Neilson, James Beaumont

Born June 22, 1792, in Shettleston, near Glasgow; died Jan. 18, 1865, in Queen’s Hill, County Kirkcudbright. English inventor. Son of a factory foreman.

Because of his family’s poverty, Neilson could not pursue an engineering education. In 1825 he began experiments on drawing hot air into a blast furnace. In 1828 he received a patent, and in 1829 he set up the hot-blast process in the Clyde Ironworks in Scotland. The air was heated to approximately 150°C in V-shaped cast-iron pipes passing through the firebox.