Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller

Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller

Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller (* December 24, 1836 in Zurich ; † October 4, 1915 there ) was a Swiss industrialist who u. a. founded the Maschinenfabrik Oerlikon .

Study and impact in business

The son of the Zurich silk manufacturer Johann Rudolf Huber attended schools in Zurich and in French-speaking Switzerland and studied mechanical engineering at the Swiss Federal Polytechnic in Zurich from 1855 . In 1858 he received his degree in engineering and then supplemented his knowledge at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers in Paris. He was also in England for a long time. He was able to acquire further knowledge in what was then the leading industrial country. In 1864 he married Anna Marie Werdmüller.

He had his first employment with the Sulzer brothers in Winterthur , which at the time was owned by Charles Brown Sr. was directed. In Brown, Huber had a professor who was equally excellent in his field of expertise and who also promoted him. Afterwards he was able to gain his knowledge at Escher, Wyss & Cie. expand in Zurich. In 1863 he founded the PE Huber & Co. foundry in Oerlikon with the English engineer MM Jackson . For economic reasons, this company was sold to Daverio, Siewerdt & Giesker in Rorschach in 1867 and liquidated in 1872.

In 1876 the tool and machine factory Oerlikon was reorganized and Huber-Werdmüller was appointed President of the Board of Directors of this company. He pursued the development of the company with determination, added an electrical department in 1884 and put Charles Brown senior. as their head. Brown brought his two sons, Charles and Sidney , two great engineers, into the business. The services of Huber-Werdmüller and Oerlikon became public with the establishment of a route for direct current transmission from Kriegstetten to Solothurn and across the Swiss border at the International Electrotechnical Exhibition in Frankfurt am Main in 1891 , where the three-phase transmission from Lauffen to Frankfurt was presented for the first time Oerlikon had supplied the generators. Later, Huber's son-in-law Dietrich Schindler-Huber took over management of the company.

The development of the electrical department at Oerlikon had another impact on technical progress in Switzerland and Europe. In 1886 , Paul Louis Toussaint Héroult , the discoverer of fused aluminum electrolysis , ordered a dynamo machine from Oerlikon and came to Zurich in 1887 to carry out electrolytic experiments. Huber-Werdmüller, who recognized the importance of aluminum as a material early on , recognized the immense advantages of the Héroult process. Together with the equally far-sighted entrepreneurs Georg Robert Neher , Director of the Swiss Waggon Factory in Neuhausen am Rheinfall , and Gustave Naville , President of Escher, Wyss & Cie. in Zurich, he pushed ahead with his idea of ​​an aluminum factory in Neuhausen.

The Neher family had had the water rights to the Rhine Falls since the early 19th century , which could now be used for power generation since 1889, as well as the industrial infrastructure at this location with their machine factory and the neighboring ironworks. The company Oerlikon, which at that time produced the largest direct current generators in the world, installed such machines for the large-scale production of the electricity that was necessary for the enormous energy requirements of the Héroult process. Escher Wyss & Cie. delivered the turbines. The Schweizerische Metallurgische Gesellschaft was founded with other shareholders in October 1887, from which Aluminum Industrie AG., Neuhausen (AIAG) emerged, which in turn was transferred to Schweizerische Aluminum AG in 1963 .

Schaffhausen thus became the cradle of the aluminum industry in Europe, and Huber-Werdmüller helped drive this development forward, for example as a co-founder of the power transmission works Rheinfelden (today's Energiedienst Holding ) and the construction of the aluminum works there ( Aluminum Rheinfelden ). He found his last (now evacuated) resting place in the Enzenbühl cemetery in Zurich .

Working in public offices

From 1867 onwards, Huber devoted himself in public functions to developing the transport infrastructure in the near and far vicinity of Zurich. Starting from the office of the municipal council in the Zurich suburb of Riesbach , his birthplace, he worked as a construction director in the municipal council for a generous road expansion. He also sponsored the construction of a functional quay on Lake Zurich. As a result of the development of the Seefeld , he had to deal with the problems of railway construction and so became a member of the board of directors of the Swiss Northeast Railway . Huber was significantly involved in the establishment of the Uetlibergbahn , where he campaigned against great opposition to have this line built as an adhesion railway. Huber also made a significant contribution to the development of local rail transport in Zurich and the surrounding area. So he prepared the establishment of a tram association Zurich-Riesbach-Enge, the Zurich tram company, which initially built a Rösslitram . After the city union of 1893, he initiated the establishment of the Zurich electric tram.

Huber-Werdmüller was one of the founders of the Swiss Electrotechnical Association (SEV) in 1889 and was made an honorary member in 1909.

His son, the lawyer, politician and diplomat Max Huber , continued his father's tradition of involvement in business and society.

literature

• Martin Illi: Huber, Peter Emil. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Hans-Rudolf Schmidt:  Emil Huber (-Werdmüller). In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 9, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1972, ISBN 3-428-00190-7 , p. 680 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Olivier Beffort: Aluminum in the period 1880–1905. In: Ludwig von Tetmajer Przerwa: Pioneers / Swiss pioneers of economy and technology. Volume 66, 1995, pp. 112-114.
• Wilhelm Füßl: Oskar von Miller 1855–1934 - A biography. CH Beck, Munich 2005, ISBN 978-3-406-52900-9 .
• Fritz Rieter: Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller, 1836–1915, the founder of the Oerlikon machine factory, key co-founder of the Aluminum-Industrie-Aktien-Gesellschaft and other companies. (= Swiss pioneers in business and technology. Volume 7). Association for Economic History Studies, Zurich 1957.
• Hans Staffelbach: Peter Emil Huber-Werdmüller 1836–1915, Emil Huber-Stockar (1865–1939): father and son. Two images of life as a contribution to the history of Swiss technology. Edited by Max Huber-Escher and Hans Hürlimann-Huber. Schulthess, Zurich 1943.
• Leo Weisz : Studies on the commercial and industrial history of Switzerland. Volume 2, Verlag Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich 1940.
• Leo Weisz, Walther Meier: History of the Aluminum-Industrie-Aktien-Gesellschaft Neuhausen 1888–1938. Volume 1, Aluminum-Industrie-Aktien-Gesellschaft, Chippis 1942.
• AJ PE Huber-Werdmüller. In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung. 65/66 (1915), p. 176ff. (Digitized version)
• One hundred years of the Swiss Industrial Society. In: Schweizerische Bauzeitung. 65/66 (1953), pp. 303-307.