IMPROVED METHODS OF MELTING AND USING MAL- LEABLE WROUGHT IRON OR STEEL
Year: 1808

page_text: TO ALL TO WHOM THESE PRESENTS SHALL COME, I, WILLIAM
PROCTOR, of Sheffield, in the County of York, Optician, send greeting.
WHEREAS His most Excellent Majesty King George the Third did, by
His Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the United Kingdom Great Bri-
tain and Ireland, bearing date at Westminster, the Fifth day of July, in the
forty-eighth year of His reign, give and grant unto me, the said William
Proctor, my exors, adiñors, and assigns, His especal license, full power, sole
priviledged and authority, that I, the said William Proctor, my executors,
adiiors, and assigns, during the term of years therein mentioned, should and
lawfully might make, use, exercise, and vend, within England, Wales, and
the Town of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and also in all the Colonies and Plantations
abroad, my Invention of "IMPROVED METHODS OF MELTING AND USING MAL-
LEABLE WROUGHT IRON OR STEEL;" in which said Letters Patent there is con-
tained a provisoe, obliging me, the said William Proctor, by an instrument in
writing under my hand and seal, to cause a particular description of the
nature of my said Invention, and in what manner the same is to be per-
formed, to be inrolled in His Majesty's High Court of Chancery within four
calendar months after the date of the said recited Letters Patent, as in
and by the same (relation being thereunto had) may more fully and at
large appear.
'
NOW KNOW YE, that in compliance of the said proviso, I, the said
William Proctor, do hereby declare that my said Invention, is described
as follows:-
I take malleable or wrought iron, or steel from bars, rods, plates, cakes,

page_text: pieces, shreds, or strap, of any form, to be used by the art of melting it so as to
make it fluid for casting it into any form or mould, and thereby alleviate manuel
labour, and render the iron or steel of a purer and more uniform texture; and
the above is rendered practicable by first making the pot for containing the
metal during the process of fusion the following manner:-The pot I so
construct by making the sides of it of one or more separate pieces, sheets,
or tubes of clay luted together, which is done by handing or stamping on
or into moulds, which pot shall contain one or more tubes of clay, so as to
enable the fire or fuel to be applied in the center or interior, as well as sur-
rounding the external surface of the pot containing the mellable or wrought
iron or steel intended to be melted, or by using more common pots than one, so
as to conjoin, mix, or cast the metal into one mass or mould; and the above
process may be executed in an air or blow furnance, built suitably to the size
of pots intended to be used.
The above is the mode of preparing and executing the melting of malleable
wrought iron or steel, which renders it by the process of fusion and application
of chemical fluxes, animal, vegetable, vitreous, or metallic, together, seperate,
or without, of a more pure and uniform texture than in the common method of
manufacturing or applying of iron. The application of the said Invention is
for the purposes hercin mentioned, viz:-The forming or applying it for use or
for ornament to mortars, howitzers, cannon, gun, pistols, swords, cutlery, silver
plated, copper, brass, zinc, lead, tin, iron, or steel manufacturers; also for the
ornamenting or making with it stove grates, fenders, fire screens, fire irons,
or candlesticks, and the spiral candle lamps, mattock, spade machine, optical,
concave, and convex buttons, and any other articles, by casting, forging, rolling,
turning, stamping, indenting, or engraving, and for plating upon common iron
or steel, and plating or covering with tin, brass, copper, silver, or gold, for the
purposes of various articles or manufactures.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and seal, this Second
day of November, in the year of our Lord Christ One thousand eight
hundred and eight

page_text: AND BE IT REMEMBERED, that on the Second day of November,
in the year of our Lord One thousand eight hundred and eight, the aforesaid
William Proctor came before our Lord the King in His Chancery, and
acknowledged the Specification aforesaid, and all and every thing therein con-
tained and specified in form above written. And also the Specification aforesaid
was stampt according to the tenor of the Statutes made for that purpose.
Inrolled the Fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord One
thousand eight hundred and eight.