Anthony Bessemer

Anthony Bessemer (1766[1]–1836[2] or after 1840[3]) was a British industrialist and punchcutter, who spent large portions of his life in the Netherlands and France before returning to live in London and Hertfordshire.

[7] Bessemer acted as a punchcutter, an engraver of metal type, first for type foundries on the continent, then on returning to England for Henry Caslon (who was Henry Bessemer's godfather and namesake) and later for his own type foundry; according to Jeans his clients on the continent included the firm of Firmin Didot,[9] and he also sold a font to the Enschedé foundry in 1795.

[3][10][11] In the course of his work for Caslon he testified by letter to the London Society of Arts in May 1818 on the topic of new anti-forgery precautions on banknotes, and this provides testimony on his work rate for the specific case of cutting 4pt punches: "the time required to engrave a diamond lower case alphabet and doubles, consisting of 33 punches, would be about six weeks, and that the same time would be required for a set of capitals of 28 punches.

[16][19][20][b] It had been assumed that he retired at this point; however Brazilian historian Orlando da Costa Ferreira proposed in the 1970s that Bessemer was the type-founder invited by the Brazilian government to set up a type foundry, who arrived there in October 1837.

[11] The project proved uneconomical: the government paid the founder compensation in October 1840 and he left in November, the year before his four-year contract was due to expire.