Urban Juergensen
Urban Jürgensen (born August 5, 1776 in Copenhagen ; † May 14, 1830 there ) was a Danish clock and chronometer maker .
Life
Urban Jürgensen was a son of the court watchmaker Jürgen Jürgensen. He attended in Copenhagen Business School , which he left at age 15 to continue to further lessons from his father. At the same time he took private mathematics lessons and learned foreign languages from Professor Woolf, who later became Minister of State.
When he was 20, his father sent him to Switzerland for further training , for 18 months in Neuchâtel and for 6 months in Geneva . In 1797 Urban Jürgensen went to Le Locle , where he worked for Jacques-Frédéric Houriet . From Le Locle he traveled to Paris .
In Paris, as a result of recommendations, the houses of Abraham Louis Breguet and Ferdinand Berthoud were open to him. During this time he received 800 thalers a year from the Danish government as a scholarship. He later went to John Arnold in London to perfect his knowledge of building marine chronometers. From London he returned to Switzerland via Paris, where he married one of the daughters of Jacques-Frédéric Houriet. In 1800 his eldest son Louis Urban was born. In the same year he invented the bimetal thermometer, which allowed temperature measurement with the greatest precision.
In 1801 he returned to Copenhagen and founded a company with Etienne Magnin to manufacture marine chronometers. Magnin went to Saint Petersburg a short time later .
His son Jules Frederik was born on July 27, 1808 .
Urban Jürgensen was the first watchmaker to become a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences . The Danish King Friedrich VI. appointed him royal watchmaker in 1815 and, with the title of royal sea watchmaker , granted him the exclusive right to supply the Admiralty with chronometers.
After Urban's death, his sons Louis Urban and Jules Frederik took over his inheritance.
Urban Jürgensen was the older brother of the adventurer Jørgen Jørgensen . Another brother was Fritz Juergensen, also a watchmaker, who was given royal privilege after Urban’s death.
Services
The knowledge gained from the study trips was consequently brought into the production of chronometers for navigation and astronomy. After his return to Denmark, at the request of the Danish government, he began to manufacture these instruments, which are so infinitely important for seafaring.
Urban Jürgensen introduced numerous innovations, such as a special chronometer escapement with 2 escapement wheels (double-wheel chronometer escapement). He was the first to make cylindrical gears out of steel. Between 1811 and 1830, around 700 pocket watches , 45 marine chronometers and 6 precision pendulum clocks were made in his workshops.
Fonts
- Principes généraux de l'exacte mesure du temps par les horloges ... Published by N. Möller, 1805
- The higher art of watchmaking: rules for the exact measurement of time by clocks, or instructions for the manufacture of astronomical, nautical and other precise clocks: in addition to the description of the art of piercing and grinding the precious stones for use in the art of watchmaking ; Translation Published by Ed., Copenhagen 1842 Digitized
Urban Jürgensen's book Principes généraux de l'exacte mesure du temps par les horloges ... had the Danish government printed at its expense.
literature
- Hans von Bertele: Marine and pocket chronometers: history, development, effects . Callwey, Munich 1981, ISBN 3-7667-0512-1 , pp. 139f
- John MR Knudsen: "The Jürgensen Dynasty: Four centuries of watchmaking in two countries". 2013. ISBN 978-878703688-7 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Urban Jürgensen in the catalog of the German National Library
- Works by and about Urban Jürgensen in the German Digital Library
- Search for Urban Jürgensen in the SPK digital portal of the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation
- watch-wiki: Urban Jürgensen
- Urban Jürgensen: history
- Watchmaker Balster: The higher art of watchmaking for download
Individual evidence
- ↑ Conrad Dietzschold: The Cornelius Nepos the clockmaker . Krems 1910. p. 47f
- ^ Etienne Magnin: watch-wiki
- ↑ Urban Jürgensen & Sønner Uhrsachen ( Memento of the original dated May 31, 2009 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.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Juergensen, Urban |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Danish watchmaker |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 5, 1776 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Copenhagen |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 14, 1830 |
| Place of death | Copenhagen |