Henry Cort (c. 1740 – 23 May 1800) was an English ironware producer although formerly a Navy pay agent. During the Industrial Revolution in England, Cort began refining iron from pig iron to wrought iron (or bar iron) using innovative production systems. In 1784, he patented an improved version of the puddling process for refining cast iron although its commercial viability was only accomplished by innovations introduced by the Merthyr Tydfil ironmasters Crawshay and Homfray. Biography Little is known of Cort's early life other than that he was possibly born into a family coming from Lancaster, England although his parents are unknown. Although his date of birth is traditionally given as 1740, this can not be confirmed and his early life remains an enigma. By 1765, Cort had become a Royal Navy pay agent, acting on commission collecting half pay and widows' pensions from an office in Crutched Friars near Aldgate in London. At that time, despite Abraham Darby's improvements in the smelting of iron using coke instead of charcoal as blast furnace fuel, the resultant product was still only convertible to bar iron by a laborious process of decarburization in finery forges. As a result, bar iron imported from the Baltic undercut that produced in Britain, (increasingly from Russia) at considerable expense. In 1768, Cort's second marriage was to Elizabeth Heysham, the daughter of a Romsey solicitor and steward of the Duke of Portland whose estates included Titchfield. whose uncle William Attwick although a successful London attorney had inherited the family ironmongery business in Gosport which supplied the navy with mooring chains, anchors and hundreds of different items of ironmongery. Partnership with Samuel Jellicoe In 1780, the Royal Navy's Victualling Commissioners agreed with Cort, who had taken over Attwick's business, to re roll iron hoops for their barrels. This led to Cort investing in a new rolling mill at an existing iron mill in Titchfield which was later used for the production of bar iron. Short of funds, he turned to Adam Jellicoe, at that time chief clerk in the Pay Office of the Royal Navy, who agreed to finance Cort to the amount of nearly £58 000 on seemingly little security beyond the value of the business. It was the accepted practice for clerks in the Pay Office to temporarily use surplus funds for their own benefit. As part of the arrangement, Jellicoe's son Samuel became a partner