Harry Brearley was trying to find a way to prevent rust on gun barrels when he accidentally invented something that would revolutionise the world of kitchen cutlery. Fortunately, Brearley was a man who recognised when he had found something valuable.

 

 

Brearley's father had already worked with steel, and Harry had followed in his footsteps. He studied steel and its composition for many years. At the age of 37, in 1908, he set up a laboratory to research the properties of steel. It was here that he became involved with the rusting of rifles.

 

The problem with the rifles was simple: after firing the weapon, heat and gases inside the barrel eroded away the material. Brearley wanted to find a steel that would not wear away the butt of the gun. He combined various amounts of chromium with steel to solve the problem.

 

Harry Brearley made history with his combination of 0.24% carbon and 12.8% chromium with steel when he invented the first stainless steel on 13 August 1913. Although he did not immediately realise what he had just invented, experiments on the steel's resistance to acetic and citric acids pointed him in the right direction.

 

Up until this time, household cutlery had been made from silver or carbon steel. None of these were resistant to rust, so Brearley launched his stainless steel with great success.