Johann Lange (shipbuilder)
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Johann Lange (born February 22, 1775 in Vegesack , † April 29, 1844 in Bremen ) was a German shipbuilder, entrepreneur and shipowner in Vegesack. His shipyard is regarded as the forerunner of the Bremer Vulkan shipyard founded in 1893 .
biography
As the only son of the shipbuilder Conrad Lange, Johann Lange grew up in Vegesack, which is characterized by shipping and shipbuilding. Lange completed his training at the shipyard founded in 1771 by the master carpenter Johann Jantzen . When he died in 1802, on behalf of his widow, the 27-year-old Johann Lange was promoted to plant manager and managing director of the Jantzen shipyard. On September 25, 1803, Lange married Anna Raschen (1785–1867), daughter of a shipbuilding family from neighboring St. Magnus .
1805 Founding of the shipyard
On September 21, 1805, Johann Lange founded his own shipyard by leasing an area (today Zum alten Tief ) on the Aue river near the mouth of the Lesum into the Weser . There was already a shipbuilding site here in the 17th century. Immediately afterwards, Lange began building smaller ships, including a. for the Bremen Herring Fishery Compagnie . In 1814 he bought this property and acquired another one on the opposite bank of the Aue, which belonged to the Hanoverian village of Grohn . Both properties were later connected by a bridge over the floodplain. The location of the shipyard in the city state of Bremen and in the Kingdom of Hanover or the later Prussian province of Hanover , between which a customs border ran until 1888, also brought customs advantages.
In the following period, Lange and his sons were involved in a wide range of entrepreneurial activities. In addition to his shipyard, he had a distillery and brewery. In 1837 he applied for a concession for a Tran -Kocherei and participated in the whaling . He also ran a soap factory and a steam mill that supplied the Vegesack citizens with flour. He also had his own shipping company, which successfully participated in the emerging emigration business. In the year of his death in 1844, four sailing ships and two river steamers sailed under his flag for the Lower Weser traffic between Bremen and Bremerhaven.
Shipyard operation and dry dock in Bremerhaven
In Bremerhaven he founded a branch that was initially only used as a repair shop. Between 1837 and 1840 he built the first dry dock here in the Lower Weser area. In 1844 the first new ship was built here. The Bremerhaven facilities were continued by Lange's descendants until 1895 and then taken over by Georg Seebeck at the Seebeck shipyard .
At times, the socially committed Lange employed up to 600 people, for whom he introduced health insurance as early as 1841 - forty years before Bismarck . The workforce had to “ pay a big one a week ” and in return received ¾ of their wages and medical help in the event of illness. Also in 1841, Lange received the Medal of Merit from the Hanoverian state government: “The King's Majesty rested most graciously, […], as did the shipbuilder Johann Lange Sr. to award the gold medal of merit in Vegesack ” .
In 1843 the German merchant fleet was the second largest in the world, with Bremen alone having almost six times as many ships in the top size class (over 300 loads ) than all of France, namely 23 compared to 4. Of these, 18 were built on the Lower Weser and 15 - i.e. two Third - of these large Bremen ships alone at Langes Werft. Important customers for Johann Lange were the Bremen businessman Friedrich Schröder , the Bremen shipowner Diedrich Heinrich Wätjen and the shipowner and senator Justin Friedrich Wilhelm Iken . Shortly before his death, he had built his largest sailor for Wätjen, the Leontine (building no. 157) with 430 loads, that is over 800 tonnes of load capacity or 650 GRT . As early as 1817, on the initiative of Friedrich Schröder, the first steamship built by a German shipbuilder, The Weser , was built near Lange, albeit with an English steam engine. For a long time the Weser was the only steamship in service on the Unterweser.
