| InscriptionContent | Recto inscription: 'VANITY FAIR Novr. 6 1880/ Vincent Brooks, Day & Son, Lith./ “Steel”’ |
| Caption | Vanity Fair. Men of the Day. No. 231
Sir Henry Bessemer, C.E.
Born eight and sixty years ago, Sir Henry Bessemer began life as an artist and exhibited pictures fifty years since. But he preferred modelling to painting, and as he modelled he found that he preferred mechanics to both. A man of great natural powers, indomitable energy, and unwearied tenacity, he worked in various directions until at length he hit upon a new method of making steel so much more cheaply and more speedily than any hitherto known, that it has already caused iron to be all but entirely superseded, has ruined or revolutionised all the iron-works of the country, and has made a colossal and well-earned fortune for Sir Henry himself.
He is a simple orderly man of precise habits and well-regulated affections. He daily takes two "constitutional" walks of a mile each; he is devoted to his grandchildren; and he is very fond of gardening. He has laid out for himself, at Denmark Hill, lakes, ferneries, and looking-glasses in wonderful fashion. He invented a swinging saloon which was to prevent sea-sickness, but which has not yet been successful in practice; he it was who first originated the idea of the form of the Livadia; he believes there is much jobbery in all Governement dockyards and works; and he has now devoted himself to Astronomy, and is engaged in completing and in erecting in his garden the largest telescope in the world, with a four-foot lens. Altogether he is one of the strongest, ablest, simplest men of his time. He is entirely unknown to the fine ladies and gentlemen. |