Henry Cort
Inventor - Creator of puddled iron - Father of iron trade
This page is part of a website based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort.
The creator and owner of the site was Eric Alexander who passed away. The site is now hosted by Geneagraphie.com
Please contact us with any comments or queries.
Pages
  1. Homepage
  2. Life of Henry Cort
  3. Cort's processes in iron manufacture
  4. Cort's patents
  5. Refutation of allegations of conspiracies against Cort
  6. Adam Jellicoe's death
  7. Henry Cort's birth
  8. A navy agent's business
  9. Early life of John Becher
  10. Attwick & Burges families
  11. "Cortship" of second wife
  12. Thomas Morgan
  13. Henry Cort's hoops contract
  14. 1856 Accolade
  15. Generosity of friends 1789-94
  16. James Watson
  17. Illness of Cort's son
  18. Main sources of information
  19. Contemporary sources
  20. Navy sources
  21. Chancery files
  22. Publications about Cort
  23. Assessment of Cort's character
  24. Images of Henry Cort
  25. Impeach-tranferred to 05

  26. Parliamentary inquiry 1811-2
  27. The furore of the 1850s
  28. Society of Arts
  29. Cort's first marriage
  30. Henry Cort's children
  31. Cort family pensions
  32. Henry Cort's Hertfordshire property
  33. 1791 signatories
  34. Guiana and the Cort-Gladstone connection
  35. Cort's twilight years
  36. Memorials to Henry Cort

  37. Smelting of iron
  38. Fining before Cort
  39. Shropshire & Staffordshire ironmasters
  40. Cumbrians: Wilkinson etc
  41. Early works at Merthyr Tydfil
  42. The Crowley business
  43. London ironmongers
  44. Scottish iron
  45. Cort's promotion efforts 1783-6
  46. Later Merthyr connections
  47. Puddling after Henry Cort

  48. Gosport in Cort's day
  49. Gosport administration
  50. Gosport worthies
  51. The Amherst-Porter network
  52. James Hackman, murderer
  53. Samuel Marshall
  54. Samuel Jellicoe's legacy
  55. Links with Titchfield
  56. Links with Fareham

  57. Fact, error and conjecture
  58. 18th century politics
  59. Law in the 18th century
  60. 18th century finance
  61. Religion and sexual mores
  62. Calendar change of 1752
  63. Shelburne, Parry and associates
  64. John Becher's family
  65. The Becher-Thackeray lineage
  66. Thomas Lyttelton: a fantastic narrative
  67. Eighteenth-century London
  68. Abolition and the Corts
  69. The Burges will tangle

  70. Navy connections
  71. Navy agent's business
  72. Cort's clients
  73. Ships' pursers
  74. History of Adam Jellicoe
  75. Dundas & Trotter
  76. Cort's navy office associates
  77. Toulmin & other agents
  78. Sandwich & Middleton
  79. The Arethusa
  80. John Becher's war
  81. Thomas Morgan's war
  82. The 1782 Jamaica convoy
  83. Sinking of the Royal George
  84. Rickman & Scott: two contrasting naval careers-Missing


  85. Visitors 2006-2009
  86. Developement of the site 2006-2009

  87. ****************
  88. Daniel Guion and family
  89. Extremely bad academic work and extremely bad journalism

 

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SOCIETY OF ARTS


Set up as the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce in 1754, soon became known as the Society of Arts.


A letter from Mr Abram Darby was read accompanying a Present of a Model in Mahogany of the Iron Bridge.

From minutes of Society of Arts, 24 October 1787


Still going strong, having become the Royal Society of Arts early in the twentieth century.

Their website tells you a lot about their history, but not their link with Henry Cort.

The link has two phases.

First is in the 1780s, when he becomes a member.

He is proposed for membership in October 1787 by Francis Stephens (probably related to Sir Philip Stephens, one of the longest-serving civil servants in naval administration). In January 1790 Francis will be appointed Commissioner of Victualling for the Royal Navy.

If he is familiar with navy victualling before that, he will doubtless appreciate Cort's provision of hoops: doubtless the basis of his support for Cort's membership of the Society.

Cort does not remain a member for long. His last entry in the Society's records is 9 March 1789.

Since his business collapses a few months later, we can assume he has failed to pay his next subscription.

I have not managed to check how many of signatories to the 1791 petition are Society members. But one signatory, Sir Watkin Lewes, is the Society's Vice President at the time.

Moving on to 1855, we find his son Richard has several friends among Society members.

We have noted in particular the parts played by Charles Sanderson, David Mushet and Thomas Webster.


It is time that the name of Cort should no be longer excluded from its authentic position in the catalogue of national worthies.

From letter of David Mushet jnr in Journal of Society of Arts, 21 September 1855.


Others members particularly sympathetic to Cort are Sir Richard Broun ("author of works on heraldry, agriculture, colonisation, sanitation etc" according to the ODNB) and inventor William Fairbairn.


Local committees should be formed in the principal seats of the iron trade, for the purpose of aiding and assisting Mr Cort to bring his claims effectively before the House of Commons during the course of the ensuing session, and also that the Committee of the Society should have five or six of this number to cooperate with and act as a central branch for such local committees.

From letter of Richard Broun in Journal of Society of Arts, 24 August 1855.


Harry Scrivenor and J. Kenyon Blackwell are members well acquainted with the iron trade.


Related pages

Cort's birth

Generosity of friends 1789-94

1791 petitioners

Cort's twilight years

Publications about Cort

Memorials to Henry Cort

Images of Henry Cort

Henry Cort's character

Parliamentary Inquiry 1811-12

The furore of the 1850s

1856 accolade

Cort's patents

What happened to Cort's patents

Main sources of information

Contemporary documents

Navy sources

Chancery files

Life of Henry Cort


The pages on this site are copied from the original site of Eric Alexander (henrycort.net) with his allowance.
Eric passed away abt 2012
If you use/copy information from this site, please include a link to the page where you found the information.

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