Shipyards under Johann and Carl Lange
Johann Lange suddenly died of a heart attack on April 29, 1844 while visiting his daughter Anna Wendt and his son-in-law Johann Wilhelm Wendt in Bremen. After his death, his sons Johann and Carl († 1887), his widow and later his brother-in-law Johann Raschen and his son of the same name continued to run the shipyard as a family business. Under Raschen's direction, the first iron sailing ship was built at this shipyard in 1884. A total of 324 ships were launched at the shipyard. In 1893 the shipyard merged with other Vegesack shipyards to form the Bremer Vulkan.
Anna Lange operates passenger shipping on the Lower Weser
In the following years, his widow Anna Lange appeared as a resolute and successful entrepreneur for passenger shipping on the Lower Weser. As early as 1845 an iron river steamship, the Gutenberg III , was built especially for them. The Bremen III followed in 1847 . In competition with Norddeutscher Lloyd , she operated river shipping on the Weser until her death on March 22, 1867. Thereafter, the company was renamed Johann Lange Witwe Erben (not to be confused with the shipping company Johann Lange Sohn's Wwe & Co. in Bremen) continued for some time until it was bought by Norddeutscher Lloyd in 1872 and the company thus went out.
The final resting place of Johann Lange - as well as that of his wife Anna - is in the family crypt in the Vegesack cemetery on Lindenstrasse . The representative tomb with an angel made of white marble was created in 1847 by the sculptor Arnold Hermann Lossow . It was in 2007 with the means "Bürgerstiftung Bremen-North" and restored by donations (range: 53 ° 10 '45.87 " N , 8 ° 35' 51.56" O ).
The Spicarium Museum
From the old shipyard there is still a warehouse at the port, which housed the Spicarium Museum. Long house was demolished in May 1998 in the course of the redesign of the Vegesack harbor area (including the Haven Höövt shopping center ) against the protest of the Vegesack population.
Honors
The Johann Lange street located in the district of Bremen- Aumund about halfway between the so-called Good Long , the former home of Long Son Martin (1841-1878) and his family, and the Vegesack harbor.
literature
- Ulf Fiedler : Important personalities in Bremen-Nord / steamship entrepreneur Anna Lange . In: Lebensraum Bremen-Nord, Yearbook of Wittheit zu Bremen, Vol. 31 . Johann Heinrich Döll Verlag, Bremen 1989, ISBN 3-88808-132-7 .
- Sophie Hollanders: Vegesack, Old Pictures of a Port City . Johann Heinrich Döll-Verlag , Bremen 1984, ISBN 3-88808-016-9 .
- Peter-Michael Pawlik: From the Weser into the world. The history of the sailing ships from the Weser and Lesum and their shipyards 1770–1893 . Deutsches Schiffahrtsmuseum Bremerhaven and Ernst Kabel Verlag, Hamburg 1993/94, pp. 142-257, ISBN 3-8225-0256-1 .
- Peter-Michael Pawlik: From the Weser into the world. Volume 3, The history of the sailing ships from Weser and Geeste and their shipyards from 1710 to 1927 , Verlag HM Hauschild, Bremen 2008, pp. 426–451, ISBN 978-3-89757-332-1 .
- Lars U. Scholl: Lange, Johann. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 13, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1982, ISBN 3-428-00194-X , p. 562 ( digitized version ).
- Rheinhold Thiel: The history of the Bremen volcano. Volume I: 1805-1918 , Verlag HM Hauschild, Bremen, ISBN 978-3-89757-380-2 .
- Shipyard history Bremer Vulkan. Ship history for the 150th anniversary of the Vulkan shipyard . Bremen 1955.
Web links
- The Lange shipyard and the tomb of the Lange family in Bremen-Vegesack
Individual evidence
- ^ Hannoversche advertisements , No. 96 of December 1, 1841.
- ↑ DAS BLV, weekly newspaper for Blumenthal, Lesum, Vegesack, Ritterhude and Schwanewede . Issued June 3, 1998.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Lange, Johann |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German shipbuilder, shipyard owner and shipowner |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 22, 1775 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Vegesack |
| DATE OF DEATH | April 29, 1844 |
| Place of death | Bremen |