Joseph Hall (metallurgist)

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Joseph Hall (1789–1862), the inventor of 'Wet Puddling', was born in 1789 and apprenticed in 1806 as a puddler to use

puddling furnace
and later puddler's bosh cinder (iron scale, that is rust) to the charge. This caused the charge (to his surprise) to boil violently. When this subsided he gathered the iron into a puddle ball in the usual way, and this proved to be good iron.

In 1830, with the financial support of others he established the Bloomfield Ironworks at

puddling furnace (Patent no.7778 21 August 1838). In 1849, he moved to small house at Handsworth
but continued to visit the works occasionally. He died there in 1862.

Further reading

  • R. A. Mott, 'Dry and Wet Puddling' Trans. Newcomen Soc. 49, (1977–8), 156–7.
  • W. K. V. Gale, The Black Country Iron Industry (Iron and Steel Institute, London, 1966), 66–9.