Henry Cort

		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.

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Fact, error and conjecture

A continuous, typically chronological, record of past events or trends.

One definition of "history" in The Concise Oxford Dictionary.

Some attempts to define the word history betray a cartload of wishful thinking. Is the historical record continuous?

More significant: Is it accurate?

Unfortunately even Burkes and Debretts give impossible and inconsistent information. I have several Bechers who are listed as marrying in say 1719, have 5 children and then remarry a second time also in 1719! Mayor John's brother Michael's wife Peniel is listed in Debretts as married to another and having had a child four years before Michael died, yet it is plain from his will that they were definitely still married. Burkes shows some people as dead from the date their will was written (the Rev Henry Becher's brother John, my ancestor is an example of this), rather than their actual death... the inconsistencies don't necessarily become apparent unless it is a branch that you know well.

From letter of Becher family historian Jenny Stiles to Eric Alexander, October 2006.

Anyone studying historical documents soon learns that even contemporary documents contain errors.

Misreading handwriting

This is a common cause of error.

Thus our pursers' page contains a quotation referring to "Captain Richard Beecher". The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815 states correctly that the captain's real name is Michael Becher. (They also get the date of his death right, but miss his promotion to ship's commander.)

The baptism of Rev Moses Porter (the priest who accompanies James Hackman on his journey to the gallows) is recorded in his ordination papers as 21 July 1733 at St Andrew Undershaft, London. But the date in the parish record is 21 July 1735.

The IGI's compilers can also misread handwriting, as shown by their date for Henry Cort's marriage to Elizabeth Haysham: 17 March 1760. The original parish record reveals the year as 1768: eights and zeros look horribly alike in eighteenth-century handwriting.

Misspelling people's names

Many eighteenth-century clerks had to guess from the pronunciation how the name is spelt, with some curious results. (John Julius Angerstein is distinguished as a pioneer of Lloyds List, a founder of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and an art collector whose pictures form the nucleus of the National Gallery. He is also a signatory to the 1791 petition.)

Problems with memory

Elsewhere we have noted James Ingram's account of the sinking of the Royal George: so rich in detail, but still recalling the date incorrectly.

There may be a similar error in an account of Cort's rolling demonstration at Stourton.

William Playfair, brother of Professor Playfair, of Edinburgh, who had been employed as a draughtsman by Watt until 1782, says that he "was present in 1784 at the first great Exhibition of the Rolling Mill with a welding heat on Mr Cort's plan, at a Mill near Stourbridge belonging to Mr. Humphrey. All the ironmasters for 20 miles round were invited. They could not help wondering at the effect but they were as much mystified as they were surprised."

From H.W. Dickinson's 1940 presentation to Newcomen Society on Henry Cort's Bicentenary, quoting Monthly Mag. XLVIII, 1816, p. 234, n

Some time this Week I shall go over to Stourton having been advised by Mr Cort that he is ready & has already preformed to the Satisfaction of all present. - I told him at Stourbridge that I shoul give him 10Days extra to be perfect before I paid him a Visit. - I find he has been attended by great Numbers of Spectators - among which was MR. Kier - You will learn from him what the Trade can expect from Mr Corts method.

From letter of John Wilkinson to James Watt, 3 November 1783

Do these descriptions refer to the same event? If so, Playfair has got the year wrong: not a great error if he was recalling it over thirty years later. But it leads to further misconceptions. Mott, knowing that Cort was in the area in June 1784, assumes that was the date for the rolling demonstration: you will find it quoted in Henry Cort: The Great Finer.

Richard Cort's flawed memory

The Treasurer of the Navy was authorised to pay Mrs Elizabeth Cort £125 p.a. (with deductions to yield £100 net). When she died in 1816 a pension of £25 6s 0d (reduced to £19 by fees) was granted to each of Cort's two unmarried daughters. The outcome of Richard Cort's appeal in 1855 was that on 20th June he was granted a pension of £50 p.a. chargeable to the Civil List. In 1856 the two unmarried daughters (like Richard, over 70 years of age) had their pensions increased to £30 and in 1859 to £50 p.a.

From Mott/Singer, Henry Cort: The Great Finer

Most of the errors in this passage can be ascribed to Richard Cort's writings in the 1850s.

