Christian Lothary
Christian Lothary (born December 22, 1814 in Mainz , † December 8, 1868 in Weisenau near Mainz) was a German entrepreneur, founder of the Weisenau cement works and from 1862 to 1866 a member of the 2nd Chamber of the Estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse .
Life
Lothary was the personification of what would be called a self-made man today . He came from a simple family of builders who moved to Mainz in 1749 and was the son of geometer Georg Joseph Lothary and Margarete Walburge, nee. Farmer. As a simple builder, Lothary founded a construction company in 1838 at the age of 24, which was registered with the city authorities in 1839. In the same year he took part in the founding of the Mainz Carneval Association , as had previously done the Mainz Ranzengarde . He set accents as a client and builder of the districts around Schönbornstrasse and Kästrich in Mainz. In addition, he also carried out carpentry, joinery and locksmith work with his company, which is why he was attacked by many Mainz craftsmen despite the waiver of the guild compulsory . In addition, he was involved in politics in the revolutionary years of 1847/1848 and became a member of the liberal “Democratic Association”, which pursued socialist goals in the broadest sense. In April of that year he was elected to the Citizens Committee of the City of Mainz. After the failure of the revolution, he withdrew back into the construction industry.
plant
Despite the turmoil in the year of the revolution, Lothary made his breakthrough as an industrialist when he received a major contract from the Hessian Ludwig Railway in 1847 for the construction of the Mainz-Worms railway in the Weisenaus area. For the award of the contract, the fact that his company had to be considered a large company at that time was probably decisive. For obvious reasons, Lothary acquired a site south of Weisenau in 1849/1850 near the later route on which the rails for the route to Worms were to be relocated. The Mainz Basin , the eastern edge of the Rheinhessen hill country in the direction of the Rhine, is characterized by substantial calcareous soils and was ideally suited for Lothary's construction work for the railway line. It was the nucleus of the later cement works. At that time, viticulture was still practiced on the acquired land and so Lothary also became a winemaker with a wine shop in Mainz in the street Graben 3. It testifies to the versatility of Lothary that he also specializes in the chemical production of blue-acid potash , He dedicated Berlin blue and lingerie blue and ran a stonemason's workshop, although this only made up a short period of his entrepreneurial activity.
Lothary's main focus was of course on the production of the building materials for the railway line to be created. To this end, he built two lime kilns in 1850/51 , a residential house that served as an office building and accommodation for the quarry supervisor, as well as horse stables and shed for the wagons.
After the completion of the railway line, Lothary looked for new fields of activity, and he also lacked the space for the excess rubble and debris in the quarry. It occurred to him that the area between the lower terrace of the Rhine and the railway track, which was regularly flooded, should be filled with it. Lothary bought the floodplain from the Hessian camera authority in 1852 at a reasonable price and by 1855 it was backfilled to a flood-free area of 35 hectares, on which the Weisenau freight station and the cement works were later located.
From 1856 Lothary planned an ironworks with five blast furnaces and a foundry . Although he was able to win over the ironworks technician Julius Römheld for support in 1858 , it did not go into operation, as the ore deposits on a plot of land acquired by Lothary between Oppenheim and Monzernheim had proven to be unsuitable for mining. Römheld then relocated his iron foundry to the periphery of the northern city area of Mainz and founded the iron foundry Römheld & Moelle , which is still flourishing today .
From 1863 onwards, Lothary used the buildings that had already been built for the foundry as steam bricks for the production of machine-pressed and sharply fired bricks, the quality of which far exceeded normal field bricks. For the construction of the railway bridge between Mainz and Gustavsburg in 1860, Lothary received the order to erect the pillars that were intended for the superstructure of the MAN plant in Gustavsburg , which was founded especially for this purpose . He also supplied lime bricks for the Mainz fortifications and the bank fortifications for the correction of the Rhine at that time . His proposal for an even more extensive bank expansion was accepted by the city council in 1863, but was not implemented for cost reasons.
The start of the construction of a cement factory can be dated July 22, 1864, when Lothary asked the Mayor's office in Weisenau for permission to build a Portland cement factory . Two shaft furnaces based on the English model were planned to burn the clinker . Lothary had meanwhile been able to win a technician and engineer in Carl Brentano as a partner in his factory. Brentano had a great deal of experience in the production of Portland cement, which he gained while working with Wilhelm Gustav Dyckerhoff , but from whom he had separated due to irreconcilable differences of opinion.
From now on, Lothary's business developed so favorably, especially through Brentano's entry into the management of the plant, that Lothary could turn back to politics. As a member of the Hessian Progressive Party , he ran for the constituency of Mainz-Land for the Landtag of the Grand Duchy of Hesse of the Landtag of the Grand Duchy of Hesse , of which he was a member from 1862 to 1866. He was also a member of the Mainz city council.
On December 8, 1868, Lothary died after a brief serious illness. He left his wife Catharina Rosina Lothary geb. Jung, his only twenty-year-old son Christian and his two daughters Margarete Marie and Susanne run a flourishing company. His son Christian continued to run the cement factory.
literature
- Wolfgang Balzer: Mainz. Personalities of the city's history. Volume 3: Business people, epochal pioneers, builders, fast nights, eccentrics, originals. Kügler Verlag, Ingelheim 1989, ISBN 3-924124-05-1 .
- Max Brückner: Weisenaus Erde gave Christian Lothary a treasure: from construction worker to entrepreneur and cement manufacturer; Rise and fall of the traditional Portland plant , in: Allgemeine Zeitung / Ausg. Mainz. - 154 (2004), 101 of April 30, p. 14
- Festschrift for the 150th anniversary of the Weisenau cement works - ( The history of the Mainz-Weisenau cement works ). Ed .: HeidelbergerCement AG, Dietmar Cramer 2014
- Jochen Lengemann : MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 248.
- Klaus-Dieter Rack, Bernd Vielsmeier: Hessian MPs 1820–1933. Biographical evidence for the first and second chambers of the state estates of the Grand Duchy of Hesse 1820–1918 and the state parliament of the People's State of Hesse 1919–1933 (= Political and parliamentary history of the State of Hesse. Vol. 19 = Work of the Hessian Historical Commission. NF Vol. 29) . Hessian Historical Commission, Darmstadt 2008, ISBN 978-3-88443-052-1 , No. 554.
- Rainer Wahl: Christian Lothary, building contractor, 1814–1868 , in: Mainzer Geschichtsblätter. 3 (1986), p. 109
Web links
- Lothary, Christian I .. Hessian biography. (As of July 18, 2019). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
Individual evidence
- ↑ Michael Kläger: Mainz on the way to the big city (1866-1914) . In: Mainz: The history of the city . Verlag von Zabern, Mainz 1998, p. 459
- ^ Friedrich Schütz: Provincial capital and fortress of the German Confederation (1814 / 16-1866) in: Franz Dumont , Ferdinand Scherf , Friedrich Schütz (eds.): Mainz - The history of the city . Verlag Philipp von Zabern, Mainz 1998 (first edition, p. 400, 409).
- ↑ German Legal Dictionary (DRW)
- ↑ Michael Kläger: Mainz on the way to the big city (1866-1914) . In: Mainz: The history of the city . Verlag von Zabern, Mainz 1998, p. 450
- ↑ Michael Kläger: Mainz on the way to the big city (1866-1914) . In: Mainz: The history of the city . Verlag von Zabern, Mainz 1998, p. 443
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lothary, Christian |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur, company founder |
| DATE OF BIRTH | December 22, 1814 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Mainz |
| DATE OF DEATH | December 8, 1868 |
| Place of death | Mainz-Weisenau |