Royal Prussian Steamship Company

The Königlich Preußische Patentierte Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft zu Berlin was an inland shipping company that existed from 1817 to 1824 and operated with a total of five paddle steamers, initially in Berlin and then on the Elbe between Hamburg and Berlin as a liner for passenger and freight transport .

history

Steamship Princess Charlotte of Prussia on a 1975 stamp

The company was founded in May 1817 by the Potsdam engineer and shipbuilder John B. Humphreys Jr. and his father, a Hamburg-based merchant of Scottish origin. Humphreys Jr. had already received a patent or privilege from the royal Prussian government in October 1815 to use the "peculiar method of using steam engines to drive ship's vessels" in Prussia. Then he had at the Havel in Pichelsdorf in Spandau a shipyard created or "steamboat construction site" on which the center wheel steamer on September 14, 1816 Princess Charlotte of Prussia five paddle steamers built by him, the first total from the stack running. In June 1817 the company began regular passenger and postal services with Princess Charlotte on the Havel and Spree between Berlin-Tiergarten , Charlottenburg , Spandau and Potsdam.

At the same time, further ships were being built in Pichelsdorf. With the side paddle steamer Kurier (14 hp) launched there on March 15, 1817 and the following city ​​of Magdeburg (20 hp, as well as a 16 m high mast for setting square sails ) in November 1817 , the company began the liner service for people and men Freight traffic on the Elbe between Berlin, Magdeburg and Hamburg. In 1819, the shipyard of Friedrich Wilhelm III , which had been launched on August 3, 1818 at Humpreys' meanwhile to today's Schiffbauergasse in Potsdam, was launched . (20 HP), followed a year later by the then largest steamship in Germany, the Prince Blücher, launched on October 16, 1819 (61 m long, 7.60 m wide, two machines of 20 HP each).

The End

The generally poor condition of the waterways - with fluctuating water levels, many sandbanks, drifting trees, etc. - made it difficult for society to achieve lasting economic success. Added to this were debts that the two Humphreys had in England, and finally a patent dispute with the Prussian government that broke out in 1821. As early as October 1818, the Berlin passenger and postal service of Princess Charlotte was discontinued, and the liner service on the Elbe was ended in 1821/22. The Royal Prussian Patented Steamship Company went bankrupt in 1824 . Their ships were auctioned in 1824/25.

Post Comment

In 1828 the "Berliner Dampfschiffahrts-Gesellschaft" was founded in Berlin, which resumed passenger, freight and tug traffic between Berlin and Hamburg with the paddle steamers Henriette and Berlin . As early as 1831, their four ships (two paddle steamers and two tugs) were taken over by the "Prussian Sea Handling" , which had the steamship monopoly on the Märkische waterways until 1848, but then ceased operations due to the superior competitiveness of the new railways .

literature

• Werner Jaeger: The center-wheel steamship Princess Charlotte of Prussia 1816 . In: Schriften des Deutschen Schiffahrtmuseums , Volume 7. Verlag Gerhard Stalling, Oldenburg / Hamburg, 1977, ISBN 3-7979-1883-6 .
• Harry Methling: medium-wheel steamer "Princess Charlotte of Prussia", the first steamship built in Germany . In: Yearbook for Brandenburg State History , Volume 12, 1961, pp. 72–75.
• Karola Paepke among others: Sailors and steamers on the Havel and Spree . In: Hans-Joachim Rook (ed.): Streiflicher on the history of shipping in Potsdam . Brandenburgisches Verlagshaus, 1993, ISBN 3-89488-032-5 .
• Immo Sievers: Prussians spied in England . In: Berliner Zeitung , September 17, 1996.
• Hans-Joachim Uhlemann: 250 kilograms of coal per hour. The first steamship sailed on the Havel in 1816 . In: Berliner Zeitung , January 8, 1994.
• Alex W. Hinrichsen: The first 35 years of passenger steam shipping . In: Reiseleben, Issue 12, 1986.
• Tristan Micke: The first steam ships in Prussia . (PDF; 1.3 MB) In: Herbst-Blatt Treptow-Köpenick , Volume 11, No. 66, March / April 2007, p. 22.

Web links

• Picture of the steamship "Princess Charlotte of Prussia" on the Spree near Bellevue Palace (Friedrich August Calau, 1818)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ john-barnett.de ( Memento of the original from June 20, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.