Mushet family

Sectors:

  • Fabricated metal products manufacture Coin minting
  • Basic metals production Iron, steel & related alloys production

Notes:

David Mushet, 1772-1847, after early work in Scotland, developed important ironworks and collieries at Riddings Ironworks, Alfreton, Derbyshire, from 1805, and at Whitecliff Ironworks, Coleford, Gloucestershire, which he rebuilt and in which he was briefly a partner in 1810. In 1818 he built Darkhill Ironworks and opened coal and iron ore mines nearby. Also he was acknowledged as a leading metallurgist and experimented with iron processing to which he made very notable improvements. His brother. Robert, 1782-1828, was a senior official in the Royal Mint while another brother, George, worked briefly at Riddings before returning to the family ironworks at Dalkeith, Scotland, in 1806. David's son, Robert, 1811-1891, in c1847 established R Musket & Co with T D Clare to operated Forest Steel Works, Coleford. This in 1862 was acquired by the newly formed Titannic Steel & Iron Co which was in liquidation in the early 1870s when its assets passed to Samuel Osborn & Co of Sheffield. Alongside these production interests, he was more prominent as a distinguished metallurgist who contributed to the invention of Bessemer steel and developed machine tool steel, a process he licensed to Samuel Osborn & Co of Sheffield in return for a royalty, beginning a long family connection with that business

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