born March 23, 1817, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Eng.
died June 19, 1889, London
British metallurgist.
He turned to metallurgy after obtaining a medical degree, and in 1848 he devised a process for extracting silver from its ores, which soon came into widespread use. He improved the Bessemer process for making steel, and he was the first to survey British iron ores. At London's Metropolitan School of Sciences, he trained a generation of metallurgists. His multivolume Treatise on Metallurgy (1861–80), though unfinished, quickly attained classic status.