Wilhelm Christoph Bochkoltz

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Wilhelm Christoph Bochkoltz (born January 23, 1810 in Trier ; † March 19, 1877 there ) was a German chemical engineer and smelter in Dillingen (Saar) and Geislautern . After retirement he worked as a private tutor for Botany .

Life and effect

Wilhelm Christoph Bochkoltz was born in Trier in 1810 as the son and first child of the notary Friedrich Damian Joseph Bochkoltz (1785–1852) and the teacher Thekla Josepha Bochkoltz. Breuning, who founded a private school for girls in Trier in 1824. The mother of the German theologian Oswald von Nell-Breuning came from her family . Bochkoltz had two sisters: Antonie Emilie, called Antonietta (* 1812), and Anna Juliane, called Nanny (* 1815). The latter made a career under the name Anna Bochkoltz-Falconi as one of the most important opera singers of the 19th century, especially in Italy and France . Johann Friedrich Joseph Bochkoltz, an uncle of Bochkoltz, was on friendly terms with the family of Karl Marx .

After graduating from high school, which he took in Trier, Bochkoltz studied chemical engineering in Metz and Paris . Towards the end of his studies (around 1833) he invented a precision balance based on the principle of substitution weighing. Probably his first professional assignment was to install a steam engine in a coal mine near Trier in 1835. Around 1840 he received a position as a steelworks inspector at the ironworks in Dillingen (Saar) as a civil engineer (French: Ingénieur civil ) . At this time he began to collect natural objects, mainly fossils and minerals from the Saarland Permian and Carboniferous , which he handed over to the Society for Useful Research in Trier, of which he was a corresponding member since that time. Some of his finds are now in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris. Around 1853, Bochkoltz became director of the ironworks in Geislautern , one of the oldest ironworks in the Saar district (founded in 1585), approx. 1.5 km from today's world cultural heritage site, the Völklinger Hütte . In 1854 he moved to Saarbrücken .

According to his own statements, Bochkoltz began his botanical studies in the summer of 1856; In the Heidelberg Herbarium, however, evidence could be found that had already been collected in 1855, most likely by Bochkoltz himself. Since he was unmarried and childless, the assets accumulated up to 1858 were sufficient for him to retire from professional life at the age of 48 and henceforth entirely could dedicate to botany. In 1863 Bochkoltz became a member of the Botanical Exchange Association in Vienna and in 1864 of the Botanical Association for the Province of Brandenburg and the neighboring countries .

By his death in 1877 he compiled a herbarium that contained around 10,000 items. He collected around half of it himself, mainly in the Trier region , the Eifel , the Saar region, the Nahe valley and the Rhine and Electoral Palatinate , the other half he received from numerous other collectors of his time, including the founder of the Berlin-Dahlem Botanical Garden Adolf Engler or Friedrich Wilhelm Noë , founder of the Constantinople Botanical Garden ( Istanbul ). Most of his herbarium (around 8,000 specimens) had been lost since his death and was rediscovered in the herbarium of the University of Heidelberg at the end of 2016 ; another 1,500 specimens went to other collectors via the exchange association in Vienna. Several hundred documents are now kept in the Herbarium Senckenbergianum Frankfurt . There are individual specimens in around 18 other herbaria, including Vienna , Paris , London , Washington and Berlin . Bochkoltz published several varieties of plants. His herbarium has been processed since 2017 as part of the “Virtual Herbarium Bochkoltz” project.

Appreciation

In 1878 Bochkoltz was listed as a botanist [...] by the Sociétés de Botanique du Monde .

literature

  • Alfred Blaufuss & Hans Reichert (1992): The flora of the Nahe area and Rheinhessen. 1st edition. Bad Dürkheim (Pollichia), short biography Bochkoltz pp. 49–50. ISBN 3-925754-25-3 .
  • Rainer Döring & Stefan Dressler (2017): Index Collectorum Herbarii Senckenbergiani (FR), updated: May 03, 2017. Short biography Bochkoltz p. 17, accessed on November 7, 2017.
  • Ralf Hand, Hans Reichert, Walter Bujnoch, Ulrich Kottke & Steffen Caspari (2016): Flora of the Trier region (2 volumes). 1st edition Trier (Weyand), short biography Bochkoltz pp. 67–68. ISBN 978-3-942429-29-0 .
  • Michel Hoff & Françoise Deluzarche (2017): Index Collectorum Herbarii Strasburgiensis (STR). 5 juillet 2017. Version 2017_02. Short biography Bochkoltz p. 37, accessed on November 7, 2017.
  • Hans Reichert (1998): «The exploration of the flora of Trier and the surrounding area by leisure botanists from the 16th century to the present day. Part One.". In: Neues Trierisches Jahrbuch 38, pp. 61–92, therein Bochkoltz, pp. 82–84. ISSN 0077-7765.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Hans Reichert (2017): "Bochkoltz, Wilhelm Christoph - 1810–1877, engineer - biography." Unpublished manuscript.
  2. ↑ a b c Christof Nikolaus Schröder: Biography WC Bochkoltz , accessed on November 7, 2017.
  3. ↑ toilet Bochkoltz: About Carex Oederi Ehrh. and its varieties. In: Negotiations of the Botanical Association for the Province of Brandenburg and the neighboring countries. Vol. 3–4 (1861–1862), p. 283.
  4. ↑ Christof Nikolaus Schröder: Herbarium WC Bochkoltz , accessed on November 7, 2017.
  5. ↑ Web page of the project: «Virtual Herbarium Bochkoltz» , accessed on November 7, 2017.
  6. ^ "Fédération des sociétés d'horticulture de Belgique: Correspondance botanique. List of the jardins, the chaires, the musées, the revues et des sociétés de botanique du monde. Sixème édition. " In: Bulletin de la Fédération des sociétés d'horticulture de Belgique. Liège September 1878. p. 14th
personal data
SURNAME Bochkoltz, Wilhelm Christoph
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bockholtz, Wilhelm Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German chemical engineer and botanist
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1810
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH March 19, 1877
Place of death trier