Sidney Gilchrist Thomas
The slag-mill of the Dudelange steelworks (towards 1909)
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Sidney Gilchrist Thomas (1850-1885)
Sidney Gilchrist Thomas was born on 16th April 1850 in Canonbury near London. After the early death of his father in 1867, Sidney was forced to give up his dream of studying medicine. After having worked for a short time as a teacher, he took a job as a junior clerk at a London police court. During this period, he also studied chemistry with great dedication, which in 1870 led him to the problem of how to remove phosphorus from pig iron in the Bessemer converter. Together with his cousin Percy C. Gilchrist, who was an industrial chemist, he carried out a series of experiments in order to resolve this problem. The the outcome of their collaboration was the Thomas-Gilchrist proceeding which was going to have a significant impact on iron and steel industry all over the world. Thus the Thomas-Gilchrist proceeding allows to eliminate the phosphorus and at at the same time provides a slag which can be used as a first-rate chemical fertiliser, called Thomasmehl (meal of Thomas) in German.
On 4th April 1879, the experiments performed by Thomas in his laboratory were confirmed by a demonstration carried out in Middlesbrough with a 15000kg-converter. Attracted by this new proceeding, steel producers from all over Europe rushed to London for the exploiting licence of the new patent.
Norbert Metz, manager of the steelworks in Eich near Luxembourg and afterwards founder of the steelworks of Dudelange, sent his son Émile and the director of his laboratory, Jean Meyer (who afterwards would the director of Dudelange) to London to obtain a licence of the patent.
On 20th April 1879, the company Metz&Cie obtains the wanted licence. Likewise German steel producers also receive a licence for Germany and Luxembourg, not including the steelworks of Eich however.
In Luxembourg, the first Thomas steel was produced at the new steelworks of Dudelange on 15th April 1886.
Sidney G. Thomas died in Paris on the 1st February 1885 at the age of 34 years and was buried at the cemetery of Passy. Unfortunately during his lifetime he had little financial benefit from his invention. However, at the end of 1891, his rightful heirs (his sister and his cousin) had already received 480 244 Mk from steel producers in Luxembourg.
(CONRARDY, Jean-Pierre:
Dudelange - passé et présent d'une ville
industrielle.
Tome II: L'usine sidérurgique - Le renouveau
industriel et urbain.
Luxembourg: Editpress, 1991
Pages 18-19)
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