Bessemer Converter

Standing at over 20 feet tall, the towering, egg-shaped Bessemer Converter is the first thing you see when you arrive at the museum.

Invented and patented by Henry Bessemer in 1856, the revolutionary Bessemer process converted iron into steel. This converter was used by the British Steel Corporation in Workington until it was decommissioned in 1974 and was the last working example in the UK.

Sheffield was at the forefront of Bessemer steel production – by the 1880s it was producing 10,000 tons of Bessemer steel every week, a quarter of the country’s total output at the time.