Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock

Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock

Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock (born August 6, 1782 in Iserlohn ; † September 4, 1843 there ) was a German businessman and entrepreneur . He founded the Hermannshütte in Hörde , one of the first puddling and rolling mills in the Ruhr area.

Life

Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock was born on August 6, 1782 in Iserlohn as the son of the tank maker and publisher Caspar Dietrich Piepenstock (1756–1821) and his wife Anna Catharina Piepenstock, nee. Humpert (* 1753) born. The grandfather was Johann Georg Piepenstock († 1783), who had acquired a water grinding mill in the Lägertal near Iserlohn in order to produce darning and head needles there. His son took over the business and was able to free himself from the dependence of the merchants in the 1790s. He even rose to become a publisher himself and expanded production to include carcasses and fishing rods . Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock was trained in his father's company; according to the list of employees, he was a needleworker apprentice in 1796. In 1808 he married the innkeeper daughter Sophia Maria Anna Juninger (born December 12, 1781), two years later he became his father's junior partner. From 1815 the company expanded increasingly, this expansion is attributed to Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock. He initially acquired further grinding mills from Iserlohn and then founded a brass rolling mill in Oese (now Hemer), which enabled him to get started in the manufacture of bronze goods.

Plaque with the plaster relief of Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock, in the local history museum in the Hörder Castle

After his father's death in 1821, Piepenstock became the sole owner. Like other Iserlohn entrepreneurs, he also planned the construction of large-scale plants outside of Iserlohn. In 1828 he had a mining site for Eisenstein in the former county of Limburg in order to build a plant there. In Müschede (today Arnsberg) he built the Sophienhammer . In 1834 a wire and iron mill was completed in Neu-Oege (today Hagen); later an iron foundry followed. The sheet rolling mill was the first in Westphalia . Piepenstock also systematically searched for Eisenstein in the Neu-Oege area, but faced competition from Friedrich Harkort , who also wanted to build a mine in this area. In 1837 Piepenstock announced the construction of an ironworks between Letmathe (today Iserlohn) and Nachrodt , but had to give up this plan in 1840 due to resistance from local residents. After these setbacks, Piepenstock decided on Hörde (now Dortmund-Hörde) as its new location. The decisive factor was the proximity to the coal occurrence. On October 23, 1840, he bought the property at the Hörder Burg from the widow Spemann for 11,500 Reichstaler , an application dated April 14, 1841 shows the vision of an ironworks based entirely on steam power with 600 workers. According to the English model, a company was to be created that would produce steel and process it into semi-finished goods or railroad tracks in the same company. In the same year the Hermannshütte was built with the help of Samuel Dobbs . However, the start of production was delayed until 1844. Nevertheless, the project already received a lot of attention: On August 27, 1842, Piepenstock welcomed King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In Hörde and was awarded a medal at the Berlin trade fair that same year . Piepenstock never lived to see this award. He died unexpectedly in Iserlohn in 1843. On his deathbed he received the first iron rolled in Hörde. He left no children behind, his heirs and successors had to sell almost all parts of the company, and in 1847 Hermannshütte became the property of a limited partnership under the leadership of the Schaafhausen'sche Bankverein .

Awards

In 1833 Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock was awarded the Prussian Red Eagle Order IV class. In Hörde today a street and a square are named after Piepenstock. Furthermore, a street in Iserlohn was named after him.

literature

• Wilfried Reininghaus:  Piepenstock, Hermann Diedrich. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 20, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-00201-6 , p. 424 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wilfried Reininghaus: Hermann Diedrich Piepenstock, his family and company . In: Society for Westphalian Economic History eV, Ottfried Dascher, Christian Kleinschmidt (ed.): The iron and steel industry in the Dortmund area . tape 9 . Dortmund 1992, ISBN 3-925227-31-8 , pp. 13 ff .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Wilfried Reininghaus: Piepenstock, Hermann Diedrich . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 1 . Ruhfus, Dortmund 1994, p. 109 ff .