Goran Fredrik Goransson
Göran Fredrik Göransson (20 January 1819 – 12 May 1900) was a Swedish merchant, ironmaster and industrialist. He was the founder of the company Sandvikens Jernverks AB (now called Sandvik AB) and was the first person to implement the Bessemer process successfully on an industrial scale and pioneered ingot steel in the Swedish iron and steel industry.
Göran Fredrik Göransson was born on 20 January 1819 in Gävle, Sweden.
In 1841, Göransson became a partner in the firm Daniel Elfstrand & Co. In 1856, the company acquired the iron-works in Högbo along with the Edske blast furnace.
Göransson travelled to England in May 1857 to acquire a steam engine for the Edske furnace and to secure at part of the Swedish rights to Bessemer's patent. He attended the demonstration of the Bessemer Process at Baxter House which convinced him that the process was sound despite adverse reports already being published about it. His support was instrumental to the international spread of the method. Göransson also placed an order for two furnaces, a boiler, a steam blowing engine, and everything required for their installation at Edske, with W. and J. Galloway and Sons.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences gave him a sum of 50,000 Swedish crowns for financing steel production using the Bessemer process. Göransson's initial efforts at the new converter plant at Edske produced steel that was full of slag but he persisted in his experiments. However, Elfstrand & Co. was forced into bankruptcy in December 1857 but his progress with the Bessemer process was sufficient to convince the administrators to continue financing the experiments. The Swedish Ironmasters' Association, known as the Jernkontoret, sent a committee to observe the experiments after Göransson successfully lobbied them for help, and later sanctioned a loan and assigned a metallurgist to help him perfect the process. Göransson successfully managed to produce steel on an industrial scale using the new process on 18 July 1858.
He founded the firm Högbo Stål & Jernwerks AB on 31 January 1862 in Sandviken, Sweden and presented the now commercially viable Bessemer process at the International Exhibition in London. However, Göransson and the company entered into receivership in 1866. In 1868, the company was acquired and reconstructed into Sandvikens Jernverks AB with his eldest son, Anders Henrik Göransson as managing director and Per Murén as chairman.
The above information is condensed from the Wikipedia entry, accessed 25 Aug 2023.
1900 Obituary [1]
GORAN FREDRIK GORANSSON died at Sandviken, Sweden, on May 12, 1900, at the age of eighty-one. Without his aid the Bessemer process might perhaps never have been perfected.
In 1858, at Edsken, he increased the area of the tuyeres, and succeeded in shortening the process so as to produce sufficient heat in the converter to allow of the proper separation of the slag from the metal, and to convert pig-iron into good steel, which, having been exported to England, encouraged the capitalists who were supporting Sir Henry Bessemer.
Mr. Goransson was chairman of the board of directors and founder of the Sandvik Ironworks. His great services to metallurgy were recognised by numerous honours conferred upon him.
In 1865 he received the great gold medal of the Jernkontor. He was a Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Wasa Order, and a Knight of the Royal Order of the Polar Star. He was a member of the Swedish Academy of Sciences, .d a few days before his death he was appointed Doctor of Philosophy honoris causa of Upsala University. At the Swedish meeting of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1898, Mr. Goransson, although very infirm, welcomed the members in an English speech to the Sandvik Works.
1900 Obituary [2]
GORAN FREDRICK GORANSSON was born in Gefle, Sweden, on 20th January 1819.
He started in business as a merchant, but later on became interested in steel making, having bought one-fifth of Mr. (afterwards Sir) Henry Bessemer's Swedish patents, and succeeded in making good Bessemer steel at his ironworks at Edsken and Hiigbo as early as 1858.
In 1862 he founded the Sandvik Iron Works for the production of this steel, and they are now one of the largest in the country, employing about 2,000 men. He was chairman of the company until his death, which took place at Sandvik on 12th May 1900, at the ago of eighty-one.
In addition to his various honorary distinctions he was a Commander with the Great Cross of the Royal Order of Vasa, and a Knight of the Royal Order of North Star; and the University of Upsala had conferred upon him a few days before his decease the degree of Doctor of Philosophy.
He became a Member of this Institution in 1865.