Henry Cort
Inventor - Creator of puddled iron - Father of iron trade
This page is part of a website based on the life and achievements of eighteenth-century inventor Henry Cort.
The creator and owner of the site was Eric Alexander who passed away. The site is now hosted by Hans Weebers
Please contact me with any comments or queries.
Pages
  1. Homepage
  2. Life of Henry Cort
  3. Cort's processes in iron manufacture
  4. Cort's patents
  5. Refutation of allegations of conspiracies against Cort
  6. Adam Jellicoe's death
  7. Henry Cort's birth
  8. A navy agent's business
  9. Early life of John Becher
  10. Attwick & Burges families
  11. "Cortship" of second wife
  12. Thomas Morgan
  13. Henry Cort's hoops contract
  14. 1856 Accolade
  15. Generosity of friends 1789-94
  16. James Watson
  17. Illness of Cort's son
  18. Main sources of information
  19. Contemporary sources
  20. Navy sources
  21. Chancery files
  22. Publications about Cort
  23. Assessment of Cort's character
  24. Images of Henry Cort

  25. Impeach-tranferred to 05

  26. Parliamentary inquiry 1811-2
  27. The furore of the 1850s
  28. Society of Arts
  29. Cort's first marriage
  30. Henry Cort's children
  31. Cort family pensions
  32. Henry Cort's Hertfordshire property
  33. 1791 signatories
  34. Guiana and the Cort-Gladstone connection
  35. Cort's twilight years
  36. Memorials to Henry Cort

  37. Smelting of iron
  38. Fining before Cort
  39. Shropshire & Staffordshire ironmasters
  40. Cumbrians: Wilkinson etc
  41. Early works at Merthyr Tydfil
  42. The Crowley business
  43. London ironmongers
  44. Scottish iron
  45. Cort's promotion efforts 1783-6
  46. Later Merthyr connections
  47. Puddling after Henry Cort

  48. Gosport in Cort's day
  49. Gosport administration
  50. Gosport worthies
  51. The Amherst-Porter network
  52. James Hackman, murderer
  53. Samuel Marshall
  54. Samuel Jellicoe's legacy
  55. Links with Titchfield
  56. Links with Fareham

  57. Fact, error and conjecture
  58. 18th century politics
  59. Law in the 18th century
  60. 18th century finance
  61. Religion and sexual mores
  62. Calendar change of 1752
  63. Shelburne, Parry and associates
  64. John Becher's family
  65. The Becher-Thackeray lineage
  66. Thomas Lyttelton: a fantastic narrative
  67. Eighteenth-century London
  68. Abolition and the Corts
  69. The Burges will tangle

  70. Navy connections
  71. Navy agent's business
  72. Cort's clients
  73. Ships' pursers
  74. History of Adam Jellicoe
  75. Dundas & Trotter
  76. Cort's navy office associates
  77. Toulmin & other agents
  78. Sandwich & Middleton
  79. The Arethusa
  80. John Becher's war
  81. Thomas Morgan's war
  82. The 1782 Jamaica convoy
  83. Sinking of the Royal George

  84. Rickman & Scott: two contrasting naval careers-Missing


  85. Visitors 2006-2009
  86. Developement of the site 2006-2009

    87. ****************
  87. Daniel Guion and family

    88. ****************
  88. Other publications

 

image002

HENRY CORT'S BIRTH


According to the inscription on his tombstone, Cort "departed this Life 23rd May 1800 in the 60th Year of his age."

Commentators have deduced he was born in 1740. But it could have been as late as 22 May 1741 (before you allow for the 11 days that failed to materialise when the calendar changed in 1752).

Consider also the record of his first marriage (Crowhurst, Surrey), 24 April 1764.


Henry Cort of this ph gentleman & Miss Elizabeth Brown of the ph of St.Giles in the Fields, in the County of Midx were married in this Church by Licence this (24th) day of April 1764 by me W m Hoggart, Minister.

From Crowhurst parish register.

He is said to be 22, consistent with a birth date after 14 April 1741.

And the place of his birth?

This is stated explicitly, "Ellell, near Lancaster", in one of the main sources of information about him.

Of contemporary documents, the only significant one is the 1789 will of Jane Cort of Lancaster.

It names "my Cousin Henry Cort late of the Navy Office Crutched ffryers London but now of Gosport in Hampshire Gentleman" as an executor and beneficiary.

It also refers to Cort's "sister Jane Cort of Standing in Herefordshire Spinster".


image004Either the quoted location is a mistake, or it is a remarkable coincidence that Cort purchased a small estate at Standon in Hertfordshire.


Mott constructed a family tree for Jane Cort.

Her father was another Henry Cort, formerly Mayor of Kendal.

All her siblings (other than those who died in infancy) were baptised or buried in Lancaster, showing that the whole family moved there from Kendal. Infant deaths included both of Jane's brothers named Henry - an instance of fate being unkind to sons given the same name as their father (also noticeable in Attwick and Haysham families). Two of Jane's nephews were also named Henry, but Mott identified them from family wills as a merchant and a mariner. No sign of our inventor.

No sign, either, of a family branch from which a cousin Henry may have sprung. Mott concluded that the term "cousin" in Jane's time covered a wide variety of relations. He reckoned Cort the inventor was illegitimate, and speculated who the father might be.

He did not consider the possibly that Cort was a bastard from another family, and had been adopted by the Corts.

If so, the other family may have been rich and interested enough to help in his career. A good job in London at sixteen, a partnership at twenty-one.

A story that his father was a builder seems to originate in a nineteenth-century account by Samuel Smiles, who probably heard it from one of Cort's children.


Related pages

Cort's first marriage

Cort's second marriage

Henry Cort's family

Cort's twilight years

Life of Henry Cort

The pages on this site are copied from the original site of Eric Alexander (henrycort.net) with his allowance.
Eric passed away abt 2012
If you use/copy information from this site, please include a link to the page where you found the information.

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