Jakob Bernhard Haas

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jakob Bernhard Haas (born February 14, 1753 in Biberach an der Riss ; † 1828 ) was a German measuring instrument maker and inventor who worked for the Portuguese Navy first in London and from 1800 in Lisbon .

Life

Trade card from the Hurter and Haas company , British Museum : The card shows a collection of the company's instruments presented by Putti in the form of an allegorical scene above which the goddess Athena hovers as the patroness of art, science and handicrafts . In the foreground, a putto operates the "air pump" developed by Hurter and Haas .

Like his older brother Georg Ludwig (1751–1826), who was a grocer in Bristol , and his younger brother Carl Friedrich (1759–?), Who moved to London as a mechanic, Jakob Bernhard Haas also emigrated to the Kingdom of Great Britain .

After an apprenticeship with the instrument maker Jesse Ramsden in London, around 1787 he worked for the established Swiss enamel artist Johann Heinrich Hurter , who had been increasingly involved in instrument making from around 1786 and founded his own factory in London in 1787. Haas had already received a patent for an improved "air pump" in 1783. Georg Christoph Lichtenberg reported on this invention, which is a further development of the “air pump” by John Smeaton , in 1785. When the writer Sophie von La Roche visited Hurter's “factory”, she found Haas there “thoughtful, for physics and mathematics bored “man.

Around 1792 Haas became Hurters business partner. The joint company Hurter and Haas, Mechanical Philosophical, and Optical Instrument Makers , had its headquarters at № 53 Great Marlborough Street and existed until 1795. Scientists such as Horace-Bénédict de Saussure , Johann Georg Tralles and Alexander von Humboldt used the company's equipment. In Bern she delivered various astronomical devices to the high school, which later became the University of Bern . Special attention was given to an "air pump" improved by Hurter and Haas .

The collaboration with Hurter ended when he withdrew from the London business. On December 23, 1795, the company's extensive inventory of instruments was auctioned off at Christie's . Haas then opened his own workshop in Soho, London . There the mechanic Wilhelm Gottlob Benjamin Baumann (1772–1849), who had also worked at Ramsden, became his employee. Among other things, they dealt with the further development of the "air pump". After Baumann left London in 1798, Haas accepted an offer from the Portuguese Navy and moved to Lisbon in 1800, where he opened a workshop for instrument making, which his son Johann Friedrich (João Frederico) Haas probably continued until 1865.

literature

  • Andor Trierenberg: The court and university mechanics in Württemberg in the early 19th century . Dissertation University of Stuttgart, 2013, p. 93 f. ( PDF ; 2.2 MB)

Web links

Wikisource: Description of an improved air pump  - sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Carola Dahlke: Mercury on the move. About the travel barometer in the second age of discovery. In: Kultur & Technik , 4/2017, p. 45 ( PDF ; 377 kB)
  2. ^ Hermann Kellenbenz : German Immigrants in England . In: Colin Holmes (Ed.): Immigrants and Minorities in British Society . Routledge, London 2015 ( Google Books )
  3. ↑ Georg Christoph Lichtenberg : Mr. Haas to London establishment . In: Göttingisches Magazin der Wissenschaft und Litteratur . 4th year, 1st item (1785), p. 156, VIII. ( Digitized version )
  4. ^ Sophie von La Roche : Diary of a trip through Holland and England . Weiß and Brede, Offenbach 1788, p. 211 f.
  5. ↑ Hurter & Haas , data sheet in the portal britishmuseum.org ( British Museum ), accessed on July 25, 2020
  6. ↑ Gerhard Kortum : Humboldt the seafarer and his marine chronometer. A contribution to the history of nautical and marine science. In: International Journal for Humboldt Studies , Volume 2, No. 3 (2001), p. 53 ( PDF ; 3.1 MB) doi: 10.18443 / 18
  7. ↑ See: John Cuthbertson: Description of an Improved Air Pump . Mannheim 1788, p. 13 ( digitized version )
  8. ↑ Wilhelm Gottlob Benjamin Baumann: Description of the air pump from JB Haas by the mechanic Baumann . In: Johann Gottlob Geissler: Description and history of the newest and most excellent instruments for lovers and artists in consideration of their mechanical application. Schöps, Zittau and Leipzig 1798, Volume 9, pp. 191-198
personal data
SURNAME Haas, Jakob Bernhard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German instrument maker and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH February 14, 1753
PLACE OF BIRTH Biberach an der Riss
DATE OF DEATH 1828