Philipp Gosset

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Philipp Gosset, photo Emil Vollenweider, 1909 (Bern Burger Library)

Philipp Charles Gosset (born March 11, 1838 in Bern , † March 24, 1911 in Wabern (municipality of Köniz )) was a British-Swiss engineer , urban planner , alpinist , topographer , glaciologist and landscape gardener .

biography

Philip's father, Charles Robin Gosset, a pensioner from Saint Helier on the Channel Island of Jersey , owned a classicist country house in Wabern , the "Schönau", where Philip Charles grew up.

With a view to a technical profession, he attended a pre-school in Geneva before enrolling at the École centrale des arts et manufactures in Paris in 1857 . Here he specialized as an engineer-designer and made friends with Heinrich von Geymüller . and Louis Boissonnet . Returning home, Gosset married Henriette von Linden (1840–1903) in 1864 and Alice Fehr in 1905, a young widow who gave him their son Hector.

engineer

From 1860 to 1861 Gosset was employed in the building department of the city of Bern , from 1862 to 1864 he worked together with Boissonnet in the canton of Valais for the Compagnie de la Ligne d'Italie railway company , where he was involved in surveying the Sierre - Brig line . During their stay in Valais, Boissonnet and Gosset had an avalanche accident; Boissonnet is killed.

By 1865, Gosset had drafted numerous plans for a large Bern urban development project for Kirchenfeld on a private contract . This is separated from the old town by the moat of the Aare , which is now crossed by an imposing bridge . Gosset's client, a banker, went bankrupt. The plans remain unfulfilled, but influenced the plans adopted in 1881.

His English roots, his interest in the topography and an insatiable curiosity may be some of the reasons that drove the young Gosset to mountaineering from the age of 18 . His first attested ascent in 1856 was that of Altels in the Balmhorn group . Further ascents follow in the canton of Valais, where he worked. Together with his friend Boissonnet, Gosset tried to climb the Haut de Cry in winter , where Boissonnet and the guide Johann Josef Benet were killed in an avalanche. In memory of the victims, Gosset, a member of the London Alpine Club since 1859 and of the Swiss Alpine Club (SAC) since 1863 , published an article about the tragic accident in the Alpine Journal . Gosset made himself known primarily for his measurements of the Rhone Glacier , which made it possible for the first time to scientifically determine the flow velocity of the ice masses. Other of his investigations were the Schafloch , an ice cave near Sigriswil , and the Märjelensee on the edge of the Aletsch Glacier .

A significant part of Gosset's activity took place in the Federal Topographical Bureau (1867–1879), where he worked on a new topographical map of Switzerland, the Siegfried map . The SAC, which called for a topographical atlas of Switzerland on a scale of 1: 25,000, was a promoter of the new addition, which should replace the Dufour map . In this context, Gosset measured the depth profile of Lake Geneva at the level of Lausanne in 1873 , then that of Lake Murten and in 1874 that of Lake Oeschinen . This work was honored in 1877 with the honorary membership of the Société vaudoise des sciences naturelles .

As a surveyor, Gosset worked particularly on the Rhone glacier. Reports, sketches, maps and detailed plans testify to his overall view and an actual scientific project. Again, it was the SAC, through the mediation of Eugène Rambert, that promoted such research with a view to a deeper knowledge of the Alpine landscape. Gosset laid down a surveying frame anchored in the rock and had four rows of precisely aligned stones set in order to observe the flow of the glacier based on their movements. His manuscript Études du Glacier du Rhône was awarded a prize at the Congrès international des sciences naturelles in Paris in 1875 , and also in 1880 by the Swiss Society for Natural Research . Exceeding the credit limits and personal disagreements led Gosset into a conflict with the SAC and the Federal Topographical Bureau and in 1879 to his departure from the project. His results were published by others, first in 1885, then in 1915 with a full summary of the research.

Between 1864 and 1866 a larger tree nursery was built on Gosset's property in Wabern . The name Canadian Nursery is a sign of respect to Gosset's father, a gardening lover who was one of the first to introduce the thuja occidentalis from Canada to Switzerland . Philipp remained loyal to gardens throughout his life. He took several landscapers into his service, including Adolf Vivell . He won important commissions in Bern, for example for the planting of the courtyard of the Federal Palace , where he indulged his interest in the “Swiss Garden”. From 1893 to 1897 he also managed the planting of the front garden of the Bern Historical Museum , which was initially intended as the Swiss National Museum.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On this versatile personality see Georg Germann (ed.), Das Multitalent Philipp Gosset (1838–1911). Alpinist, glacier researcher, engineer, landscape gardener, topographer , Baden 2014.
  2. ↑ Paul Bissegger, “Geymüller, Heinrich von”, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz , Vol. 5, Basel 2006, p. 389.
  3. ↑ Louis Polla, “Boissonnet, Louis”, in Historisches Lexikon der Schweiz , Vol. 2, Basel 2003, p. 545.
  4. ↑ The Alpine Journal 1, 1863-1864, pp. 288-294.
  5. ^ Albert Heim, Handbuch der Gletscherkunde , Stuttgart 1885.
  6. ↑ Surveys on the Rhone Glacier 1874–1915 (New Memoranda of the Swiss Natural Research Society, 52), Basel 1916.
personal data
SURNAME Gosset, Philipp
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gosset, Philipp Charles (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British-Swiss engineer, alpinist, glaciologist and landscape gardener
DATE OF BIRTH March 11, 1838
PLACE OF BIRTH Bern , Switzerland
DATE OF DEATH March 24, 1911
Place of death Wabern near Bern