Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/153

 this country. Improvements in manufacture rendered Deville's process obsolete, and the works were abandoned before 1880. In 1874 Bell sold his interest in the Washington business to his partners, who included Robert Stirling Newall [q. v.], husband of his wife's sister.

Meanwhile Bell's main energies were occupied elsewhere. On 1 Aug. 1844 he and his two brothers, Thomas and John, leased a blast furnace at Wylam-on-Tyne from Christopher Blackett, thus inaugurating the firm of Bell Brothers, and next year, on the death of his father, Lowthian Bell also assumed the chief direction of the Walker works. The furnace at Wylam had been built in 1836 on lines typical of its epoch, and it continued in working until 1863, when it was finally blown out.

At Wylam the trials of Cleveland ore which Bell had begun at Walker continued under his direction. Before long Messrs. Bolckow & Vaughan, at their Witton Park furnaces (county Durham), commenced to smelt Cleveland ore with such success that they decided to erect three blast furnaces near Middlesbrough in close proximity to the new ore supplies. Bell was not slow to profit by this example. In 1852 his firm acquired a lease, from the Ward-Jackson family, of important ore supplies at Normanby, and ultimately, in 1854, they started their Clarence works, with three blast furnaces, on the north bank of the Tees opposite Middlesbrough, then a very small and newly incorporated borough. The only rival works in the district were those of Messrs. Bolckow, Vaughan & Company and of Messrs. Cochrane & Company. These three firms were the pioneers of the Cleveland industry.

Early difficulties arose over the carriage of the ore. Messrs. Bolckow & Vaughan supported the endeavour of the Stockton and Darlington Railway Company, an undertaking in which Messrs. Joseph and Hmry Pease had a very large interest [see ], to monopolise the carriage of the whole of the Cleveland ironstone. In becoming lessees of the Normanby royalty and in building the works at Clarence the Bells had associated themselves with Ralph Ward Jackson, the younger brother of the tenant for life of the Normanby estate. Jackson had taken an active part in the development of the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company, which had acquired collieries in the county of Durham. In the result Messrs. Bell joined Jackson in promoting the construction of another railway, the Cleveland Railway, to bring the ironstone to the banks of the Tees. The first portion of this railway, seven miles in length, ran from Normanby through the Jackson estate to the Normanby jetty on the river Tees, where the ironstone was shipped in barges to a wharf at Clarence on the Durham side. Parliamentary sanction was only obtained after repeated severe and expensive contests. It is said that the seven miles of railway cost the builders 35,000l. in Parliamentary expenses alone. A proposed extension of the railway from Normanby to Skelton and then to Lof tus with a view to developing other property was again the subject of very severe Parliamentary contests. The result, however, was commensurate with the expenditure, for the great field of ironstone lying to the south and east of Guisborough was thereby opened. The Skelton extension of the railway enabled Bell Brothers to obtain in 1858 an important tract of ironstone on the Skelton estate. There the little-known bed of ironstone, ten feet thick, had been reckoned so far from any railway that it would ruin anyone who undertook to work it. Limestone quarries were also acquired in Weardale, until ultimately the firm owned all the supplies of raw material required for their Clarence works.

A great depression of trade followed the Cleveland developments. Jackson's speculative enterprises were ruined, and the West Hartlepool Harbour and Railway Company went into liquidation. Bell Brothers acquired certain of the company's colliery properties and these the firm subsequently developed largely and added others to them. The North Eastern Railway Company took over the railway and harbour, and also purchased by negotiation the Cleveland railway. As a part of the transaction Lowtliian Bell became a director of the North Eastern in 1865, and held the office till death.

Subsequently Bell's firm turned its attention to the manufacture of steel. As a result of experiments on a large scale for the utilisation of Cleveland pig iron in the manufacture of steel, open hearth furnaces were erected at Clarence, and steel was first made there in Jan. 1889. After carrying on the manufacture for two years, Bell and his partners satisfied themselves of the feasibility of their plan, and entering into negotiation with Messrs. Dorman, Long & Co., a leading firm of manufacturers who were among the first to manufacture rolled steel girders in this country, they formed in