Johann Georg Neher

Johann Georg Neher (born March 25, 1788 in Musbach ; † November 27, 1858 in Schaffhausen ) was a Swiss industrialist of German origin.

Services

After a stay in France , where he had acquired "mercantilist knowledge", Neher turned to the technique of smelting. He got his first job as manager of the Hohenzollern ironworks in Thiergarten near Beuron , which belonged to his brother. Since he was to be drafted into military service in the Napoleonic wars in 1809 , he emigrated to Schaffhausen in Switzerland, where in 1810 he acquired the so-called "copper hammer" in Laufen . Neher built a then modern blast furnace, in which he bean ore from the nearby Südranden smelted and processed the iron in its own forge. He operated the blast furnace with charcoal, which he obtained from the surrounding area, some of which had been brought in from Graubünden .

After the initial difficulties of the hammer mill had been overcome, Neher took a long trip to England , where he visited several iron works and thus acquired valuable knowledge for his business. Because of the insolvency of his brother, who had managed the entire parental assets, he had to return to Schaffhausen. He was only able to continue his company with the help of appropriate loans.

The Neher'schen Eisenwerke am Laufen quickly became one of the leading companies in Eastern Switzerland and soon switched from commercial production to industrial mass production. Essential factors for the rise of the company were the improvement of the running water power, which has been used since the Middle Ages, as well as the smelting of the ore extracted on the southern edge. The factory facilities at Laufen gradually enlarged, and due to the increase in production, especially of cast goods (including many machine parts), the demand for pig iron could no longer be supplied with the existing blast furnace. Neher therefore initially obtained pig iron from smelters in neighboring Baden .

The ore extraction in Schaffhausen was in the hands of the state, and the increasing demand for ore made the price higher than Neher wanted to pay. Since he could not come to an agreement with the state mine administrator Johann Conrad Fischer , in 1823 he bought the iron mine at Gonzen near Sargans, which had been in existence since the Middle Ages . There he set up a blast furnace in nearby Plons (now part of Mels ), where he produced cheap ingot in large quantities and then processed it in the hammer mill on the run. The first smelting attempts were made in Plons as early as 1826, whereby the stock of ores left by the previous operators was processed. After larger deposits of manganese ores had been opened up in the mine , the Plons blast furnace was able to produce correspondingly large quantities of pig iron in the required quality from 1831 onwards.

In 1835, Neher expanded the Laufen factory to include a cupola furnace , in 1842 he set up a rolling mill and in 1845 he bought the Thorenberg hammer mill near Littau , where he switched to steel production in 1851. From there he supplied instrument makers, knife and weapon smiths and in 1849 received the order to supply the steel for the construction of the new chain bridge in Aarau .

Head of family and citizen

In 1813, Neher married the Schaffhausen citizen Esther Seiler, the daughter of the innkeeper Bernhardin Seiler zum Weisse Haus. In 1825 he was the first Catholic to receive citizenship in Schaffhausen "on the condition that he had all his children of both sexes taught in the Evangelical Reformed Confession." His three sons worked in his patriarchal company, which later became JG Neher Söhne & Cie.

His eldest son Bernhard Neher (1814–1865) was, among other things, head of the Plons iron and steel works for many years. In 1836 he married Pauline Peyer im Hof, the sister of the industrialist Friedrich Peyer im Hof , the co-founder of the Swiss Waggons Factory near Schaffhausen, which later became the Swiss Industrial Company . Bernhard's son Georg Robert Neher (1838–1925) became director of the Swiss Waggons Factory and was a representative of JG Neher Söhne & Cie. Significantly involved in the establishment of the first Swiss aluminum works in Neuhausen and the establishment of Aluminum Industrie AG Neuhausen . A pioneer in the field of aluminum processing was Georg Roberts son Robert Victor Neher (1886–1918), who developed the production of endless aluminum foils .

The second son Johann Conrad Neher (1818–1877) held management positions in the Eisenwerk am Laufen from 1831, founded the Schweizerische Waggons-Fabrik in the courtyard in 1853 with Heinrich Moser and Friedrich Peyer and then took over the technical management of this company. The third son, Johann Georg Neher-Moser (1826–1885), was the head of the Thorenberg iron and hammer works from 1858. He was married to Emma Moser, the daughter of the Schaffhausen industrialist Heinrich Moser. Their son Oscar Neher (1862–1944) was also an entrepreneur. His daughter Charlotte was married to Gustave Naville , who was a co-founder of the Swiss Metallurgical Society in 1887 and of Aluminum Industrie AG , later Alusuisse , in 1888 . Neher was a member of the male guild and donated considerable amounts to various Schaffhausen social institutions. He was the main initiator of the establishment of the Catholic cooperative in Schaffhausen and from 1839 to 1858 a member of the Catholic church in Schaffhausen.

literature

• Karl Schib : Johann Georg Neher , in: Schaffhauser Contributions to History. Biographies Volume I . 33rd year 1956, pp. 231–237 ( PDF )
• Rainer Stahlschmidt: The Nehersche ironworks near Schaffhausen 1824. In: Schaffhauser contributions to patriotic history. Volume 67, 1990, pp. 333-349.
• Leo Weisz : Studies on the commercial and industrial history of Switzerland. Volume 2. Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1940.

Web links

• Matthias Wipf: Neher, Johann Georg. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .