US inventor William Kelly’s US patent for the “Manuf. of Iron & Steel.” Significant debate has ensued over this patent, as a year earlier, in 1856, Henry Bessemer of London, England had obtained a US patent for the Manufacture of Iron and Steel. William Kelly appealed Henry Bessemer’s patent with a claim that he had devised this process years earlier. Kelly’s appeal was successful, though the process is often called the “Bessemer Process” in addition to the “Bessemer-Kelly Process”.
