Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist

 

Born Apr. 16, 1850, in Canonbury, near London; died Feb. 1,1885, in Paris. English metallurgist.

Thomas studied the humanities in college. While working as a clerk in a London court, he attended evening courses at the Royal School of Mines. In 1878, together with his cousin P. Gilchrist, he solved the problem of dephosphorizing high-phosphorus pig iron in the Bessemer converter by developing the Thomas-Gilchrist process. Between 1877 and 1882, Thomas took out a number of patents for making steel by this method. He proposed that the high-phosphorus slag produced by his process be used as fertilizer.

REFERENCES

Pokrovskii, Iu. M. “Sidni Dzhilkrist Tomas (1850–1885 gg.) i znachenie tomasovskogo protsessa dlia metallurgii.” Voprosy istorii estestvoznaniia i tekhniki, 1960, issue 10.
Mezenin, N. A. Povest’ o masterakh zheleznogo dela. Moscow, 1973.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.