Antal Kerpely, whom the Hungarian metallurgical community quickly elevated to a pedestal and enshrined in their hearts, as the greatest Hungarian metallurgist, after whom institutions, streets and squares, awards, scholarships and foundations are named to this day, and his statues stand in public squares all over the country, certainly not in such a solemn setting started on the metallurgical track!

He started as an assistant at the treasury mining in Bánság, and had no documentation of his education. As his talent stood out, his office boss sent him to work at the mining office in Vienna, from where, after two years as a clerk, he could go to the academy in Selmec with a treasury scholarship, if accepted! Because without high school prerequisites, he could only enroll conditionally, and then semester and year-end exams decided his further fate. Kerpely turned out to be excellent in everything!

So his fate was sealed. After graduating from the academy, he returned to Bánság as an engineer (1862), to the end of the world, as he wrote in his memoirs. For him, this wretched, candlelit, uneducated environment meant a compulsion to rise: he published his observations on the operation of the blast furnace one after the other – as there were no domestic trade journals – abroad, in the Leipzig Berg- und Hüttenmánnische Zeitung from 1864, and many of them were recognized as domestic and foreign patents, at the same time, it undertakes to review the development of the world’s ferrous metallurgical industry and literature in annual summaries. From behind the god’s back!

From 1866, for two decades, the famous Felix Verlag in Leipzig published the Bericht über die Fortschritte der Eisenhütten-Technik volumes every year. At that time, Kerpely already knew – in addition to Hungarian, German, Romanian and Slovak – English and French. He travels to German smelters at the expense of foreign companies, presenting his ideas. With such an industrial background, he was appointed professor at the Selmec Academy after the settlement in 1868, where he established modern iron and metallurgical education in Hungarian during his more than a decade there.

He writes the first Hungarian ferrous metallurgy in two volumes (Selmecbánya, 1873), takes over the editing of the Mining and Metallurgical Papers from Antal Péch, and – despite his Hungarian language – has it accepted by the Hungarian professional society within a decade (1871-1881). The academy’s laboratories are being developed to international standards, where domestic metallographic research will also start before the Technical University. On his study trips, he visits metallurgical facilities in almost all of Europe.

Between 1881-96, he was the head of the PM ironworks department organized for him, and as such he was the total reorganizer and modernizer of treasury iron production, and at the same time the creator of the modern domestic iron industry (installation of Vajdahunyad, Zólyombrézó, etc.)

Perhaps the most well-known of his vast literary works can be mentioned here: Das Eisenhüttenwesen in Ungarn (Selmec, 1872.); Die Anlage und Einrichtung der Eisenhütten (Leipzig, 1873-84.); Magyarország vaskövei és vasterményei (Bp. 1877.); az MTA Értekezések a természettudományok köréből c. sorozat kötetei stb. Elsőként foglalkozott szakszerűen a magyar vaskohászat történetével (Adatok a vas történetéhez Magyarországon a 19. sz. elejéig. Bp. 1899. Pátria. u.a. Magyar Mérnök- és Építész- Egylet Közlönye 1898. évf.).

He was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in 1877. The highest state recognition was a Knighthood and the Order of the Iron Crown.

(Source: L. Zsámboki: BKL Kohászat 12 (133), 2000)