Probate records show Elizabeth Cort's will proved in 1826. She could hardly have died in 1816: is there an error in transcription in the record?

The will, made in 1813, names three unmarried daughters: Elizabeth, Caroline and Catherine. Catherine is evidently married by 1835, but one would expect a codicil to the will if the marriage took place before her mother's death.

Between 1855 and 1859 Richard Cort, the last surviving son of Henry Cort, made a number of appeals on behalf of one widowed and two unmarried sisters.

From Mott/Singer, Henry Cort: The Great Finer

Richard Cort the only surviving son… on behalf of himself and three sisters, aged from 68 to 73 years

From record of petition to Parliament, 4 July 1856.

Elsewhere we learn that Richard has drawn up the petition nearly a year earlier. If it is handed in on the date specified, how could it be granted in June 1855?

We may also query the age of the sisters. Of the seven original ones, Maria died in 1797 and four of the others married. The only unmarried ones alive in 1855 could be Elizabeth (born 1773) and Caroline (born 1783). So how come they are both aged between 68 and 73 in either 1855 or 1856?

Richard's memory flaws also show up in his recollection of the 1791 petition to William Pitt.

The next letter on Cort's behalf was written in 1794, addressed to William Pitt, Prime Minister, and signed by ten members of Parliament and five others.

From Mott/Singer, Henry Cort: The Great Finer

This story is taken from one of Richard's articles in 1856. Both the date of the petition and the number of signatories are quoted wrong.

Furthermore, we can blame Richard for an error, perpetuated for 150 years, about the name of his brother John Hamer Cort.

In the Mott/Singer book, Henry Cort: The Great Finer, this child's name is given as John Harman Cort. But the parish record from Gosport has him christened John Hamer. When I first heard this, I assumed a mistake had been made in the record. It is only with new discoveries in October 2008 that I realise the record is correct.

The critical discovery was of a character named William Attwick Hamer. His father Joseph, I discovered, had other links with Gosport and the Corts. Sufficient proof, I believe.

The false name, I realised, was derived from a list of Cort's children given in an article by Thomas Webster in the 1850s. The source of Webster's information was Richard Cort.

One can see where Richard was coming from. His brother John died before he was born. Unlike Cort's other children, Richard could not quote a date for John Hamer's birth. He knew about him only by hearsay, and hearsay can get jumbled. Knowing that there was a cousin named John Harman Becher, Richard put two and two together and made five.

With all these examples of Richard's faulty recollection of events, we can see how stories arose that his father's tribulations were the result of conspiracy: it should be no surprise that they can be comprehensively refuted.

Over-simplification

The Oxford DNB's entry for the naval career of Alexander, Seventh Lord Colvill of Culross, states that, having taken command of the Northumberland in January 1753, he remains there for nine years.

Northumberland's books, however, reveal that on 12 November 1757 Colvill is replaced as captain by Henry Martin on being appointed "Commander in Chief, North America". However, on 15 June 1758 he resumes command, sailing back to England for a spell. Back in Canada in 1759, he becomes Commander in Chief again on 21 September, a week after the capture of Quebec. The ODNB would have us believe he remains in command of Northumberland until returning to England three years later, but there is no evidence for this in the ship's books

Errors about Samuel Marshall

The first discrepancy concerns his earliest command. To judge from ships' pay books, he moves from Second Lieutenant on the Rochester (his first commissioned post) to Second Lieutenant on the Foudroyant on 8 June 1762, while the ships are moored near Martinique; then remains at this post, and in the Caribbean area, until appointed commander of Antigua on 24 September.

At first sight the Falkland master's log - the only surviving book from this ship for this period - does not conflict with this story. On 7 June ship's master Alexander Tod announces that "Mr Thoms Marshal was to command the Falkland by order of Adml Rodney". Certainly there is a Lieutenant Thomas Marshall in the Navy at this point, but other books reveal that he is aboard the Lyon: at Lisbon on the specified date, subsequently sailing to England. No sign of stationing anywhere near the Caribbean for any of the relevant period.

