Rosthorn (family)

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Rosthorn family coat of arms in Waldegg

The Rosthorn family is a family of Austrian industrialists whose members gained importance in the 18th and 19th centuries.

history

The progenitor of the family is Matthäus Rosthorn (1721-1805), originally Matthew Rowsthorne or Rawsthorne , from Preston (Lancashire, England). He was a specialist in the manufacture of metal buttons and the necessary metal auxiliary work, skills that were not available in Austria at the time. The Catholic Rosthorn was lured to Austria on behalf of Emperor Franz I in 1765, although this was forbidden in England at the time. After the emperor's death, Maria Theresa repeated the invitation . Matthäus came to Vienna with his eldest son Thomas, the second son John was kidnapped by Maria Theresa's confessor to Vienna in 1778 after his mother died. Matthäus built a button factory in Vienna-Landstrasse , which was so successful that the import of brass buttons was largely prohibited as early as 1768. In 1776, Matthäus was able to acquire the factory. Joseph II rewarded Matthew and his descendants in 1790 with the title of nobility "Edler von Rosthorn".

Matthäus Rosthorn was married three times and had a total of six sons, all of whom were involved and involved in the various businesses of the family. Among the other descendants of the branched family were also other professions in which they gained importance, such as doctors, diplomats and railway directors. Five direct descendants or sons-in-law by marriage alone made significant contributions to geosciences.

In 1792, Matthäus von Rosthorn founded a rolling mill for preproduction in Fahrafeld in Triestingtal .

After the death of their father, his sons founded the company Gebrüder v. Rosthorn, which was directed by August. Starting in 1816, he relocated the Fahrafeld plant to nearby Oed in the Piestingtal, where the company had bought a sawmill and was now building a sheet metal and wire factory. In order to be able to supply the factories with the necessary raw materials, they built a zinc smelter in Prävali (then Carinthia; now Slovenia) . They also mined lignite in nearby Liescha .

In 1826 the von Rosthorn brothers bought the two Aryan lordships of Wolfsberg and St. Leonhard , which included the ironworks of St. Gertraud, Frantschach, Kollnitz and St. Leonhard, as well as around 7,500 hectares of forest and 12,000 subjects. The purchase was made possible by the financial participation of the Viennese master saddler Jakob Hell, who left the building in 1827. The management tasks in the company were now divided: August was in charge of the blast furnaces and hammer works, Franz the mines Loben (near St. Leonhard) and Wölch (near St. Gertraud) and the coal mining in Liescha. The other brothers ran the Lower Austrian businesses.

The blast furnace in St. Gertraud was modernized, among other things with the help of the young Peter Tunner . In 1831 the von Rosthorn brothers recruited English steel workers who helped introduce the puddling process in Frantschach . The puddle oven was the first of its kind in the Alpine countries.

In 1832 the Rosthorn brothers brought the Carinthian works into the newly founded Wolfsberger Eisenwerkgesellschaft, in which they held 40% of the shares. The new company capital was mainly used to convert the zinc works in Prävali into an iron works, which was completed in 1835. Due to discrepancies, the Rosthorn brothers parted with their shares in the Wolfsberger Eisenwerkgesellschaft in 1837 and received the works in Prävali and the coal mine in Liescha. The ironworks company and its possessions were to go to Hugo Henckel von Donnersmarck in the 1840s .

From 1838 Rosthorn in Prävali produced the first railroad tracks in the monarchy. Among other things, they served to extend the Kaiser-Ferdinand-Nordbahn . Prevali was also the first lignite-powered plant in the monarchy. It took until 1840 to get the lignite puddling process going . Therefore, the railroad tracks first had to be made with purchased iron. The production of rails rose from 1145 tons in 1838 to 5821 tons in 1847 and 10,668 tons in 1855. Most of the pig iron used came from the Hüttenberger Erzberg from the Lölling works of Eugen Freiherr Dickmann von Secherau . In 1843 he acquired half of the Rosthorn company, which was in financial difficulties, for 150,000 guilders and renamed it "Rosthorn & Dickmann". In 1844 there were seven puddle furnaces, nine welding furnaces, two rolling lines, two slippery hammers and one tail hammer in Prävali. From 1853 to 1855 a new steel and rolling mill, the "Eugenhütte", was built, which worked with steam engines instead of the previously common water power.

