Henry CORT
- Born: 1740
- Died: 1800
- Grave/memorial: XB 018 CH 73A
Engineer and inventor of Devonshire Street, ‘to whom the world is indebted for the arts of refining iron by puddling with mineral coal, and of rolling metals in grooved rolls’. So says the plaque in the church porch. His tombstone says: ‘He passed away a broken hearted man’. In 1789, six years after he had patented his revolutionary processes for purifying iron, Cort was ruined by his partner’s embezzlement. Eight years later, his daughter died and, says Barratt, ‘he retired to Hampstead a broken man’. His tomb has been renovated by the Institution of Civil engineers and, in 1983 [the bicentenary of his invention], a chaplet was laid on it by the Historical Metallurgy Society
Reference: Buried in Hampstead, Camden History Society 1986