Mathildenhütte
The Mathilde hut , between Bad Harzburg districts Schlewecke and Westerode located, was a iron for smelting of from the pits Friederike and Hansa sunk oolitic iron ore deposits .
geography
The hut was located east of the Braunschweig – Bad Harzburg railway line and the Radau in a valley between the hamlets of Schlewecke and Westerode.
history
Foundation and name of the "Mathildenhütte"
Decisive for the construction plans were the discovery of minable iron stone deposits by Wilhelm Castendyck between 1859 and 1861 in the Harzburg office . In the course of the increasingly lucrative iron ore smelting in the advancing industrialization, especially against the United Kingdom , the consul Hermann Henrich Meier decided in May 1860 to finance the project. To this end, he won Castendyck as smelter, who negotiated with the authorities of the Duchy of Braunschweig and on September 24, 1860 granted the concession to build an ironworks.
The hut was inaugurated on August 15, 1861. On the same day Meier held his wedding day with his wife in Harzburg, so that in the morning hours both of them drove to the hut in a carriage and celebrated there with invited guests. When Castendyck Meier asked what name the hut should have, he baptized it in the name of his wife Mathilde Meier; this also lit the fire of the first furnace.
An old inscription read:
“The hut was built in 1860 and 1861 with the willing support of the ducal government of Braunschweig and under the direction of the hut director Wilhelm Castendyck from the consul HH Meier from Bremen.
When the building was completed, he named his wife, Frau Mathilde, in honor of the hut on August 15, 1861, their eighteen-year wedding anniversary: Mathildenhütte.
God bless and protect you! "
Smelting operation
1861–1874: Upswing and founder crash
The iron ore was mainly supplied by the iron ore mines Hansa in Harlingerode (or later Göttingerode after it was founded in 1935) and Friederike in Bündheim , of which the latter proved to be the more productive. After supply difficulties in the first years of operation, a strong upswing was achieved from 1868: The production of pig iron quadrupled between 1867 and 1869. Meier decided in July 1872 to sell the smelter together with the Friederike mine to a group of owners for 500,000 thalers - ten times as much of the investment capital; the group of owners later founded the Harzer Union corporation in Hanover .
However, the founder crash in 1873 put an abrupt end to the initial growth. The Mathildenhütte, which ran with two blast furnaces to the end, had to be completely shut down in 1874 after only 13 years, including the Friederike mine, due to the bankruptcy of the Harzer Union .
Continued operation after 1880
The Mathildenhütte fell to the Waaren-Creditanstalt Hamburg in 1878/79 ; She sold this on in 1880 to the consortium Grillo & Kappel , who founded the Mathildenhütte trade union and resumed operations after six years. However, the smelting operation now suffered from the difficulty of melting the ores from the Hansa and Friederike mines, which required large amounts of coke and could not operate profitably despite the improved economic environment. For example, it could not keep up with the competition from Lorraine iron, which was particularly noticeable in 1897 through the direct attempt to market the cheaper iron in the sales area.
The further operation in the 20th century was very changeable; the actual hut is no longer recognizable as such.
settlement
A small settlement that has developed from a former workers' colony is named after the hut. There is a street called Mathildenhütte , which bears the name of the former company.
literature
- Alfred Breustedt: The Mathildenhütte in the Harzburg office , 2009.
- Friedrich Hardegen: HH Meyer - the founder of North German Lloyd: Life picture of a Bremen merchant 1809–1898 . 2014, ISBN 3-95427-358-6 , pp. 153 f . ( limited preview in Google Book search).
- Stefan Brüdermann: From the beginning of the 19th century to the end of the First World War . In: History of Lower Saxony . tape 4 . Wallstein-Verlag, 2016, ISBN 3-8353-2803-4 , p. 548 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
Bad Harzburg (city center) (with Ottenhai ) | Bettingerode (with Altfelder Krug and Gut Radau ) | Bündheim | Eckertal | Göttingerode | Harlingerode (with Steinfeld ) | Schlewecke (with Radauanger ) | Westerode (with Mathildenhütte and spring settlement )
Coordinates: 51 ° 54 ′ 9.5 ″ N , 10 ° 32 ′ 42.9 ″ E