Samuel Owen
Samuel Owen (born May 12, 1774 in Norton in Hales , Shropshire , England , † February 15, 1854 in Stockholm , Sweden ) was a British-Swedish engineer, inventor and entrepreneur. He made significant contributions to the development of the steam engine in Sweden and was also called "the father of the Swedish mechanical industry".
Life
Samuel Owen emigrated to Sweden in 1807 and founded a workshop in Stockholm in 1809 that manufactured various mechanical components for industry.
Owen was married three times; first in England with Ann Spen Toft, then in Sweden in 1817 with Beata Carolina Svedell, who died in 1822. Shortly afterwards he married Johanna Magdalena Elisabeth (1797–1880), also known as "Lisette". She was born Strindberg and an aunt of August Strindberg . In total, Owen had 17 children with his three wives.
Owen made his first trip to Sweden in 1804 to help assemble four steam engines that Sweden had ordered for industrial use. They were built by Fenton, Murray & Wood's in Leeds , for which Owen was working at the time. The first machine was installed in a textile factory in Lidingö outside Stockholm in the autumn of 1804 to replace the horses that had previously driven the factory's machines. After completing this job, Owen first traveled back to England, but was asked again in 1806 for help in setting up another machine. In 1807 he decided to stay in Sweden, and in 1809 he opened his own workshop "Kungsholmens Mekaniska Verkstad" in the Stockholm district of Kungsholmen . A street in Kungsholmen near Stockholm City Hall was named "Samuel Owens gata" after him. Two of the original workshop buildings have been preserved to this day.
Owen also drove the development of steam-powered ships and was the first in Sweden to build a ship with a steam engine. His first ship was called the Amphitrite and was built in 1818 in a shipyard near his workshop; it was operated by a steam engine with 6 HP (4.5 kW ). His new ship caused a sensation for the people in and around Stockholm, but many were also skeptical of the new "fire-and-air machines", which needed a lot of wood for their steam boilers. Owen also experimented with prototypes of propellers . In July 1816 he presented the first propeller-driven steamship Waterwitch . However, it took these first propellers many years before they really came into practical use. At that time, steamships were usually still powered by paddle wheels.
In 1831 Owen was elected a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences .
Owen became one of the most recognized engineers and entrepreneurs in Sweden. In 1843 he got into major financial difficulties. His company was sold in 1844 and Owen lost almost all of his fortune. The government then decided to grant him a lifelong pension because of his significant contributions to the development of Swedish industry. However, Owen continued to work and was employed by a company in Södertälje for several years . However, in 1853 he became seriously ill and died in February 1854 at the age of 79.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Lasse Södergren: Sex härader skulle hålla bro över Strömmens mörka vatten (Swedish) , Norrköpings Tidningar. March 28, 2008. Accessed July 21, 2015.
- ↑ Carl-Henrik Ankarberg: Samuel Owen - 200 årig Pionjär inom svensk verkstadsindustri. In: Kulturarv Stockholm. Retrieved March 13, 2019 (Swedish).
- ↑ Anders Johnson: Samuel Owen. In: Popular Historia. July 1, 2011, accessed March 13, 2019 (Swedish).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Owen, Samuel |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British-Swedish engineer, inventor and entrepreneur |
| DATE OF BIRTH | May 12, 1774 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Norton in Hales , Shropshire , England |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 15, 1854 |
| Place of death | Stockholm , Sweden |