Iron processing | Britannica
In 1879 Sidney Gilchrist Thomas and Percy Gilchrist adapted the Bessemer converter for use with phosphoric pig iron; as a result, the basic Bessemer, or Thomas, process was widely adopted on the continent of Europe, where highphosphorus iron ores were abundant. For about 100 years, the openhearth and Bessemerbased processes were jointly responsible for most of the steel that was made,