The implication that Tod has his Marshalls mixed up is confirmed by the log for the ninth: "Lieutenant Marshall of Foudroyant took command from Capt Drake." There is no indication in any of Foudroyant's books of any Marshalls other than Samuel, so we must assume that he continues to draw pay for his post on Foudroyant while in command of Falkland.

Another discrepancy concerns the date of his death: in 1793, according to The Commissioned Sea Officers of the Royal Navy 1660-1815. But other naval records give it as 2nd October
1795.

Mistakes, misconceptions, miscalculations

Commentators' errors are often perpetuated by later commentators until they are taken as fact. Thus Singer's theory that the Attwick business passes to Cort through a bequest to his wife has been widely accepted.

For an assortment of errors, this story about Adam Jellicoe takes some beating…

He became Deputy Paymaster to the Royal Navy and had Shedfield as his country seat between 1767 and 1789. He invested vast amounts of Treasury money entrusted to his keeping in various projects such as the financing of Henry Cort's revolutionary iron foundries at Funtley and Gosport. However, at his death in 1789, probably by suicide, the scandal was exposed to public view and the Navy set up a Commission of Enquiry to investigate the matter. The hearings lasted for over 20 years and Cort and many others were financially ruined.

From an account of Shedfield House on the Web.

Jellicoe bought Shedfield in 1767 when he was a clerk at Portsmouth. He moved to London in 1776; it's doubtful whether he spent any time at Shedfield after that - the inventory taken in 1789 shows the estate let to one Edward Daysh. Jellicoe did not become Deputy Paymaster until 1785 or 1786.

No evidence has been quoted (and the memorandum he wrote in November 1782 suggests it is untrue) that Jellicoe invested Navy money in any venture other than Cort's, or that anyone other that Cort was ruined as a result.

Cort's "revolutionary" processes involved fineries, not foundries (used for casting).

Despite repeated rumours, it is unlikely that Jellicoe's death was suicide. Nor was the scandal exposed to public view: it was effectively buried until hearings started under a Commission of Enquiry in 1804. Although the commission's report appeared some 23 years after Jellicoe's misdemeanour, its proceedings had taken less than a year, and had focused on more serious matters.

I've seen more than one website asserting that Rev Henry Becher was William Makepeace Thackeray's great-grandfather. This conclusion skips a generation: he was Thackeray's great-great-grandfather.

The curse of replication

This last example shows how a mistake in one source can be perpetuated by replicators who believe it genuine.

Many sources are beyond correction, books in particular. Anyone who reads Henry Cort: The Great Finer is likely to accept that he had son called John Harman Cort, that the petition to William Pitt was raised in 1794 rather than 1791, and a fair smattering of other errors. Nobody is going to correct all the copies of the book, so these errors will inevitably be perpetuated.

When the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography appeared, I found quite a few errors in entries on Henry Cort and other characters I had studied. I wrote to the publisher to point out these errors. Too late, alas, to amend the text in the printed version; but I'm pleased to say that most of these errors have been corrected in the online version.

In the years since this website was launched (July 2006) I have had to make the occasional correction in text. For example, when I first encountered the married name of Cort's youngest daughter Catherine, I misread it as Sisson. I later found a document that made it clear the name was Liddon. I altered my text as quickly as I could, but alas someone had taken the original as correct, and I've seen it replicated.

The Web is a particular source of errors that are liable to be replicated. Unfortunately many website controllers do not provide a means for you to correct them if you spot an error, so continued perpetuation is inevitable.

Advice to researchers

Many commentators are reluctant to admit their errors. Write to point them out, and you may be completely ignored.

And you may find vastly different conclusions reached by different historians. Look at the two accounts of the key to promotion in Sandwich's administration…

Even I have put information on the web which I have subsequently found to be false.

Stay vigilant. Don't believe all that historians tell you. It ain't necessarily so.

RELATED TOPICS

Main sources of information

18th century politics

John Becher and the American War

Thomas Morgan and the American War

Shelburne, Parry and associates

Thomas Lyttelton: a fantastic narrative

Dundas and Trotter

Sandwich and Middleton

The Arethusa, Sandwich and Keppel

Law in the 18th century

Refutation of allegations of conspiracies against Cort

18th century finance

Religion and sexual mores

18th century London

Calendar change of 1752

Sinking of the Royal George

Abolition and the Corts

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.