Pierre Blaise Emile Martin

Pierre Blaise Emile Martin ( -1915)

1865 the French engineer Pierre Blaise Emile Martin took out a licence from William Siemens for the regenerative furnace and was the first to apply it to making steel, the Siemens-Martin process.

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1915 Obituary

The Council have also to note with regret the death of Mr. PIERRE BLAISE EMILE MARTIN, Knight of the Legion of Honour and Bessemer Medallist, which occurred on May 23, 1915, at his residence at Fourchambault, at the advanced age of ninety-one. Although he was not a member of the Institute, he had had so distinguished a career as a metallurgist that it is felt that official note should be taken of his death.

Pierre Martin was born at Bourges, France, on August 18, 1824, and was the son of Mr. Emile Martin, the owner of the Sireuil Ironworks, Charente. Although the process with which his name is connected enjoys world-wide celebrity, the inventor himself was practically forgotten until towards the end of 1909, when he was ascertained to be living in very straitened circumstances near Nevers. As soon as the fact became known, the Comite des Forges de France decided to institute a fund in order to afford some reparation to the aged metallurgist for the disappointments and hardships he had undergone, and headed the list with £4000. The German Ironmasters' Association, Great Britain, Belgium, Italy, Austria-Hungary, and other steel-making countries also contributed. In this country the initiative was taken by the Iron and Steel Institute, and the committee formed included the Duke of Devonshire, Sir Hugh Bell, Mr. C. J. Bagley, Mr. W. Beardmore, Mr. Illtyd Williams, Mr. G. Hatton, and Mr. M. Mannaberg.

At the presentation ceremony, Mr. C. P. E. Schneider of the Creusot Works, vice-president of the Comite des Forges, presided, and among those present were M. Millerand, Minister of Public Works, who attended on behalf of the French Government, Professor Le Chatelier, Mr. G. C. Lloyd, Dr. Schrodter, and Mr. Greiner.

Further particulars of the career of Mr. Pierre Martin will be found in the speech made by Mr. Cooper, Acting President of the Institute on the occasion of the presentation of the Bessemer Medal at the May meeting, which appears on pp. 25-27 of the present volume.

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