Ulrich (bell foundry family)

Ulrich is the name of a family of bell founders who initially worked in Laucha and from 1759 in Apolda .

Bell foundry in Apolda, Untere Bahnhofstrasse

history

1732: The beginnings in Laucha and the establishment of the "Gebrüder Ulrich" company

Johann Georg Ulrich the Elder founded the company around 1732 in Laucha. He had three sons who gradually worked in the company: Johann Georg Ulrich (1737–1812), Johann Gottlob Ulrich (1740–1825) and Johann Christoph Ulrich (1744–1812) and from 1750, 1763 and 1767 became partners. They now operated as the Ulrich brothers.

In 1759 Johann Georg and later his brother Johann Gottlob also took over a bell foundry founded by Johann Christoph Rose in Apolda in 1722 . In the end, however, there were disputes with Johann Christoph Ulrich in which, among others, Johann Wolfgang Goethe was consulted as a councilor.

From 1863 the parent company was led by the brothers Johann Moritz Heinrich Ulrich (born June 24, 1821 in Apolda; † January 22, 1875 ibid) and Franz Wilhelm August Ulrich (born October 1, 1825 in Apolda; † September 13, 1897 ibid) . Jakob Friedrich Johann Heinrich Ulrich (July 1, 1850 in Apolda; † May 25, 1903 there) became the owner in 1884. In 1902 the Ulrich brothers had to file for bankruptcy because of the qualitatively superior competition .

1826: The establishment of the company "Carl Friedrich Gottfried Ulrich"

Carl Friedrich Gottfried Ulrich (born March 22, 1801 in Apolda; † December 22, 1848 there) founded another rival bell foundry in Apolda in 1826 under his name. In 1849 he was followed by his only 18-year-old son Ernst Friedrich Christian Ulrich (1830 in Apolda; † September 2, 1861 ibid). By this time, both had cast 768 church bells.

At the beginning of 1862, the brother Carl Richard Emil Ulrich took over the company located in the lower Bahnhofstrasse. In 1865 he married the sister of Franz Friedrich August Schilling . From 1868, Franz Schilling learned the bell foundry trade, worked as a journeyman in his brother-in-law's company after completing his apprenticeship, became a partner in 1877 and continued to develop the company very successfully from 1911 under the name "Franz Schilling Sons". Ulrich left the business at the end of 1878. Between 1862 and 1877 he cast a total of 492 church bells.

1910: Re-establishment by Heinrich Karl Ulrich, change as AG, expropriation and closure

The Petersglocke made for Cologne Cathedral after completion

→ Main article : Heinrich Ulrich (bell founder)

In 1910 Heinrich Karl Ulrich (born March 25, 1876 in Apolda; † February 12, 1924 in Weimar) re-founded the company. Under his leadership, the largest bell for Cologne Cathedral , the Petersglocke ( Pitter ceiling ), was created, as well as the largest free-swinging bell in the world on the straight yoke. He did not see her ring in Cologne. His tomb with bell is in the historical cemetery in Weimar .

After the First World War, in which many bells were melted down for armaments purposes , branch plants were established. In 1918 there was a cooperation with the JF Weule foundry in Bockenem . She made chilled iron bells. In 1921 another plant was opened in Kempten at the Ostbahnhof . After Heinrich Karl Ulrich's death in 1924, the foundry was converted into a stock corporation . After that, business went from bad to worse. In 1930 the company withdrew from the Kempten plant and leased the plant to a bell founder from Kempten, who used it for bell casting until the 1950s.

The foundry in Apolda was expropriated by the GDR in 1949 and later abandoned.

A bell as a tomb for Heinrich Ulrich on the historical cemetery in Weimar with the inscription on the reverse: “The master of the big bell in Cologne Cathedral”.

Works (selection)

Ulrich brothers

• Großenstein , church: 1235 mm, 1060 kg, es' + 4, 1760
• Ohrdruf , Michaeliskirche , triple bells h ° dis 'fis', 1822
• Weimar , Herz-Jesu-Kirche 1225 mm, 1140 kg, dis', 1891

Carl Friedrich Ulrich

• Leopoldshall : three bells for the St. Johannis Church (Leopoldshall) 1876

Heinrich Karl Ulrich

• Schmölln (Thuringia), Catholic Church "St. Maria immaculata", three bells made of bronze (e ¹ -g ¹ -h ¹ ), April 1914
• Cologne , Cathedral : Petersglocke (c ⁰ , Ø 3220 mm, 24,000 kg), 1922

Ulrich & Weule

• Zirchow (Pomerania) : three steel bells (a ⁰ , Ø 1100 mm, cis ¹ , Ø 900 mm, e ¹ , Ø 770 mm), 1920
• Barntrup , Evangelical Church Barntrup : steel bell, 1921
• Greußenheim , St. Bartholomäuskirche, four steel bells, es-fgb, 1921

See also

• Bell scratch drawing
• List of bells in the Weimarer Land district and in Weimar

literature

• Margarete Schilling (ed.): Bell ribs of the bell foundry family Ulrich from Laucha / Unstrut - facsimile. 2 volumes, A3 format, Apolda 2018, without ISBN
• Rainer Thümmel; Roy Kress; Christian Schumann: When the bells went into the field ... - The destruction of Saxon bronze bells in the First World War. Evangelische Verlagsanstalt Leipzig 2017, ISBN 978-3-374-05203-5 - There are on page 220 in the "Directory of founders destroyed bells" for the area of ​​today's Evangelical Lutheran Church of Saxony under the name Schilling (under No. 67 and 68) 68 and 29 destroyed bells are mentioned (total: 97), for the name Ulrich (under nos. 74 and 75) 25 and 58 destroyed bells are mentioned (total: 83). From 1919 onwards, Franz Schilling Söhne cast a total of 486 bronze bells for church clients from Saxony until 1939 and the Ulrich brothers cast a total of 159 bronze bells until 1937 (source: ibid., Pp. 153 and 158).
• Manfred Hofmann: The Apoldaer bell foundry - old and new secrets. Weimar 2014, ISBN 978-3-86160-415-0 ( table of contents ).
• Margarete Schilling: Art, ore and sound. The works of the Ulrich / Schilling bell foundry families from the 17th century to the present day. Berlin, 1992.
• Kurt Hübner: The bell casting in Apolda. Weimar City Museum, Weimar 1980, DNB 890909725 .
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia , Regional Church Council (ed.) / Fritz Schilling: Our bells - Thuringian bell book. Gift of the Thuringian Church to the Thuringian people. Dedicated to the "Thuringian master bell founder Dipl.-Ing. Franz Schilling in Apolda in gratitude for his work for the good of our communities ” . Jena 1954, DNB 454355548 .

Web links

Commons : Bell foundry (Apolda)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Bell Museum Apolda: On the cultural history of the bell from its beginnings to the present , archive link, accessed on March 8, 2020
• History of the bell foundry in Apolda , accessed on March 8, 2020

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Ernst Fauer: Eisenhart cast bells from the bell foundry Schilling & Lattermann . In: Apoldaer Heimat 2005. Contributions to the nature and local history of the city of Apolda and its surroundings . Apolda, 2005. pp. 28-32
2. ↑ Christian Ilg: Company stories of companies that heralded the beginning of industrialization and contributed to its shine. In: From Kempten's past days. III. Self-published, Kempten 2006, p. 159.
3. ↑ Ernst Laue: Leopoldshall as it used to be. From the location of a salt works to the Staßfurt district. Wartberg Verlag 2001, p. 26
4. ↑ content text
5. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 14, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.