Inventor, born Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1811; died Louisville, Kentucky, 1888. He innovated several improvements in the manufacture of iron, and first converted cast iron into malleable steel by what is now known throughout the world as the Bessemer process. Bessemer's application for patents in America was refused on the ground that Kelly's process was identical and his patents anticipatory. It was claimed that workmen returning from Kelly's mills in Kentucky to England first interested Bessemer in the process.