Benjamin Huntsman

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Benjamin Huntsman (4 June 1704 - 20 June 1776), English inventor and steel-manufacturer, third son of a Quaker farmer, was born in Epworth, Lincolnshire. His parents were Germans.

He started business as a clock, lock and tool maker at Doncaster, and attained a considerable local reputation for scientific knowledge and skilled workmanship. He also practiced surgery in an experimental fashion, and was frequently consulted as an oculist.

Finding that the bad quality of the steel then available for his products seriously hampered him, he began to experiment in steel-manufacture, first at Doncaster, and subsequently at Handsworth, near Sheffield, whither he removed in 1740 to secure cheaper fuel for his furnaces. This cheaper fuel was coke which was more efficient than charcoal. After several years trials he at last produced a satisfactory cast steel, purer and harder than any steel then in use. The Sheffield cutlery manufacturers, however, refused to buy it, on the ground that it was too hard, and for a long time Huntsman exported his whole output to France. The English parliament prohibited the refining of pig iron or the casting of iron in the American colonies, contributing to the American Revolution.

The growing competition of imported French cutlery made from Huntsman's cast-steel at length alarmed the Sheffield cutlers, who, after vainly endeavoring to get the exportation of the steel prohibited by the British government, were compelled in self-defense to use it. Huntsman had not patented his process, and its secret was discovered by a Sheffield iron-founder called Walker, who, according to a popular story, obtained admission to Huntsman's works in the disguise of a starving beggar asking to sleep by a fire for the night.

Benjamin Huntsman died in 1776, his business being subsequently greatly developed by his son, William Huntsman (1733-1809).