Heinrich Gottfried Piegler
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Heinrich Gottfried Piegler (born February 23, 1797 in Schleiz , Principality of Reuss jL, today Thuringia; † February 6, 1849 in Schleiz) was a German entrepreneur and manufacturer who invented the first "modern" lighters in Schleiz that produced a flame at the push of a lever , the so-called Döbereiner lighters , produced in large numbers and sold worldwide.
Life and achievement
Gottfried Piegler was the fourth of six children from Ölsnitz / Vogtl. Master baker Christian Friedrich Piegler (1768–1806) and his wife Christiana Dorothea Rudolph (1754–1831), who moved to Schleiz around 1790. His brothers took different paths, some became bakers like their father in Schleiz, another began studying theology in Leipzig, but this patriot was soon drawn to the " banner of the voluntary Saxons " to pursue Napoleon's troops. The youngest son, Gottfried, turned to the needlework trade. His years of traveling took him via Kassel to Frankfurt / M., Where he worked at the main guard at Master Domschiez, fell seriously ill and had to be brought back to his home country without a master craftsman's certificate in his pocket. He was handcuffed to a sick bed for over a year. In 1819 he sent a desperate petition to the then ruling Reussian Prince Heinrich LXII. to allow him to run a factory in Schleiz at Markt 1 outside the guild. The prince complied with his request on February 4, 1819. Despite a leg amputation that became necessary in 1824 due to unspeakable pain, Gottfried Piegler became one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the city and carried her good reputation all over the world. He was one of the first in the world to technically implement the sensational discovery of platinum catalysis (1823) by the Jena professor of chemistry, Johann Wolfgang Döbereiner , by mass-producing platinum blasting machines from the mid-1820s and marketing them worldwide on a large scale ! "Platina lighter factory" was emblazoned on the bill header. The Piegler factory called itself the “oldest factory” and warehouse of platinum lighters, platinum smoking machines, platinum sponges and all associated utensils.
The lighter containers were available in various, sometimes very artistic designs: in glass (clear, ruby red, cobalt blue), porcelain, earthenware, lacquered wood and made of sheet metal. The mechanics were also different, although with the higher-priced versions, the fire did not have to be removed directly with a Fidibus, but a lamp lit. Publications by the renowned English chemist John Meurig Thomas indicate that Gottfried Piegler mass-produced hundreds of thousands of Döbereiner's lighters after 1828. Some 20,000 were in use that year in England alone. There were business relationships "from Aachen to Königsberg and from Hamburg to Konstanz", but also to France, Holland, Switzerland, England, Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Italy, Spain and the USA. Lithographed instructions for use in French, English, Italian and Spanish were a matter of course. The large amount of blasting machines meant that Gottfried Piegler and jobs to other Gürtler (z. B. Grünler and Kneusel in near Zeulenroda ) could forgive. In the heyday of the Piegler and Holzschuher workshops in Schleiz alone, 40 to 50 journeymen were employed who, well paid, achieved regional fame as “Piegler's journeymen”. Gottfried Piegler was regularly represented with his products at all major trade fairs in Germany (e.g. Leipzig), in 1851 also at the first world exhibition (" Great Exhibition ") in the Crystal Palace in London and in 1853 at the Great Industrial Exhibition in Dublin. A pupil of Döbereiner's, Rudolf Christian Böttger from Frankfurt / M., Introduced the practical and cheap safety matches ("Swedish sticks") in 1848, which quickly overtook the expensive but aristocratic table lighters. Nevertheless, these were manufactured and delivered by Gottfried Piegler's sons until the end of the 19th century. With the advent of fashion hairdressers at the end of the 19th century, Gottfried Piegler's factory switched production to hairdressing supplies, which in the following decades saw a new boom in the factory, which after the First World War moved to larger, newly built premises in Moltke-Straße (today: BAD health center Rudolf-Breitscheidstrasse 6) moved. In the wake of World War II, the last company owners, Theodor (1904–1991) and Kurt Piegler (1900–1969), had to leave Schleiz. They continued production in Nuremberg under the company name " Gebr. Piegler , formerly Gottfried Piegler" until 1976 in Langen Gasse 15.
On November 25, 1824, Gottfried Piegler married the red tanner daughter Friederike Henriette Köber (1802-1883), with whom he lived happily and had five sons and two daughters.
Since 2012, the former residential and commercial buildings as well as burial places in the mountain cemetery and a street named after Gottfried Piegler have been a reminder of him and his descendants. Döbereiner lighters from his production can still be found in the museums in the area (e.g. Hof, Lobenstein, Plauen and Zeulenroda). On the occasion of the company's 200th anniversary, the Geschichts- und Heimatverein zu Schleiz eV held a festive event on May 4, 2019 with Mayors M. Bias, D. Linke (Berlin) and T. Piegler (Hamburg) and dedicated their first special exhibition in the rooms of the museum reopened in 2018 in the Rutheneum on this topic.
Honors
Gottfried Piegler's great success caused his sovereign, Prince Heinrich LXII. Reuss jL to appoint him "court commissioner" by decree of December 30, 1847 "in recognition of the merit which he has earned by establishing a new branch of industry in this city".
In February 2014 the Schleiz City Council paid tribute to this great Schleiz entrepreneur and named a street in the industrial park after him "Gottfried-Piegler-Straße".
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Alwin Mittasch, Erich Theis: From Davy and Döbereiner to Deacon - half a century of interface catalysis . Verlag Chemie, Berlin 1932, p. 68 ff .
- ↑ Theo Piegler: Vogtländische fates . Videel, Niebüll 2005, ISBN 3-89906-996-X , p. 105 ff .
- ↑ Alwin Mittasch: Döbereiner, Goethe and catalysis . Hippokrates, Stuttgart 1951, p. 51 .
- ↑ Theo Piegler: fire from Schleiz . Videel, Niebüll 2001, ISBN 3-935111-50-9 , pp. 115-155 .
- ↑ F. von Gizycki: A Döbereinersches lighter of a rare kind . In: Sudhoff's archive . tape 41 , 1957, pp. 89 .
- ^ John M. Thomas: Turning Points in Catalysis. Angew . In: Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. Engl. Volume 33 , 1994, pp. 914 .
- ^ John M. Thomas: The RSC Faraday prize lecture of 1989 . In: Chem. Commun. tape 53 , 2017, p. 9189 .
- ^ Schleiz fifty years ago . In: Schleizer Wochenblatt . No. 115 , September 28, 1872, p. 51 .
- ^ Official register of the objects sent in from the German Customs Union and Northern Germany for the industrial exhibition of all peoples in London. Decker, Berlin 1851, p. 266. ( digitized version )
- ^ John Falconer: Official catalog of the Great Industrial Exhibition (1853) . Ed .: Committee of the Great Exhibition. Third ed.Dublin 1853, p. 110 ( archive.org ).
- ↑ Uwe Lange: It peeps in Schleiz in many corners . Ostthüringer Zeitung. May 6, 2019. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
- ^ City council Schleiz renames the street "Am Wolfsgalgen" in the industrial park . Ostthüringer Zeitung. February 8, 2014. Retrieved June 5, 2019.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Piegler, Heinrich Gottfried |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German entrepreneur and manufacturer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 23, 1797 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Schleiz |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 6, 1849 |
| Place of death | Schleiz |