Johann Theodor Reinke

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Portrait of Gerdt Hardorff (1820)

Johann Theodor Reinke (born April 10, 1749 in Hamburg ; † January 31, 1825 there ) was a German engineer .

Life

Johann Theodor Reinke was the son of the tanner Johann Heinrich Reinke († 1761) and his second wife Engel Dorothea (née Möller; † 1784).

For further upbringing and training, he came to the house of the engineer Ernst Georg Sonin , where his uncle, the draftsman Cord Michael Möller, mediated , where his older sister was already a housekeeper. He now received lessons from Sonin, including Latin , and passed on the knowledge he had acquired in mathematics and drawing at the age of 13 and received 6 schillings an hour for this.

Until 1778 he was a teacher of theoretical and applied mathematics and gave lessons in plan drawing , perspective drawing and architecture, then he carried out work for business people and installed a copper mill and roller mill for the businessman Hinrich Christian Olde (1727–1789), for example Poppenbüttel . However, when this did not meet expectations, he traveled to England at the merchant's expense in 1782 and inspected the relevant trades; In addition, he received an order from the merchant to observe the copper plating of ships in England, with the intention of having his own ship Poppenbüttel , under Reinke's direction, shod with copper, which then became the first ship of this type in Hamburg in 1782 and which was followed shortly after by a second ship of the merchant. After he returned two months later, he improved his trade in Poppenbüttel. He also made floor plans of his property for the merchant and had him build a house that was then shipped to the island of St. Thomas .

During this time he took over some tasks for the city of Hamburg for an annual salary of up to 300 marks and dealt with economic measurements, the making of maps and gave expert opinions until 1787 without ever being sworn in. Presumably in 1784 he invented a perpetual calendar , but it did not come into the book trade, but was sold by him for one mark per piece.

With a promemoria on December 27, 1785, he informed the city that it was useful for hydraulic engineering to know the time of the ebb and flow of the tide and their respective height. For this purpose, a man should be assigned to carry out these observations and also measure the wind and record this regularly. Thereupon it was decided on January 2nd, 1786 by the Senate to give the NCOs at Zollenspieker and Niedernbaum the task of making observations; the measurements began on January 19, 1786 and were regularly announced in the Hamburg address-comtoir news as a tide calendar . From the month of May 1787 the measurements were made at the newly built flood meter, the zero point of which indicated the usual low water. The values ​​observed resulted in the creation of a police authority which, when a certain water level rises above zero, warned the city's residents of a flood caused by gunfire ; the regulation of the measures to be carried out was drawn up by Reinke.

In 1787, through the mediation of Syndikus Sillem through the city ​​council, he was elected general border guard with an annual salary of 900 marks, although he had not applied for this position. Because this salary was insufficient for a livelihood, as he could no longer pursue a sideline due to lack of time, the salary was increased with an annual allowance of 900 marks, plus 300 marks for an assistant, since 1789 this was his private assistant Johann Georg Repsold , as well as 300 marks for travel expenses.

In his first year he created a map of the mouth of the Elbe , the Weser and part of the North Sea and a map of Heligoland .

After a Deichburch near Ochsenwerder in 1792 , the captain Barmann received the order to repair it, but he spent more money than was necessary, so Reinke was brought in as a consultant, who also got an assessment from Reinhard Woltman from Ritzebüttel and the dyke was repaired according to their instructions.

Hamburg city map from 1796

In 1796 he drew a city map of Hamburg.

In 1798 he was elected director of electricity and sewer construction. When the French came to Hamburg in 1811, he received the title of engineer ordinair des ponts et des chaussees ; his superior was Louis Didier Jousselin . After the French period in Hamburg , the offices were redistributed and Reinke was only a border guard, but was still called in as an advisor. One of his tasks was to advise on the division of common pastures and forest matters; When the long lease was to be introduced on the Elbe Islands in Hamburg , his proposal for an improved time lease was accepted, approved and introduced, which was also adopted by the neighboring countries, because the state was relieved of the dyke and construction burden with this lease facility.

He also dealt with solar and lunar eclipses , during which he lost his right eye while observing a solar eclipse, which became permanently blind. Later he was also involved in the founding efforts for a Hamburg observatory .

One of his most important works was his triangular measurement of Hamburg and the neighboring areas, for this he used the Wilhelmsburger bridge , which had been built by the French, as a base line, and carried out his measurements in September and October 1814. In 1816, he presented the results of the measurements in his publication Presentation and results of the trigonometric measurement begun in 1814 in the Hamburg area and in the initially adjacent areas .

He also improved the calibration of the wine barrels so that this could be carried out with greater accuracy and safety, for this purpose he trained three students who continued this procedure; his knowledge was also used for better calibration in the extraction of strains .

After the establishment of the new helmsman school in Hamburg, he was one of the four examiners who examined the students and who handed over the helmsman's patent if they passed the exam.

Johann Theodor Reinke was married twice; In 1777 he married his first marriage, but this only lasted a year until it was resolved by divorce. In 1789 he married Maria Sophia, daughter of the surgeon Wedell; this marriage remained childless.

Memberships

  • In 1790 he was accepted as a member of the Hamburg Society for the Advancement of Arts and Useful Trades (today: Patriotic Society of 1765 ). In 1813 he was elected head of their drawing schools and head of the section of agriculture and horticulture.
  • In 1790 he joined the Hamburg Mathematical Society as a full member.

Honors

An icebreaker of the Christian Nehls class was named after Johann Theodor Reinke .

Fonts (selection)

Literature (selection)

Web links

literature

Johann Theodor Reinke . In: New Nekrolog der Deutschen , 3rd year 1825, 1st issue. Ilmenau 1827. p. 183 f.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Hamburger Abendblatt- Hamburg: The glamorous time began with Kaufmann Olde. August 25, 2012, accessed on October 22, 2019 (German).
  2. ^ History. Hamburg observatory, accessed on October 23, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Hamburg State Calendar: to the year 1825 . Nestler & Melle, 1825, p. 61 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
personal data
SURNAME Reinke, Johann Theodor
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Reinke, Johann T .; Reinke, JT
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German engineer
DATE OF BIRTH April 10, 1749
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH January 31, 1825
Place of death Hamburg