In 1846, Matthäus and Franz von Rosthorn took part in the ironworks in Buchscheiden (near Feldkirchen ), which was operated with peat. Railway tracks were also produced here. The ironworks in Buchscheiden was sold in 1870 after insolvency and compensation.

While the Rosthorn & Dickmann company was flourishing, the Rosthorn family got into ever greater financial problems. In 1858 the family members had to sell half of the remaining company shares to Dickmann, with the exception of Franz von Rosthorns . At the end of the 1850s, the Austrian rail producers lost their quasi-monopoly due to the fall of protective tariffs. The factory in Prävali also had to be converted from rail production to the production of mercantile iron (profile iron). In 1861/62 the Franzenshütte was built for this purpose with five puddling furnaces, three welding furnaces, a steam hammer and a hollow, medium and fine rolling section each. The product range comprised 320 types of steel bars. The Marburg - Bleiburg - Klagenfurt railway line, built in 1863, made it easier to transport pig iron from Lölling to Prävali.

Due to their high debts, the von Rosthorn brothers had to register a settlement in 1864, which came about in 1866. With the exception of Franz von Rosthorn's shares, all shares of the family members went to the heirs of Eugen von Dickmann-Secherau. Franz still held a 12% stake in the company. In 1869 this went on in the Hüttenberger Eisenwerk-Gesellschaft. Franz von Rosthorn was only a shareholder with voting rights, but was no longer involved in the management. With his death in 1877 the importance of those von Rosthorn for the Carinthian iron industry ended.

family members

The family tree follows in a shortened form the family tree of Hans Ucik 2009.

