Oxbridge dons hit out at claim British inventor stole his idea from slaves

[pellinore]

History is being re-written. Does it matter? It all happened a long time ago.

Oxbridge dons have accused a rival scholar of “undermining the history of Britain” with “absolutely no evidence” in a row over claims that a key figure of the Industrial Revolution stole his idea from Jamaican slaves.

A leading academic journal has now launched a formal investigation after a history lecturer at University College London, Dr Jenny Bulstrode, claimed that Henry Cort, who is widely credited for inventing a groundbreaking new iron-making process in 1784, was not, in fact, responsible for the innovation.

Her paper, published in the prestigious journal History and Technology, said that his method for processing scrap iron into high-quality wrought iron was “theft...from Black metallurgists in Jamaica,” and his patent was “false mirrors for imperial eyes to picture themselves as they built their institutional lies”.

Oxbridge dons hit out at claim British inventor stole his idea from slaves (msn.com)

Edited September 19 by pellinore

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Dr. Bulstrode's paper is available open-access (free to read online or download in pdf or epub formats):

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07341512.2023.2220991