Friedrich Voith

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Friedrich Voith (* 3. July 1840 in Heidenheim an der Brenz , † 17th May 1913 ) was a German mechanical engineering - engineering and business owners . He was the head of JM Voith from 1867 to 1913 and developed from his father's locksmith's workshop into an industrial company in 46 years.

family

In 1901 Friedrich Voith and his family moved into the newly built Villa Eisenhof .

Friedrich Voith was born on July 3, 1840 in Heidenheim an der Brenz. He was the only son of the locksmith Johann Matthäus Voith and his wife Johanna Dorothea. In 1867 he married Adelheid Klara Sophie Hartmann, the granddaughter of the Heidenheim textile manufacturer Ludwig Hartmann. His first son, Carl Matthäus Friedrich Voith, was born on March 24, 1868 and died on April 5 of the same year. A few weeks later, his first wife also died. In 1871 Friedrich married Helena Margaretha Crusius, the daughter of the pastor of Kötzschenbroda in Saxony. His second son Walther was born in 1874, his third son Hermann in 1878 , and his fourth son Hanns in 1885 . He was also the father of four daughters. Friedrich lived with his family in a grinding mill that had been converted into a residential building , and in 1901 they moved into the representative, newly built Villa Eisenhof , a mighty, baroque-style building.

Career

Training time

Voith's father set great store by giving his son, as his designated successor, a good theoretical and practical training. Friedrich Voith first attended the United Latin and Real School in Heidenheim. After graduating from school in 1853, the 13-year-old worked as an apprentice in his father's workshop for two years. In 1855 he began to study engineering with 189 classmates at the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart. His father had previously successfully applied for a scholarship for his son from the city council. In Stuttgart he joined the Corps Stauffia Stuttgart , where he was acquainted with Heinrich Straub and Gottlieb Daimler . Friedrich was a rather average student who was more practical than theoretically gifted. In his diploma from the Polytechnic School in Stuttgart from 1859 you can read: "Expertise: pretty good to good" and "Behavior: hardworking and ambitious" .

Engineering activity

After completing his studies, he initially worked as an engineer for a year and a half at the company Escher, Wyss & Co. in Ravensburg , through his father's mediation . Under the direction of a foreman and together with 18 workers, he worked on the workbench and later in the drawing office on the construction of water wheels and turbines. In 1861 he moved to Heinrich Voelter's technical office in Heidenheim, where he learned the basics of paper machine construction. In 1863 he went to the Henschel & Sohn company in Kassel to get to know other branches of mechanical engineering. A year later he received the news that the Völter'sche paper factory had burned down and returned to Heidenheim to devote his energies to his father's business. He hoped to get bigger orders by rebuilding the Völter'schen paper mill.

Management of the company

First, he expanded his father's workshop to include a foundry and expanded the business into a machine factory . At that time the company had around 35 employees. On January 1, 1867, his father handed the company over to Friedrich. This date is also considered the official founding day of JM Voith . Furthermore, he built his first self-paid wood grinding shop that was designed according to his own design. Orders for equipment for wood grinding shops followed, especially from Saxony, which meant that Friedrich felt compelled to expand the workshops further. In the following year he submitted his first patents on wood grinders with rack and pinion pressure and on the refiner . The refiner enabled higher quality and cheaper papermaking. In 1870 the company was entered in the commercial register . In that year Friedrich began to manufacture turbines to equip the wood grinders with their own drive machines. He started with a 100 hp Henschel-Jonval turbine.

In 1892 the Württemberg king visited Voith's private house. His machine factory was the second largest company in Heidenheim, and the king visited four companies in Heidenheim. In 1909 Friedrich Voith, as a physical person, taxed a private income of 913,405 marks in Württemberg and paid 5% of that, namely 45,670 marks in taxes.

By 1909, Voith had delivered 2632 turbines. The main buyers were electricity companies. Later he received support from the engineer Adolf Pfarr , who had already made a name for himself in turbine construction and had designed the all-important speed regulators, in the manufacture of turbines. Marcell Rempf became his commercial advisor. In 1871 he built a new foundry because the old one was too small. In 1873, Voith supplied the CF Plouquet weaving mill with the first Francis turbine . Friedrich Voith recognized the outstanding properties of this originally American invention and improved them by using, among other things, movable guide vanes to regulate the turbine. He also showed the Voith grinder with Völter at the world exhibition in Vienna . They received the medal of progress for this.

In 1880/1881 the first paper machine built entirely by Voith for the company Bezner & Co. in Gemmrigheim am Neckar was completed and delivered. It was designed for a maximum speed of 34 m / min. This Voith paper machine was followed by others. This year the company employed 145 people. In 1882 Friedrich invented a machine for sorting wood pulp. This caused a revolution in the wood pulp industry and contributed to the fact that the company became known. Due to the increasing number of orders, numerous expansions of the production facilities followed.

