Carl Anton Henschel

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Carl Anton Henschel

Carl Anton Henschel (born April 23, 1780 in Kassel ; † May 19, 1861 there ) was Oberbergrat and founder of the Henschel & Son machine factory in Kassel in 1817.

Life

Carl Anton Henschel came from an old family of bell and piece foundries . He was the eldest son of Georg Christian Carl Henschel and Friederike Storck, daughter of the Hessian piece caster Storck in Kassel, whose successor in office was Georg Christian Carl Henschel in 1785.

With his brother, the later sculptor Johann Werner Henschel , Carl Anton Henschel attended the lyceum and the art academy in his hometown. On the side he worked in his father's workshop, then went on to self-study, supported by private lessons, mathematics and was accepted into the technical civil service in 1797 as an unpaid accessist to the princely building department. In this position in 1801 he designed the large suction and pressure unit for the Sooden-Allendorf saltworks , which was carried out in his father's business. In 1803 he designed a locomotive in Kassel , of which he built a model in 1816, which has since disappeared.

Henschel got his first permanent job in 1803 as the builder of the Saline Schmalkalden from Hesse , where he married Maria Kröschel in the same year. He stayed here until 1808 when he was appointed to the Saline in Kösen as a royal Saxon master builder . After three years, Henschel became a Royal Westphalian mining engineer, 1st class in Karlshafen . He resigned from this office after two years in order to accept the position of an electoral Hessian building inspector at the Saline Sooden. From here, in 1814, 1815 and 1816, Henschel turned down three very advantageous offers to enter Prussian or Hanoverian services out of consideration for and out of attachment to his fatherland, which was then badly troubled.

The civil service was not entirely satisfactory for Henschel, and since his father and brother had become very worried about their business as a result of the foreign rule, Henschel decided to join his father's company. In view of his many services, which he had rendered to his fatherland as an expert in mining , metallurgy and saltworks , he was not only granted entry into his father's business and transfer to Kassel, but the Hessian state gave him an interest-free loan 2000 talers that he was able to bring into his father's business. At the same time, the 37-year-old was appointed senior mining inspector. In this way, Henschel was able to devote his technical skills to both the fatherland and the family.

From this point in time (1817) on, Henschel & Sohn operated as a machine factory , instead of the former predominant foundry .

Anton Henschel, who was appointed Oberbergrat and a member of the electoral Upper Mining and Salt Works Directorate in Kassel in 1832, remained in the civil service in his homeland, until increasing hearing loss forced him to resign in 1845.

In 1833 Henschel went to London to study England's new railways . On this occasion he met Brunel and Stephenson . In a letter to a friend, dated Kassel, April 28, 1833, Henschel says: "In the railway business I see a benefit for mankind and I want to devote myself to it seriously as best I can."

Henschel celebrated his golden wedding anniversary on August 28, 1853 , but lost his wife in 1857 and his son Carl in 1860 and, in addition to his long-weak hearing, lost his eyesight in recent years . His grandson Oscar Henschel took over the management of the company.

Publications and inventions

1814 Henschel invented the hydraulic chain fan and received by Elector Wilhelm I , the gold medal commercial diligence .

Henschel's first publication appeared in 1833: Neue Construction der Eisen-Bahnen (Kassel 1833). Then came the pamphlet Proposal for the Use of an Iron Cable Pull on Railways . After five years there was a contribution to the construction improvement of the railways (Kassel 1838) and the last one on this topic: A few words about the mechanical part of the railways (Kassel 1844).

The following writings by Henschel are available from other areas: Thoughts on the uninterrupted progress of creation from space and time (Kassel 1840), Aesthetics of higher architecture (Kassel 1850), The most convenient system of measurements and weights, based on the natural step of man ( Kassel 1855).

In 1837 Henschel invented the Henschel-Jonval turbine named after him , a water turbine that was first used in Holzminden in 1841 . Here she saw Nicolas J. Jonval and successfully took the patent on it in France , which the original inventor had been denied in Hesse.

After Henschel had received a six-year Hessian privilege for the sole construction of steam engines in 1830 , he constructed the water pipe boiler in 1843 . In 1845 he received the great gold medal and 6,000 francs from the Societé d'encouragement pour l'industrie nationale in Paris .

Henschel not only tried his hand at the most varied areas of technology, but also achieved excellent results in his time. In 1811 he built the first German cylinder blower , in 1820 he started building Stanhope 's letterpress printing presses and in 1825 he started manufacturing cold-drawn lead pipes . In 1843 he began building steam ships . Bell and cannon casting also played a role in his company until the 1850s and 1860s. Since 1840 the important area of machine tool construction had been included, in which outstanding achievements were made, especially in the construction of very heavy machines. The construction of bridges , the construction of steam engines and especially steam boilers began under Anton Henschel.

Memberships

Henschel was one of several learned societies on as a member, the Lower Rhine Society for Nature and medicine in Bonn, the Society for the promotion of useful arts in Frankfurt, the Association for the promotion of trade diligence in Prussia, the trade associations to Darmstadt and Kassel and the club for railway customers in Berlin.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Feldhaus: The technology. A lexicon of prehistoric times, historical times and indigenous peoples. 1914, keyword "Locomotive".
personal data
SURNAME Henschel, Carl Anton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German entrepreneur, Oberbergrat and founder of the Henschel & Son machine factory in Kassel in 1817
DATE OF BIRTH April 23, 1780
PLACE OF BIRTH kassel
DATE OF DEATH May 19, 1861
Place of death kassel