Justus Jacob Hespe

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Justus Jacob Hespe (born November 21, 1765 in Hanover ; † November 16, 1842 there ) was a German watchmaker , mechanic and, in 1822, inventor of a three-wheeled driving machine with pedal drive, the Hespine, named after him .

Life

family

Hespe was born as the son of court watchmaker Anton Adolph Hespe (* around 1726 in Stadthagen ; † August 12, 1811 in Hanover). His mother was the daughter of the royal art master the "Hofbau-Conducteur" Johann Just Cleeves , whose grandfather Joseph Cleeves was brought to Herrenhausen from Salisbury to Hanover in 1718 to supervise the English water machine in order to put the Great Fountain in the Great Garden into operation.

Career

Hespe first completed an apprenticeship as a watchmaker with his father, but did not take the citizenship oath in Hanover until 1798 and then settled in Hanover himself.

In 1822 he constructed a three-wheeled "driving machine" which was described in the New Patriotic Archive :

“The Hespine. This name is borne by a driving machine, newly invented by the watchmaker and mechanic JJ Hespe in Hanover, similar to the draisine , but much more perfected. The Hespine has the advantage over the draisine that it has three wheels; the foremost holds two feet in diameter , the two rearmost three feet two inches , the track holds three feet wide, hence one is balance to keep, relieved, and always is with your feet a foot above the ground. The mechanism is extremely solid and is done by pedaling; you sit on a Hungarian saddle as if you were riding, with your feet in shoes attached to them. The movement is the same as when walking. It doesn't take a lot of effort, just keep the machine going. Its construction is pleasant, which has also been confirmed by the applause of the Duchess of Cambridge . As far as your speed is concerned, one step, once the front wheel goes around, covers 6 feet, i.e. 2 strong man steps. Incidentally, this wagon is only useful for sprightly young men. At the moment, Mr. Hespe is busy setting up the same so that two people can drive each other [probably as a tandem ] and that the same can be used to great advantage on Grand Chausseen , avenues and in parks. "

The designation as a driving machine comes from the Drais 'four-wheeled muscle car with pedal crank drive from 1813, the designation as Hespine was modeled on the designation of the two-wheeled Drais' running machine from 1817 as a draisine. During the Nazi era, the Hannoversche Kurier-Tageblatt claimed in a nationalistic manner and the reverse of the facts:

“The fundamental difference between the Draisine and Hespine is obvious. We can rightly call our fellow citizen Hespe the real inventor of the bicycle. "

The invention of the two-wheeler principle definitely lies with Karl Drais . The three-wheelers that were designed in many places from 1817 onwards were intended, thanks to their stability, to relieve contemporaries of the fear of balance that kept them from riding two-wheelers. With these you could use mechanical foot drives, like In Drais' driving machines from 1813. Hespe's tricycle was not an isolated case and not a priority. Whether its drive mechanism was particularly original cannot be decided without an illustration based solely on the meager text source. "Nothing is known about the use and further development of the Hespine." According to Waldemar R. Röhrbein, the three-wheeled vehicle did not establish itself, but "can be viewed as a hann [overscher] contribution to the development of the bicycle and thus to technical progress " - without local patriotism, Hespe appears as one of many.

Thirteen years after the invention of the Hespine , Georg von Alten “rode” in 1835 on a running machine from Großgoltern to Hanover, which “probably [...] is identical to the draisine that is now in the Historical Museum in Hanover .” Hespe , who also referred to himself as a private scholar , was still referred to in the city of Hanover's address book from 1842 as “watchmaker and nature poet ”. He died that same year.

Fonts

  • Ideals, drawn from the realm of nature , 1828
  • Theater , 1828

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Waldemar R. Röhrbein: Hespe, Johann Jacob. In: Hannoversches Biographisches Lexikon , p. 166
  2. ↑ Jürgen Ermert (private) in his watchmaker directory : Watchmaker: Hespe, Anton Adolph father of Justus Jakob , based on: Jürgen Abeler: Master of the art of watchmaking: Over 14,000 watchmakers from the German-speaking area with dates of life or work and the directory of their works , Wuppertal: Clock Museum , 1st edition 1977
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Walter Euhus: The beginning of cycling in Hanover ... , p. 9ff.
  4. ↑ Eberhard Berenberg: Johann Just Cleeves , in: Royal Great Britain-Hannoverscher Staats-Kalender to the year 1818 , Berenbergsche Buchdruckerey zu Lauenburg, 1818, p. 83
  5. ^ To: Neues Vaterländisches Archiv , year 1823, p. 204;
    Kurier-Tageblatt of September 9, 1942;
    Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung from 4./5. November 1972
personal data
SURNAME Hespe, Justus Jacob
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Hespe, JJ; Hespe, Justus J.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German watchmaker and inventor
DATE OF BIRTH November 21, 1765
PLACE OF BIRTH Hanover
DATE OF DEATH November 16, 1842
Place of death Hanover