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The beginnings of cheap steel

Bishop, Philip W., -1991

ds of pounds compensation for my infringement of his rights. The only result which followed from your father taking out his patents was that they pointed out to me some rights which I already possessed, but of which I was not availing myself. Thus he did me some service and even for this unintentional service, I cannot live in a state of indebtedness.... With that he gave Miss Mushet money to cover a debt for which distraint was threatened.[90] Soon after this action, Bessemer made Mushet a "small allowance" of £300 a year. Bessemer's reasons for making this payment, he describes as follows: "There was a strong desire on my part to make him (Mushet) my debtor rather than the reverse, and the payment had other advantages: the press at that time was violently attacking my patent and there was the chance that if any of my licensees were thus induced to resist my claims, all the rest might follow the example."[91] [90] Bessemer, _op. cit._ (footnote 7), p. 294. [91] _Ibid._ Mushet's Titanic Steel and Iron Company was liquidated in 1871 and its principal asset, "R. Mushet's special steel," that is, his tungsten alloy tool metal, was taken over by the Sheffield firm of Samuel Osborn and Company. The royalties from this, with Bessemer's pension seem to have left Mushet in a reasonably comfortable condition until his death in 1891;[92] but even the award of the Bessemer medal by the Iron and Steel Institute in 1876 failed to remove the conviction that he had been badly treated. One would like to know