August Schram (entrepreneur)

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August Schram (born August 11, 1843 in Falkenau , Bohemia ; † August 5, 1891 in Marienbad , Bohemia) was an Austrian chemical entrepreneur and founder of the company “A. Schram ".

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August Schram was a son of the Falkenau merchant Adalbert Schram; his mother Anna, née Schmieger, came from a family of textile manufacturers in Zwodau . He grew up with several siblings, including the younger brothers Adolf and Albin, and attended secondary school in Elbogen . After an internship at a Leipzig wholesaler, Schram worked at various chemical product factories in Prague , where he recognized the great potential of the emerging industry. Then he started his own business with a consignment store.

In 1868 Schram founded the company "A." in Hlubočepy near Prague. Schram ”, which took over the general agency of Alfred Nobel & Co in Bohemia the following year . Schram thus introduced dynamite to Austria, which was sold in large quantities in mining and railway construction.

In Zámky near Čimice , Schram built the first dynamite factory of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy in 1870 at the mouth of the Čimický potok brook into the Vltava . He was supported in this by the managing director of Alfred Nobel & Co, Consul CF Carstens, and above all by Alfred Nobel himself, who personally managed the construction. The factory building was also financed by his father, brother Franz Schram and brother-in-law Hermann Thomae. Due to the increased need for fertilizers in agriculture, mainly due to the increasing sugar beet cultivation, a year later a nearly kilometer upstream in Lísek ( Lissek ) - today Bohnické údolí - at the mouth of the Bohnický potok, a fertilizer factory was built, in which the waste acids for the production of nitroglycerin for the first time Production of iron vitriol and superphosphate were used. This method soon became generally accepted in the manufacture of explosives. The waste nitric acid was converted into nitrogen fertilizers in a process similar to the Birkeland-Eyde process. In 1877 Schram had another artificial fertilizer factory built in the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein in the Westerhese in the Grünhof estate - in addition to the Krümmel dynamite factory . As in the Lissek factory, he obtained dynamite waste products as raw materials; Nitrite sulfuric acid was transported via a pipe from the dynamite factory to the fertilizer factory by means of compressed air, and it also processed sodium sulfate from the dynamite factory. Another artificial fertilizer factory was built next to the dynamite factory in Preßburg . Together with Karl Heinrich von Berlepsch , the company “A. Schram “a mining company for the extraction of lignite and pyrite near Falkenau . In 1880 Schram sold the artificial fertilizer factory Krümmel to Dynamit Nobel AG. In the years 1883–1884, “A. Schram ”opened a large sulfuric acid and artificial fertilizer factory in Unter-Themaau in Lower Austria .

From 1873 to 1890 August's brother Albin was the authorized representative of the company “A. Schram ". His brother Adolf joined the company in 1875 as a technical consultant and lead chemist and took over the power of attorney in 1890 after Albin Schram left the company .

August Schram remained unmarried and childless. Because of increasing health problems, he took a long cure in Gries am Brenner at the beginning of the 1890s . Schram died in 1891 during a subsequent spa in Marienbad and was buried in Falkenau . Because of his achievements in building up a large company in the chemical industry within two decades, he was made an honorary citizen by the city of Falkenau in 1891. Sole owner of the company "A. Schram “was from 1892 Adolf Schram.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolf-Rüdiger Busch: An accident seldom comes alone ... in A dream without end: Articles about the life and work of Alfred Bernhard Nobel from the 2001 anniversary year in Geesthacht . edited by William Boehart and Wolf-Rüdiger Busch, LIT Verlag Münster, 2004, p. 125
personal data
SURNAME Schram, August
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Austrian entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH August 11, 1843
PLACE OF BIRTH Falkenau
DATE OF DEATH August 5, 1891
Place of death Marienbad