Saturday 19 January 2013 marks 200 years since the birth of Henry Bessemer, the engineer and inventor, who lived in a large house on Denmark Hill between 1863 and his death in 1898. Bessemer is most famous today for patenting a process for the mass-production of steel in the 1850s.
His house, 165 Denmark Hill, with his daughter's house ('Bessemer Grange') next door, were part of a large estate which ran down the hill as far as the site of Bessemer Grange Primary School. It included a lake - site of the school today - a model farm, a cavern and an observatory with a powerful telescope.
With support from Dulwich Community Council Communities Fund, the Society is contributing to a Bessemer Day at Bessemer Grange Primary School on Thursday 17 January. Children will be working on Bessemer-related activities, and in the afternoon members of the Society will present a talk to the older children on the local history aspects of Sir Henry Bessemer's life. The children will be given a quiz to take home and hand in on the following Saturday (see below).
We will end with a tea party and an exhibition in the school to which Herne Hill Society members are invited. We look forward to meeting new people at our publications stall.
On the Saturday there will be another tea party at 3pm - this time in the Carnegie Library - hosted by the Society and The Friends of the Carnegie Library. There will be free birthday cake and refreshments, and presentation of certificates to the children who took part in the Bessemer quiz.
Further details of Sir Henry Bessemer's story can be found in Herne Hill Personalities, available at the Carnegie Library and from us.
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