In 1890, Friedrich Voith was appointed to the Council of Commerce in recognition of his services to local industry . After the crisis years after 1893, the Voith company experienced an unexpected boom, which was particularly noticeable in turbine construction, which had acquired a new meaning through electrical engineering. Due to the unexpected upswing, a new machine factory had to be built in 1896 in order to meet the orders. By purchasing a large part of the earlier Bleiche and the entire Lohmühle, Friedrich was able to combine the water power of these properties in 1899/1900 and thus build a turbine system that served him as a test station and also provided other useful services. The machine factory, built in 1896, had to be expanded again in 1901 by a large hall of approx. 8500 m², which was equipped with the latest technology at the time. Due to its light and high construction, it became a sight and was visited by numerous experts from all over the world. In 1903, Friedrich was forced by customs to build a branch in St. Pölten in Austria. He entrusted the management of this branch to his eldest son Walther. Already at that time, the company JM Voith enjoyed world renown in the construction of machines for paper and wood pulp production as well as in the manufacture of turbines. The entire area of ​​the Heidenheim factory at that time comprised approx. 175,800 m² and it employed approx. 1,100 workers. The company manufactured the largest paper machines on the continent at the time and had three 11500 hp turbines in the works for Niagara Falls .

In 1904 Friedrich appointed a board of directors because of the large expansion of the business. This consisted of Gerhard Clok, director of turbine construction, Paul Priem, director of the construction of machines for paper and wood pulp production and Hermann Gottschick, director of the commercial offices. In 1906 the company was connected to the railway network.

In the following year the company had 1550 employees. On November 12, 1908, Friedrich was made an honorary citizen of the city of Heidenheim.

Only two years before his death, in 1911, after 40 years as the sole managing director of JM Voith , did he decide to hand the company over to his sons and to convert the individual parts of the company into open trading companies . The generation change from Friedrich to his three sons was an extensive and detailed procedure. How difficult it was for him to transfer responsibility to his sons can be seen in the clause restricting the sole right of representation. The sons had to undertake not to decide on all matters going beyond the scope of normal business operations without first obtaining the consent of their father.

In 1912 the turbines for the Niagara Falls were delivered. They are still in operation today and finally made the company a global company. The following year, on May 17, 1913, Friedrich Voith died. At that time the company had around 2280 employees.

In addition to designing his factory, Friedrich Voith devoted himself particularly to attracting a capable workforce. The numerous welfare institutions bear witness to the care of its employees. He has received several awards for building excellent turbines and machines for the production of paper and wood pulp. As a member of the Chamber of Commerce and long-time chairman of the citizens' committee, he also took part in public life and urban affairs.

Awards

  • 1873: Awarded the progress medal for the Voith grinder
  • 1890: Appointment to the royal Württemberg council of commerce in recognition of his services to the local industry
  • 1905: Appointment to the royal Württemberg secret councilor
  • 1906: Awarded an honorary doctorate (Dr.-Ing. E. h.) From the Technical University of Charlottenburg
  • November 12, 1908: Heidenheim was granted honorary citizenship
  • November 1, 1910: Appointment as honorary boy of the Corps Stauffia

literature

  • Paul Gehring: Johann Matthäus Voith (1803–1874) and Friedrich Voith (1840–1913). Creator of a world company for the construction of paper machines and water turbines. In: Swabian Life Pictures. On behalf of the Württemberg Commission for State History, ed. by Hermann Haering. 5. Vol. Stuttgart 1950, pp. 293-313.
  • Matthias Georgi: Voith - 150 Years of Economic History , Munich 2017, ISBN 978-3-8275-0111-0

swell

  • Karl Kaspar Meck: The industrial and administrative city of Heidenheim a. Br. Next to Hellenstein Castle in the past and present. Part 1. Self-published, Heidenheim an der Brenz 1904.
  • Karl Burr, Gerhard Schweizer: Living past in the Heidenheim district. Monuments, memorial stones, inscriptions, field crosses, chapels. Heidenheimer Zeitung publisher, Heidenheim an der Brenz 1983.
  • Hans Wulz, Manfred Allenhöfer: The Heidenheimer Land. The people of the Ostalb and their history. Volume 3.
  • Gerhard Schweier: Heidenheimer Chronicle. History of the city of Heidenheim an der Brenz 1911–1960. City of Heidenheim an der Brenz, 1962.
  • Anne Nieberding: The corporate culture in the German Empire. JM Voith and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. (= series of publications for the journal for corporate history, 9th) (plus dissertation, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, 2001.) CH Beck Verlag , Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49630-X .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Anne Nieberding: Corporate culture in the empire. The JM Voith foundry and the paint factories vorm. Friedr. Bayer & Co. (= series of publications for the journal for corporate history 9 ), Beck, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-406-49630-X , p. 34.
  2. ↑ Cf. Hundred Years of Gemmrigheim Paper Factory. 1866-1966. Gemmrigheim 1966, p. 32.
  3. ^ A b Carl Heydt: Chronicle of the Corps Stauffia in Stuttgart. 1960, p. 136.
  4. ^ Carl Heydt: Chronicle of the Corps Stauffia in Stuttgart. 1960, p. 116.
personal data
SURNAME Voith, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH July 3, 1840
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidenheim an der Brenz
DATE OF DEATH May 17, 1913
Place of death Heidenheim an der Brenz