Ermen & Engels power plant

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LVR-Industriemuseum at the Ermen and Engels power station

The Ermen & Engels power plant , formerly the Ermen & Engels cotton spinning mill , is the location of the LVR industrial museum in Engelskirchen . The operator is the Rhineland Regional Council .

history

Friedrich Engels senior from Barmen (today Wuppertal ) founded on 1 July 1837 trip to England in Salford Greater Manchester along with the resident, the Dutch manufacturer Peter Albertus Ermen the company "Peter Ermen & Co" , in the August 1, 1838 "Ermen & Engels" was renamed. In Prussia, they initially intended to take over the former Unterbarmer Church, a two-story half-timbered building, and to build a textile factory in the form of a spinning mill on this site . Other considerations were to purchase a yarn processing facility in Manchester.

On April 17, 1837, after extensive exploration of the site, Engels acquired the former Schnabel hammer mill in Engelskirchen, together with the water fair that was attached to it , from which the right to use the Agger's water for commercial purposes resulted. This area was significantly cheaper than the property in Barmer Bruch and on top of that had a lucrative water gradient of 20 feet . In addition, there were expansion options here. After all, there was a cheap workforce available in the poor area around Engelskirchen. These advantages also convinced the partner in Manchester. On July 1, 1837, the Ermen & Engels cotton spinning mill was founded in Manchester and Engelskirchen . Now the construction of the textile factory in Engelskirchen began and production could start around 1844. The company headquarters remained in Barmen until 1885.

The partners had Victory Mill built in Salford, Greater Manchester, England in 1837 .

Engels senior was the father of Friedrich Engels , who, together with Karl Marx, developed the social and economic theory now known as Marxism .

The decline in jobs in the textile and clothing industry , which has been creeping up since the 1950s, reached its peak in the early 1970s. The company Ermen & Engels was not spared and had to stop its production forever in 1979.

power supply

In the center of the energy supply for the drive of the machines via transmissions stood the water power with which water wheels were driven. From 1854 turbines were added, which could also be used even more effectively for propulsion with water power. For times when the water level in the Agger was low, five steam boilers with a total of 130 hp were available as a reserve from 1856 . In addition, the equipment of the drive machinery was continuously enlarged and improved over the years. Around 1900 electricity-generating generators were introduced , which replaced the drive via transmissions. As early as 1903, the factory owner's house and electrical street lighting in Engelskirchen also benefited from the new local power generation. In 1909, the new generation of turbines had a total output of 640 hp. Until 1924, the Engelskirchen electricity plant was also used to supply the entire town of Engelskirchen with light and motor power. From 1924 the energy supply of the factory was no longer completely autonomous, so that additional demand had to be met with its steam turbines via the district electricity works in Dieringhausen , which was taken over by the Rheinisch-Westfälische Elektrizitätswerk in 1935 .

The museum

After the textile factory was closed in 1979 and an initial inventory was taken, the entire factory site was sold to the Ründerother housing association. All buildings, with the exception of the manufacturer's villa, were to be demolished in order to build a residential area with playgrounds and leisure facilities. Initially, machines and equipment were sold or scrapped, and individual buildings and parts of the building were sold or rented, thereby completely changing the use of the former property. Three young Cologne architects became aware of the factory ensemble in 1981 and campaigned for the factories to be protected as a monument . In this way the historical ensemble could be saved from demolition. The old hydropower plant with turbines, regulators and control panel was also retained.

In 1987 the then Rheinisches Industriemuseum set up its second branch in a part of the old textile factory. A permanent exhibition on the company history of a pioneering industrialization company in the Bergisches Land was shown in connection with a temporary exhibition on child and women's labor .

Between 1993 and 1996 the museum was closed and was rebuilt and expanded. With the reopening in 1996, the concept changed. Under the new title Under Voltage - at Ermen & Engels on the trail of electricity , the former hydroelectric power station became the focus of the exhibition. There was also a department with electrically operated everyday items. Since the venue was renamed, special exhibitions have been held alongside the power plant as the main exhibition item. From April 9th ​​to October 26th, 2015 the special exhibition Lingerie - 150 Years of the Cultural History of Underwear took place. The previous exhibition on the Ermen & Engels cotton spinning mill was dismantled and stored. The textile industry continues to play a role in special exhibitions.

Pictures from the power plant

Pictures from special exhibitions

Cotton mill 2011

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Michael Knieriem: The company "Ermen & Engels" in Manchester and Engelskirchen in the 19th century . P. 218.
  2. ↑ Thomas Schleper: With Engels into the industrial age, From water power, factory work and architecture. 2nd unchanged edition, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1993, ISBN 3-7927-1254-7 .
  3. ^ A b Thomas Schleper: Ermen & Engels in Engelskirchen, industrialization of a rural region, Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1989, ISBN 3-7927-0977-5 .
  4. ↑ Ermen and Engels, Grace's Guide to British Industrial History,
  5. ↑ a b c d e Thomas Schleper: Under tension, At Ermen & Engels on the trail of electricity. Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7927-1572-4 .
  6. ↑ Lingerie - 150 years of underwear cultural history. LVR-Industriemuseum, accessed on March 19, 2015.
  7. ↑ History of the Ermen & Engels cotton mill. LVR-Industriemuseum, accessed on February 3, 2016.

literature

  • 400 years of Engel's clan history. 190 years of bleaching and textile industry in the Engels family. 1837–1937 Ermen & Engels . n.d. 1937
  • Mick Jenkins: Frederick Engels in Manchester . Manchester 1951
  • Antony CG Ermen: The Three Red Towers . n.d. 1965
  • John Smethurst: Ermen and Engels . In: Marx Memorial Library Quartely Bulletin No. 41 January – March 1967
  • William O. Henderson: The firm of Ermen & Engels in Manchester. in: International scientific correspondence on the history of the German labor movement . Berlin 1971. Issue 11/12, pp. 1-10
  • Michael Knieriem : The Ermen Brothers in Manchester. Biographical notes on Friedrich Engels' business partners . In: Yearbook of the IMSF 3 . Frankfurt am Main 1980, pp. 312-320. Digitized
  • Hubert Büchler: The end of the textile industry in the Aggertal. The Ermen und Engels company - importance for the homeland . In: Rheinisch-Bergischer Calendar. Homeland yearbook for the Rheinisch-Bergische Kreis . Vol. 50, Bergisch Gladbach 1980, pp. 69-78
  • Michael Knieriem: The “Ermen & Engels” company in Manchester and Engelskirchen in the 19th century . In: Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch . 10, Berlin 1986, pp. 211-234.
  • Thomas Schleper: Ermen & Engels in Engelskirchen. Industrialization of a rural region . Rheinland-Verlag, Cologne 1987 ISBN 3-7927-0977-5
  • Michael Knieriem: The company archive of Ermen and Engels in Engelskirchen in the 18th and 19th centuries . In: IMSF Year 12 . Frankfurt am Main 1987, pp. 322-328.
  • Michael Knieriem: “Profit under God's blessing”. A contribution to the company history and business situation of Friedrich Engels . Engels-Haus, Wuppertal 1987. ( News from Engels-Haus 5)
  • Michael Knieriem: Engelskirchen: Ermen and Engels . In: Bauwelt . Volume 87, No. 22, June 5, 1987, p. 771.
  • Claudia Euskirchen, Olaf Gisbertz, Ulrich Schäfer (edit.): Handbook of German art monuments , North Rhine-Westphalia, Volume I: Rhineland. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Munich / Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-422-03093-X .

Web links

Coordinates: 50 ° 59 ′ 1 ″  N , 7 ° 24 ′ 36 ″  E