Francis bacon

Francis Bacon /1561-1626/, Baron Verulam of Verulam, Viscount St Albans is English statesmen, philosopher and essayist. In natural philosophy he completed the break from the medieval scholastic method, laid down for the first time classification of the natural sciences.

Francis Bacon founded a new inductive method of reasoning and prepared the way for modem ex­perimental science. His incomplete «Instauratio magna» is a project for the entire reorganization of human knowledge.

«The Essays» /1597/ is his chief literary work. After a distinguished parliamentary career under Elizabeth I, he won promotion under James I, and became Lord Chancellor in 1618. He lost this office and retired in disgrace when the House of Lords found him guilty of accepting bribes in 1621.

Robert owen

Robert Owen /1771-1858/ is British social reformer and socialist. He was born at Newtown in Wales, on May 14, 1771. Robert's father, an ironmonger, was poor. Robert went to school till he was 9 and then began to work. He went to London where he was apprenticed to a draper. He read five hours a day. In Manchester he borrowed 100 pounds and started his own business. A successful cotton manufacturer, he acquired mills in Scotland in 1799. He ran them on model lines, limiting working hours, providing good housing and education. He insisted that children must never be beaten in his schools. He established one of the first cooperative stores.

In «New View of Society» /1813/ he expounded the view that character is formed by social envi­ronment, and he advocated the cooperative system. In 1817 he put forward a plan of organizing labour communes. He campaigned for social legislation and was partly responsible for the Factory Act of 1819. In 1824 a London Co-operative Society was formed His plans for setting up a communal colony in America in 1828 had failed. In 1830 Owen made another attempt to set up a labour commune in England, but it also failed. He formed the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union in 1843.

Then his activities became a sect. He was visited by Alexander Hertzen in 1858. «I expect great things from your country,» Owen told Hertzen. A few days before his death he tried to make a speech be­fore the National Association but his strength gave way before he began to speak. He was carried out on a stretcher. Robert Owen died on November 17, 1858.

Henry bessemer

Henry Bessemer /1813-98/ is the man who improved the quality of steel. He inherited his love of inventing from his father. He became an inventor. It occurred to Bessemer that, by forcing a current of air through the molten iron in a closed bath the oxygen in the air might drive out the impurities in the iron. The experiment was successful. Bessemer could turn molten pig iron into high grade steel in 15 minutes.

Bessemer became one of the great inventors of the 19th century. The USA named two towns after him. Henry Bessemer retired in 1879 but he still led a very busy life and made some inventions.