August Benckiser

August Benckiser (born May 4, 1820 in Pforzheim ; † August 14, 1894 there ; full name: August Theodor Benckiser ) was a German mechanical engineer and entrepreneur .

Life

August Benckiser was the son of the businessman Christian Eberhard Benckiser (1779–1855) from Pforzheim and Luise Friederike Sophie Boley (1795–1868) from Neuenbürg . Benckiser married Emilie Dennig on November 23, 1861 in Pforzheim (born March 19, 1839 in Pforzheim; † October 11, 1917 in Stuttgart ), the daughter of his friend Karl August Dennig, gold and silver goods manufacturer in Pforzheim, and Luise Amalie Finkenstein. The couple had four sons and two daughters.

After his father's death (1855), Benckiser and his brother Moritz owned the iron foundry Gebr. Benckiser in Pforzheim. However, his brother left a few years later. Even during his father's lifetime, August Benckiser added a bridge building company to the family business. In 1851 the first cantilever iron lattice bridge was designed and built. From 1869 to 1871, Carl Benz worked for the Eisenwerke und Maschinenfabrik Gebr. Benckiser company .

The road and railway bridges manufactured by this company gradually made the plant world famous. The company built numerous river bridges and several Rhine bridges, as well as railway bridges in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, such as the Kehl and Waldshut Rhine bridges . Bridge construction was finally stopped around 1890.

In 1853 Benckiser founded the Pforzheim gas works.

Benckiser became a multimillionaire. When he was in Kissingen for a cure in 1873 , his attention was drawn to the Maßbach manor , the former seat of the Lords of Maßbach, which he bought six years later (1879) for 300,000 marks . After twelve more years (1891) he gave the 400 hectare estate with castle (today: Franconian Theater Schloss Maßbach ), forest and field property to his son August Benckiser (1863–1925). Almost at the same time he gave the Thundorf Castle to his second son Moritz .

In 1888 Benckiser took over the Buchenauerhof in Weiler from his father-in-law Dennig , which he had acquired in 1860, and had today's castle built in place of the burned down manor house .

Honors

The Emilienstraße and Emiliensteg over the Enz west of the Goethe Bridge were named after his wife Emilie Benckiser, and the Benckiser Bridge after August Benckiser.

Web links

• Tribe list of the Benckiser family ( Memento from December 22, 2004 in the Internet Archive )
• Benckiser in the Stadtwiki Pforzheim-Enz