Johann Wilhelm Wendt (captain)

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Johann Wilhelm Wendt, 1845

Johann Wilhelm Wendt (born November 18, 1802 in Bremen ; † June 6, 1847 there ) was a German captain , four-time circumnavigator , explorer, inventor and entrepreneur.

Life

Wendt attended the parish school of St. Stephani . At the age of 15, Wendt went to sea for the first time under the leadership of his father Johann Hinrich Wendt (1765–1847) on the ship Janus and when his uncle Johann Andreas Harmssen was given the command of the mentor , the first Prussian sea merchant, Wendt was his understeer . This first Prussian circumnavigation on behalf of the Royal Prussian Maritime Trading Society was also accompanied by the supercargo William O'Swald .

Until 1834 Wendt sailed four times around the world in the service of the Prussian Maritime Trading Society, i.e. around the stormy Cape Horn and the Chinese Sea, feared because of its typhoons :

  • 1822–1824 as understeer with the mentor , Captain JA Harmssen
  • 1826–1829 as chief helmsman with the Princess Louise , Captain JA Harmssen
  • 1830–1832 as a captain with the Princess Louise
  • 1832–1834 as a captain with the Princess Louise

At that time, the captains' task was also to measure wind and ocean currents and thus contribute to hydrography and climatology . They should also seek out and measure unexplored islands and coasts. Another job for the captains was to establish new trade connections between Prussia and West and East India, with South America and China , and thus to create new sales opportunities for Prussian industry and economy.

In 1832 he married Elisabeth Weigel (* around 1811) and obtained permission to take her with him on his next trip. On September 25, 1833 she had her son Heinrich Wendt († 1853) at sea in the Pacific Ocean north of the Caroline Islands and died as a result of the delivery despite medical care. Elisabeth Wendt b. Weigel was the younger sister of Adele Oswald geb. Weigel, the wife of William O'Swald .

During his circumnavigation of the world, Wendt collected a. a. recent snails , which are now part of the geoscientific collection of the University of Bremen .

In 1835 Wendt joined the insurance office run by his father as an assistant and took over its independent management in 1838.

In 1838 Wendt married his second wife Anna Lange (1818–1862), the daughter of the Bremen shipbuilder Johann Lange , with whom he had other children.

Wendt's sister Anna was married to Captain JT Rodbertus, who died on December 13, 1844 on the Princess Louise's 15th voyage at sea and was buried on December 15, 1844 at sea. Rodbertus was the penultimate captain who led the Princess Louise for the sea trade.

Wendt was the stimulus and driving force behind the installation of the Bremen – Bremerhaven electrical telegraph line , the first public telegraph line in Europe. It was put into operation on January 1, 1847, shortly before his death. The 65 km long telegraph line was operated with devices that Wendt had built by Charles Wheatstone in Bremen based on the model of the English double-needle telegraph .

In 1882 Edmund Rothe, who had married Wendt's daughter Helene, presented a first biography of the circumnavigator Johann Wilhelm Wendt, who died in 1847 at the age of 45 from meningitis.

literature

  • Edmund Rothe: Captain JW Wendt , Bremen 1882.
  • Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
  • Elisabeth Kuster-Wendenburg: Voyages of discovery on behalf of Prussia - Der Bremer Kapitän Wendt 1802 to 1847 , Verlag Aschenbeck & Holstein, Delmenhorst 2002, ISBN 3-932292-34-0
  • Elisabeth Kuster-Wendenburg: Catalog for the geoscientific collection of the University of Bremen. Marine Gastropoda and Lambellibranchiata from the collection of Johann Wilhelm Wendt (1802–1847) , Verlag Aschenbeck & Isensee, Oldenburg 2003, ISBN 3-895989-62-2
  • Alfred Löhr: Electrical communications engineering. In: Bremen is getting light. 100 years of living and working with electricity . Focke-Museum: Bremen, 1993, pp. 300-319

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Rothe, pp. 3–5 (each with a detailed itinerary ).
  2. ↑ Ursula Feldkamp: Wendt, Elisabeth, b. Weigel . In: Frauen Geschichte (n) , Bremer Frauenmuseum (ed.). Edition Falkenberg, Bremen 2016, ISBN 978-3-95494-095-0 .
  3. ↑ Elisabeth Kuster-Wendenburg: Discovery journeys on behalf of Prussia - Der Bremer Kapitän Wendt 1802 to 1847 , Delmenhorst 2002, p. 98.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wendt, Johann Wilhelm
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German captain, explorer and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH November 18, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen
DATE OF DEATH June 6, 1847
Place of death Bremen