption also quotes the 1856 Times article.
Steel engraving
Present whereabouts
unkown. Possibly in archives, Institute
of Materials.
Probably derived from
mezzotint.
According to Mott's notes in the Coalbrookdale collection, it was
presented by William Fairbairn and others to the Cort
Memorial Fund set up in 1856.
According to a letter from Charles H. Morgan (to H.H. Suplee, January 24, 1906),
it was subsequently “presented to the Iron and Steel Institute by Windsor
Richards in 1901". The Institute was
later subsumed into the Metals Society, then into the Institute of Materials.
The letter also says Morgan
has "a good enlarged copy of the Steel Engraving of Henry Cort which I
would be glad to donate to the A.S.M.E." (American Society of Mechanical Engineers). Does ASME now hold this copy?
Model and bronze
bas-reliefs
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We owe the tablet to an
eminent American engineer, who is much impressed with the value of the work
Cort did for the world and wishes to rescue his name from an undeserved
oblivion. It is a bronze tablet
showing Cort's head in good relief.
The American donor, who desires to keep his own name back, intends to
place a replica of the tablet in Lancaster Parish Church. At the unveiling ceremony he was
represented by Mr. J.P. Bedson, of Manchester.
From Manchester Guardian, 10 March 1905. |
We now know that the American
engineer is Charles H Morgan.
One bronze is at St Johns
Hampstead, where Cort is buried.
The other is at St Marys Lancaster. near where he is said to have
been born. Weale
quotes his birthplace as Ellell, which Mott
discovered is in the parish of Cockerham near Lancaster.
Mott says the two bronzes
were developed from the original steel engraving. According to the
Morgan-Suplee letter, an intermediate stage was "the model from which the
Copham Manufacturing Company made the Bronze Tablets", which was then in
Morgan's possession.
Plaster cast
At Manchester Materials
Science Centre.
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The Manchester side of the 1905-6 operation took place on
Tuesday 6th February 1906 in the Schunck laboratory, when Mr. Bedson presented
to the University a plaster cast of the original bronze tablet. This cast, which is now in room F1 of the
new Metallurgy Building, shows Henry Cort in profile and is inscribed IN MEMORY OF HENRY CORT BORN AT LANCASTER 1740 INTERRED AT HAMPSTEAD 1800 TO WHOM THE WORLD IS INDEBTED FOR THE
ARTS OF REFINING IRON WITH MINERAL COAL BY PUDDLING AND ROLLING METALS IN GROOVED ROLLS. From
commemorative leaflet for University of Manchester Open Day, 20 May 1978. |
Evidently also developed from
steel engraving.
Book cover
The image on the front cover
of the Mott/Singer book Henry Cort: The Great Finer
was probably taken from the original steel engraving, since the book was
published by The Metals Society
Fareham images
The image used on the flags
for Fareham's commemoration of Henry Cort,
April-June 2000, was evidently taken from the book: probably from the
photograph of the Hampstead tablet rather than the cover.
Website image
The image used in the banner
on this and several other pages off this website was developed from a
photograph by Eric Alexander of the Lancaster tablet.
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Related pages |
henrycort.net
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