Matthäus von Rosthorn the Younger - bust at the Waldegger cemetery
August von Rosthorn - bust at the Waldegger cemetery
  1. Matthäus von Rosthorn the Elder (1721–1805)
    1⚭ 1756 Elise (Elisabeth)
    2⚭ 1764 Mary Morton († 1777)
    3⚭ 1781 Elisabeth See (1761–1827)
    1. Thomas von Rosthorn (1758–1809), manufacturer (mother: Elise)
    2. John von Rosthorn (1765–1821), manufacturer (mother: Mary Morton) ⚭ Therese Leithner (1783–1856)
      1. George
      2. Maria (1812–1859) ⚭ Franz Schuh (1804–1865), surgeon; 3 children
      3. Josef von Rosthorn (1816–1886), industrialist, ⚭ Josefine Freiin von Mandorf
        1. Alfons von Rosthorn (1857–1909), gynecologist, ⚭ Helene Witt († 1939)
        2. Gisela (1859-1862)
        3. Emil (1860-1878)
        4. Arthur-Philipp (1862–1945), sinologist, diplomat and writer ⚭ with Pauline Pichler (1873–1967)
        5. Marie (or Maria, Misa; 1863–?) ⚭ Charles Sumner Bacon (1856–1947), 4 children
        6. Helene (1865–1929), philanthropist ⚭ Ernst Lecher (1856–1926), physicist; 1 child
    3. Matthäus von Rosthorn the Younger (1782–1855), manufacturer, director of the Nordbahn (mother: Elisabeth See)
      1⚭ 1809 Maria Reiter (? –1810/11)
      2⚭ 1815 Josefine Langmaier
      1. Caroline (1810–1875) ⚭ Johann Wolf
      2. Josefine (1820–1904) ⚭ 1842 Johann Fillunger (1807–1879), railway builder, director of the Northern Railway; 8 children, including August Fillunger (1856–1917), geologist and Oberbergrat
      3. Mathilde (1822–1911) ⚭ 1842 Rudolf Kner (1810–1869), zoologist. 5 children including
        1. Jozia Kner ⚭ Johann Pichler
          1. Paula Pichler (1873–1967) ⚭ Arthur von Rosthorn
      4. Augusta (1827–1871) ⚭ Moritz Wickerhhauser, 3 children
      5. Wilhelmine (1829 / 31–1834)
    4. August von Rosthorn (1789–1843), manufacturer (mother: Elisabeth See), ⚭ Ottilie Müller, 1 foster daughter
    5. Daniel von Rosthorn (1791–1851) (mother: Elisabeth See) ⚭ 1813 Fanny Masson (1786–1857)
      1. Daniel (? –1813)
      2. Eduard (? –1814)
      3. Gustav (1815–1875), manufacturer, politician, ⚭ Maria Friesnigg, 2 children
      4. Adolf (1816–1898), industrialist in Oed, ⚭ Rosalie Fischer (1837–1882)
        1. Oskar (1857–1930), industrialist, ⚭ Auguste Raffelsberger
        2. Hermine (1859–?) ⚭ R. Felsen
        3. Rosalie (1864–1919), alpinist
          1⚭ Bruno Wagner von Freynsheim , director of the Northern Railway
          2⚭ 1886 Louis Philipp Friedmann (1861–1939), industrialist and alpinist
        4. Friedrich (1879–1882)
      5. Alfred (? –1820)
      6. Emma (1819–1902) ⚭ Johann R. v. Gabriely, 5 children
      7. Hugo (1822–1879) ⚭ Nina (Anna) Stollewerk (1825–1914)
    6. Franz von Rosthorn (1796–1877), industrialist, (mother: Elisabeth See)
      1⚭ Susanne Hell (1800–1855), mother of all children of Franz
      2⚭ Clara Schlegel (1809–1896)
      1. Max von Rosthorn (1824-1887)
      2. Ottilie von Rosthorn (1827–1917) ⚭ Joseph Leodegar Canaval (1820–1898), mineralogist and curator at the Carinthian Natural History Museum
        1. Richard Canaval (1855-1939), Montanist
        2. Ernst (1882–1905) ⚭ Maria Savary, 4 children
        3. Ottilie (1852–1932) ⚭ Karl Penecke (1858–? 1944), geologist and paleontologist
        4. Hermine (1866–1917) Franz Ruckgaber (1858–1929), 4 children
        5. Rosa (1868–1949), 2 marriages, 1 child
        6. Friederike (1873–1955), 2 marriages, 1 child
      3. Christine (1829-1880)
      4. Philippine (1831–1898) ⚭ Franz Ruckgaber (1818–1887), 9 children

Others

Rosthorn Crypt

Franz von Rosthorn erected a crypt in St. Ruprecht near Klagenfurt for his late wife Susanna Maria geb. Hell in 1855. The grave is on the south side of today's church near the church entrance. 23 people are buried here, most of them family members of the descendants of Franz von Rosthorn.

The right to use the crypt itself passed to the Montan Gesellschaft Kärnten after 1998. The Klagenfurt Mining Museum manages the moving parts such as tombstones and panels .

Rusthorn Medal

The Rosthorn Medal is an award that is named after Arthur von Rosthorn and has been awarded since 1986.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Friedrich Hans Ucik, Alexander Geyer: The industrial family Rosthorn and their importance for Carinthia and Austria. In: Rudolfinum. Yearbook of the State Museum of Carinthia 2008. Klagenfurt 2009, pp. 371–389 ( PDF on ZOBODAT ).
  2. ↑ a b c d e f g Hans Jörg Köstler: The Rosthorn family in the Carinthian iron system of the 19th century with special consideration of the works in Prävali and in Buchscheiden . In: Carinthia I , 179th year, 1989, pp. 289–338.
  3. ↑ Family tree
  4. ^ The Rosthorn crypt at the St. Ruprecht cemetery in Klagenfurt ( memento from June 26, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on December 30, 2009

Web links

Commons : Rosthorn  - Collection of images, videos and audio files