Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 39.djvu/435

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Mush
429
Mushet

to lay the grievances of the anti-jesuit and loyal section of the clergy before Clement VIII. Mush has left a record of these negotiations, which were protracted at Rome for nine months, in a 'Diary,' which is preserved among the Petyt MSS. in the Inner Temple (No. 538, vol. liv. ff. 190-9). Soon after the settlement of the dispute Mush became an assistant to the archpriest in accordance with the terms of the papal brief, which directed that three of the appellants should be so appointed on the first vacancies and he continued for many years to take a leading part in the government of the clergy.

Mush resided chiefly in Yorkshire, and was there the spiritual director of Mrs. Anne Clithero the martyr, whose life he wrote. Bishop Challoner, who writes with respect of Mush's missionary labours, says (i. 189) that 'after having suffered prisons and chains, and received even the sentence of death, for his faith, he died at length in his bed in a good old age in 1617.'

Mush was author of 'The Life and Death of Mistris Margaret Clitherow, who for the Profession of the Catholike Faith was Martyred at York in the Eight and Twentith Yeare of the Raine of Qu. Elizabeth in the yeare of our Lord God, 1586. Written presently after her death by her Spiritual Father, upon Certaine Knowledge of her Life and the Processes, Condemnation, and Death.' It was edited from the original manuscript by William Nicholson of Thelwall Hall, Cheshire, and printed by Richardson & Son, Derby, in 1849. Mush also wrote, according to Dodd, an account of the sufferings of the catholics in the northern parts of England, and a treatise against Thomas Bell, formerly a fellow student at Rome and missionary in Yorkshire, who joined the church of England and wrote several books of controversy. But neither of these works of Mush appears to be extant.

A work of more historical importance was his well-written treatise, which he dedicated to the pope, in defence of his brethren of the secular clergy in their conflicts with the Jesuits and Blackwell, giving the text of the appeal and ending with a letter of an earlier date, 1598, written by himself to Monsignor Morro, reviewing the causes of the dissensions at the English College at Rome. It is entitled 'Declaratio Motuum ac Turbationum quse ex controversiis inter jesuitas iisq. in omnibus faventem D. Georg. Blackwellum, Archipresbyterum et Sacerdotes Seminario rum in Anglia, ab obitu illmi Cardlia Alani pise Memorise ad annum usque 1601. Ad S. D. N. Clementem octavum exhibita ab ipsis sacerdotibus qui schismatis, aliorumq. criminum sunt insimulati. Rhotomagi apud Jacobum Molæum' [but probably London], 1601.

[A brief notice of Mush will be found in Dodd's Church Hist. ii. 115. See also Douay Diaries, pp. 101,111,297; Letters and Memorials of Allen, pp. 197, 356; Foley's Records, vi. 134; and Dr. Bagshaw's True Relation of the Faction begun at Wisbich (1601), printed in the Historical Sketch of the Conflicts between Jesuits and Seculars in the Reign of Elizabeth, by T. G. Law (London, 1889), pp. 52, 93, and Introduction.]

T. G. L.


MUSHET, DAVID (1772–1847), metallurgist, eldest son of William Mushet and Margaret Cochrane, was born at Dalkeith, near Edinburgh, on 2 Oct. 1772, and brought up as an ironfounder. In February 1792 he was engaged as accountant at the Clyde Iron Works, where he soon became so interested in the processes of the manufacture that when in 1793 a reduction was made in the staff, and he was left almost sole occupant of the office, he began a series of experimental researches on his own account. In this he was at first encouraged by his employers, and was allowed to teach assaying to the manager's son; but later on, without cause assigned, he was prohibited, and his studies had to be prosecuted after office hours. By dint of sheer hard work, frequently labouring into the early morning, he became in a few years one of the first authorities at home and abroad upon all points connected with the manufacture of iron and steel. His employers becoming jealous of him, he was dismissed from the Clyde Iron Works in 1800. The following year, when engaged with partners in erecting the Calder Iron Works, he discovered the 'Black-band Ironstone,' and showed that this so-called 'wild coal' was capable of being used economically. Though it brought nothing to Mushet, this discovery was of immense value to others, owing to the extent of the deposit.

A series of some thirty papers by Mushet in the 'Philosophical Magazine' shows that he was at the Calder Iron Works till 1805, when he came to England. In 1808 he dates from the Alfreton Iron Works, Derbyshire, while from 1812 to 1823 he is described as 'of Coleford, Forest of Dean,' and he is said to have possessed extensive property in that district. In 1843 he gave valuable evidence in the hot-blast patent case tried at Edinburgh (Report of Trial Neilson v. Baird & Co., Edinburgh, 1843, pp. 48, 312).

The chief of Mushet's inventions, all of which relate to improvements in the methods of manufacturing iron and steel, was perhaps the one patented in 1800 for the preparation