William Humfrey

Little is known of Humfrey's life before 1560, when he is recorded as a member of the Worshipful Company of Goldsmiths in London, and as a resident of the parish of St Vedast.

He obtained the patronage of Sir William Cecil, later Lord Burghley, who 'considered him an expert on metallurgical matters', and provided him with both financial and political backing.

[1] In particular, Humfrey needed someone knowledgeable about calamine ore, essential to the production of latten and brass,[3] and in 1563 he paid the way to England of a metallurgist from Saxony, Christopher Schutz.

[6][7][3] Only a few months later, in early 1566, they found calamine in the Mendip Hills in Somerset,[3] and Daniel Hoechstetter designed a refining process by which it could be used in Schutz' furnace at Tintern.

[1] In about 1570 he and Schutz were responsible for two developments in the English lead industry, the construction of a water-powered lead-smelting furnace at the former Beauchief Abbey near Sheffield, and the use of a German sieve in the processing of ore in Derbyshire.

[1] According to Kiernan, Humfrey's lead-smelting furnace was far more efficient than the traditional boles, and its eventual widespread adoption enabled rapid expansion of the mining industry after 1570, and the export from England of large quantities of lead.