Neilson, James

NAME:

Neilson, James Beaumont

ACHIEVEMENTS:

Invented the hot-blast process for iron manufacture

NICKNAME/ALIAS:

None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH:

20 June 1792, Shettleston, nr Glasgow, Scotland

DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH AND AGE AT DEATH:

18 January 1865, Queenshill, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. Aged 73

DISCIPLINE:

Inventor and industrialist

FIELD:

Iron manufacture

LANGUAGE:

English

PARENTS:

Father: Walter Neilson

Mother: Marion Smith

SIBLINGS:

SPOUSE:

Barbara Montgomerie
name??

CHILDREN:

Son, and ???

EDUCATION:

Parish school, Strathbungo

Chapel school, the Gorbals, Glasgow

MAJOR WORK:

None

LIFE AND TIMES:

Neilson was the son of a millwright who at one time acted as works engineer to Roebuck* at his colliery near Boroughstounness (pron. Bo’ness).

In 1814 Neilson took a job as engineer of a colliery where he organized the building of a railway with cast iron rails to carry the coal from the pit three miles to the harbor. The colliery went bust in 1815 and Neilson moved to Glasgow.

Gaslight* was just beginning to be adopted, and in 1817 Neilson got a job as foreman to the newly founded Glasgow Gas Works, (where eventually he provided coal-tar by-product to Charles Macintosh*). He oversaw the building of the plant in Glasgow and during its construction attended evening classes on chemistry, physics and higher mathematics to prepare himself for his new position.

The gas works went into production in 1818 and in September of that year the street lamps in Glasgow were lit for the first time with gas. Within five years Neilson was promoted to manager and engineer of the works. The improvements he introduced included the invention of the swallow-tail burner, which was almost universally adopted. Neilson set up the Workmen’s Institute for his illiterate workers, and although he could only persuade fourteen men to join in the first year, membership grew rapidly. By 1825, the Institute had moved to larger premises and there was a laboratory and workshop in which the men could study practical chemistry and mechanics.

In 1824 Neilson was asked by a local ironmaster if it was possible to purify the air that was blown into his furnaces. It was well-known that during the summer months, the iron obtained by smelting was inferior in both quality and quantity. The manufacturer who consulted Neilson believed that it was the presence of sulfur which caused the blast furnaces to be unreliable in the summer months.

Neilson thought it was the lack of oxygen and the excess of moisture in summer that caused furnace problems; he thought that the cure was to dry the air. At his gas works, Neilson carried out small-scale experiments heating air in a test tube with a gas burner. He was then ready to try out the idea of heating the air in blowing furnaces (these used cold air blown into the furnace) at an ironworks but the ironmasters were reluctant to allow him access.

In 1825 Neilson read a paper on the subject to the Glasgow Philosophical Society in 1825 but it was two or three years before he was allowed to develop his idea of heating the air blast. In 1828 he formed a partnership with Charles Macintosh and an ironmaster.

The first practical application of his invention was made in 1829 at the Clyde Iron Works. It was a great success and made Neilson a wealthy man, because it enabled ironmasters to use to use the plentiful black-band ironstone (discovered by Mushet* earlier in the century). Black-band had previously been too hard to burn. The improved petrology techniques pioneered by Nicol* made it easier to locate and identify areas of black-band ironstone and a lot of landowners became very rich.

In 1832 Neilson was elected to Institute of Civil Engineers. By 1835, his hot blast system was in general use. In 1829, using a cold blast, a single ton of pig iron needed just over eight tons of coal to convert it into coke. In 1830, when the air was heated to nearly 300 degrees Fahrenheit, one ton needed just over five tons: a net saving of nearly three tons of coal on a single ton of pig iron. In 1829 the total output of iron was 29,000 tons; in 1845 it was 475 tons. Neilson had transformed the Scottish iron industry, which took-off and underpinned the success of engineering firms such as that of Robert Napier* who supplied iron war ships to several different countries. The success of the iron industry also brought profits and increased leisure, and this in turn spurred the development of golf*.

Neilson retired in 1847 and for the next four years, he lived on the island of Bute in a house belonging to his friend the Marquis of Bute*. In 1851 he bought an estate on the mainland and left the island. He founded another institute for the education of local people and working men (through this work he came into contact with political reformer Minkton Milnes*) , and became involved in schemes for agricultural improvement and extension of the railway system.

ASSESSMENT: Neilson’s invention of the hot blast process virtually created the Scottish iron industry.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: His work related to that of Watt*

ONELINER: JB Neilson, inventor of hot-blast iron production

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Mackenzie, Thomas B, Life of James Beaumont Neilson, FRS, The West of Scotland Iron and Steel Institute, Glasgow, 1928

Smiles, Samuel, Industrial Biography, Iron Workers and Tool Makers, (lst pubd. John Murray, London, 1863) David and Charles, Newton Abbot, 1967