Robert Mushet was born in 1812 at Coleford, the son of David Mushet and his wife Agnes. He was baptised on 23 July 1812 at Newland parish church. who perfected Bessemer's steel-making process here in the Forest of Dean. David Mushet, a Scot, came to Coleford in 1810 to run the Whitecliff Furnace but very shortly decided to build his own Iron Works on the edge of Coleford at Gorsty Knoll. His Iron Works were referred to as Dark Hill Iron Works (a misnomer as Dark Hill is on the other side of the road). There was also a Brick Works. David Mushet is buried at Staunton Churchyard, just over 2 miles from Coleford, together with his wife and daughters - Henrietta (Roberts) and Agnes (Jarrett). His son Robert Forester Mushet, born in Coleford in 1811, was also a metallurgist and perfected the Bessemer process for making steel in 1856/7. The first steel rail was forged at Ebbw Vale from his metal and placed in Derby Station in 1857. He also invented high-speed self-hardening steel in 1868, though because of lack of funding and ill health he lost his patents. His daughter Lisowna Mary visited Bessemer and persuaded him to pay off her father's debts. Robert, his wife Mary Ann (nee Thomas of St Briavels) and their daughter Lisowna Mary are all buried at Cheltenham Cemetery. His sons Edward Maxwell Thomas and Henry Charles Brooklyn both moved to Sheffield to work with the Osborn family in developing their father's invention. A chairman of the company, Frederick Marmaduke Osborn, wrote the story of the Mushets as known to him personally in 1950 and his book was published posthumously by his brother Samuel Osborn in 1952. The achievements of both David and Robert Mushet are acknowledged locally with a road and the local industrial estate being named after them, but outside the Forest of Dean very little is known of their considerable achievements.