Sigmund Schuckert

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Johann Sigmund Schuckert

Johann Sigmund Schuckert (born October 18, 1846 in Nuremberg ; † September 17, 1895 in Wiesbaden ) was an electrical engineer and founder of the Schuckert & Co. (Schuckertwerke) company.

He was one of the pioneers of industrialization in Nuremberg .

Life / accomplishments

Sigmund Schuckert was born in 1846 as the son of a master builder . In elementary school he made the acquaintance of electricity in laboratory experiments. Sigmund refused to succeed his father because he wanted to become a precision mechanic. With the help of his teacher, he managed to get an apprenticeship as a mechanic with Friedrich Heller , Nuremberg's oldest electrical company. In addition, he was busy with his hobby , the telegraph construction , and self-taught deepened his knowledge of arithmetic, geometry, physics and chemistry.

As a journeyman , Sigmund Schuckert set out on a journey that took him via Munich, Stuttgart, Hanover to Berlin and to the Siemens & Halske company . Everywhere he was careful to get to know the best specialists from the renowned companies in order to expand his specialist knowledge and to be inspired by his own ideas. A stay of several years in America was important for him. Emigrants whom he met in Hamburg awakened Sigmund Schuckert's desire to go to the United States . Sigmund Schuckert learned English while heading the electrical equipment department in Albert Krage's mechanical and optical business . In 1869 he started his journey. From New York he came to New Jersey via Baltimore, Philadelphia and Cincinnati, where he worked in Thomas Alva Edison's telegraph factory. The rude tone in the factory and the inhumane working conditions soon drove him back to New York. In 1873 he returned to Germany.

Sigmund Schuckert - bust on Schuckertplatz in Nuremberg

In 1873 Sigmund Schuckert rented a workshop in Schwabenmühle ⊙ in Nuremberg's Kaiserstraße and initially dealt with the repair of American Singer sewing machines, with which hardly anyone else had experience. The dynamo machines that Siemens had designed in the meantime inspired him and aroused his ambition. In 1874 Schuckert caused a stir with the construction of a dynamo based on the Siemens principle and was granted the trade privilege for it. From 1875 his machines were successfully on the market and in 1876 he received a state subsidy of 50,000 marks from the Bavarian king . In 1878, as a side effect of the king's wishes for illumination, he built the world's first thermal power station in Linderhof Palace . This consisted of 24 generators driven by a steam engine .

The machines produced by Schuckert were also cheaper and more powerful than the competing products of the time. The resulting success led to the expansion of the company. In 1879, on the advice of the businessman Alexander Wacker , who would later become commercial director, he moved to part of the Messthaler's machine factory.

Here were arc lamps produced in large numbers, the quality at the Paris World Exhibition in 1889 great recognition found. As the rented space soon became too narrow again, he built his own large factory in Schloßäckerstraße and thus became an entrepreneur in the true sense of the word. He left the handicraft traditions behind, bought parts and hired employees.

In 1885 he took on Alexander Wacker as a partner and hired engineers, sales specialists and other top specialists with whom he could further expand his production. Schuckert & Co. soon had over 280 employees and an annual turnover of 1.53 million marks. In order to be able to fulfill the large orders, further plots of land were built on Landgrabenstrasse from 1889. The invention of the headlight accelerated the rise. The headlights, a complete product of the Nuremberg industry, were exported all over the world. Complete electrical systems, including trams, were also built in the Schuckert works.

Sigmund Schuckert had to retire from the company in 1892 because of a nervous problem and died in Wiesbaden in 1895. He found his final resting place in the north cemetery in Wiesbaden .

His plant, which was converted into a stock corporation with the name EAG (Elektrizitätsaktiengesellschaft) in 1893, was taken over by Siemens & Halske in 1903 and, together with their heavy current division, spun off into Siemens-Schuckertwerke GmbH; At that time around 2,500 dynamo machines and a corresponding number of arc lamps, electrical measuring, monitoring and control devices were produced annually. In 1966 the merger to form Siemens AG took place .

Works

Schuckert flat ring dynamo, a form of early direct current generator
Schuckert flat ring dynamo in the Technical Museum Vienna
  • In 1876 Schuckert experimented with self-regulating arc lamps in Nuremberg's Kaiserstrasse. A self-constructed generator in the Almosmühle produced the electricity required .
  • In 1878 he installed the first permanently installed electrical lighting in Bavaria in Linderhof Palace .
  • He installed a lighting system in the Moscow Kremlin .
  • In 1882 he built the first continuously operated electric street lighting in Germany with three arc lamps in Nuremberg's Kaiserstraße .
  • In 1886, contrary to the advice of experienced opticians, he succeeded in grinding the first glass parabolic mirror for electric headlights.

social commitment

Sigmund Schuckert implemented social measures for employees and employees that went far beyond what is legally required and also included family members. In 1883 he founded a health and pension fund, paid Christmas bonuses and introduced the ten-hour day. While there was generally strong social tensions in the industrial environment, the company members of the Schuckert company confidently called their employer "Father Schuckert". He opened a consumption establishment to enable employees to shop cheaply, his own factory schools and finally created the “Sigmund Schuckert Foundation” to promote worthy and needy young pupils and students with evangelical beliefs .

He set himself the largest social monument in the foundation of the "Sigmund Schuckert Housing Association". The architectural style became a model for the cooperative system in workers' housing for the German Empire . Schuckert was also a member of the patronage circle of the Morgengesellschaft , in the industrial and cultural association and in the Pegnese Flower Order .

Honors

In Nuremberg (Eibach) there is a high school named after Sigmund Schuckert .

The Mittweida University has a Sigmung-Schuckert-Bau.

literature

Web links

Commons : Johann Sigmund Schuckert  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ David Gugerli: Streams of Speech. For the electrification of Switzerland. 1880-1914. Chronos, Zurich 1996, ISBN 3-905311-91-7 (also: Zurich, university, habilitation paper, 1994/1995).
  2. ↑ http://www.vdi.de/fileadmin/vdi_de/redakteur/bvs/bv_thueringen_daten/Ausbaren_2008/1_2008/geschichte.pdf
  3. ^ A ray of hope not only for Nuremberg: Sigmund Schuckert. Great moment election: Nuremberg electrical engineering pioneer wrote industrial history , Nürnberger Nachrichten online, July 8, 2010
  4. ↑ Root list of the Pegnesian Flower Order, No. 808
  5. ^ Sigmund-Schuckert Gymnasium Nuremberg. Accessed June 14, 2019 (German).
  6. ↑ 150 years of Mittweida University: Sigmund-Schuckert-Bau. Retrieved July 26, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Schuckert, Sigmund
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Schuckert, Johann Sigmund
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German electrical engineer and founder of Schuckertwerke
DATE OF BIRTH October 18, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuremberg
DATE OF DEATH September 17, 1895
Place of death Wiesbaden