Isaak Grobli

Isaak Gröbli (born April 26, 1822 in Oberuzwil , † April 27, 1917 in Gossau ) was the inventor of the boat embroidery machine .

Life

Memorial plaque to Isaak Gröbli in Gossau

Isaak Gröbli was born as the son of a schoolmaster in Oberuzwil. In 1826 his father bought a house with meadows and ran some farming in addition to the school. He also worked as an organist at the Protestant church and as a clerk for the church council. However, the money was more bad than good, and so he tried, as in previous years, when Weber . Only two years later he was working as a schoolmaster again. This time in Niederuzwil , where young Isaac went to school with his father. During the summer the father began to weave again and the boy had to wind his yarn. Gradually, the eleven year old also learned to weave.

Isaak Gröbli dreamed of one day becoming an overseer in a jacquard weaving mill . Together with two comrades, the then 18-year-old set out on foot to Lyon , where he wanted to complete his dream training. When they arrived in France, the three young men found work and accommodation with fellow countrymen. Business was not going very well, and so Gröbli returned to his home village after a few months. In the meantime, a new jacquard weaving mill had been set up in Oberuzwil, in which Gröbli was able to apply the knowledge he had acquired.

In 1843 his father died and Isaac took over the local farm and weaving mill with his mother and three siblings. He equipped the weaving room with eight jacquard looms and became self-employed. In 1847 Gröbli, who held the military rank of field woman, was called up by the military. The Sonderbund War had broken out.

In 1848 Gröbli returned home and found that his weaving mill had suffered some losses. He decided to sell the looms and work as a master weaver for a manufacturer in Flawil . A year later he married his childhood friend, with whom he was happily married for 45 years.

In 1855 Gröbli, who had meanwhile advanced to captain , applied for a course for infantry instructors. Another military assignment took him to the Neuchâtel trade , the dispute between the King of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. And the Swiss Confederation over the membership of the Canton of Neuchâtel , with his battalion to Diessenhofen , Schaffhausen and Rheinau . From here he made a trip to Töss near Winterthur to visit the Rieter machine factory - a decisive event in his life.

Then Gröbli worked briefly in a jacquard weaving mill in Ebnat . A little later he was able to take over the technical management of a weaving mill in Altstätten . But he was not happy here and soon returned to Oberuzwil, where he set up his own iron and steel workshop in his parents' house .

With the advent of embroidery machines in the middle of the 19th century, Gröbli's big time came. The factory owners' association announced a competition "for the creation of a more efficient winding device". For the first time Gröbli's mechanical talent showed. His construction of a ten-spindle winding machine was very well received and even received an award. When the first sewing machine appeared in the vicinity of Uzwil, the spark finally jumped over. Gröbli wanted to combine the two related tasks of sewing and embroidery and thus create a 200-fold sewing machine. He brooded over the idea and built a simple wooden model with just a needle, a shuttle , and an adjustable frame and created a pattern. So he finally succeeded in getting the important machine factory Rieter & Co. in Winterthur excited about the idea. Here Gröbli succeeded in building a completely mechanically driven machine, which worked to the fullest satisfaction. The breakthrough came with the help of the experienced embroidery manufacturer Jakob Steiger-Meyer von Herisau . The "Mechanische Embroidery Wülflingen" was founded, in which Gröbli took over the technical management and was able to benefit financially from his inventions for the first time.

At the world exhibition in Vienna in 1873, the mechanical embroidery Wülflingen received the medal of progress. Gröbli, the real inventor of the ship embroidery machine, had to be content with the medal for employees.

At the age of 64, Gröbli decided to become self-employed again. He set up his own embroidery business in Gossau and was supported by his second oldest son Hermann. The embroidery industry was already doomed to decline and Gröbli lacked the means to buy more powerful machines. Isaak Gröbli lived in Gossau for 31 years. In 1917 he died of old age and was buried in the Gossau cemetery. The St. Gallen Commercial Directorate, the representative of the embroidery region in Eastern Switzerland, recognized the great merits of the deceased and dedicated a tomb to him with the inscription:

Isaak Grobli

the inventor of the ship embroidery machine

dedicated in gratitude by

Commercial Directorate St. Gallen

After the grave was lifted in Gossau, the tomb was taken to the cemetery of his home community in Oberuzwil. Since October 1958, a memorial stone has been commemorating Isaak Gröbli on Gröbliplatz in Gossau.

Spread of the ship embroidery machine

Number of ship embroidery machines
year	St. Gallen	Appenzell	Thurgau	Other	Total CH	Vorarlberg	Total
1890	341	88	113	-	542	-	542
1900	1391	138	642	92	2263	365	2628
1917	3217	184	1903	315	5619	1378	6997

literature

• Hans Amann: Isaak Gröbli died 75 years ago, published in Oberberger Blätter 1992/1993, pp. 48–57, Verlag Cavelti AG, Gossau.
• Josef Gröbli: housekeeping book of the schoolmaster, 1815-1818, Oberuzwil.
• Pastor E. Berger: Words in memory of Isaak Gröbli, 1917, Gossau.
• Hanns Günther: pioneers of technology, Rascher-Verlag, Zurich 1920.
• Hans Breitenmoser: A brilliant Toggenburg technician, Toggenburg Annalen, 1959.
• The Princely Lands, April 27, 1917 and October 20, 1958.
• Walter Bodmer : Isaak Gröbli, inventor of the ship embroidery machine and industrialist in volume 15 of Swiss pioneers in business and technology, 1964, Zurich.