Wilkens & Sons
The silver goods factory MH Wilkens & Söhne is also a historically important German manufacturer and distributor of silver and silver-plated cutlery and body items (table-top devices).
history
founding
The goldsmith Martin Heinrich Wilkens (1782–1869) set up a workshop in Bremen's old town in 1810. In the economically difficult early years, he initially produced and repaired gold and silver goods by hand, until after the entry of his eldest sons, the skilled mechanic Diedrich and the capable engraver Carl, the company developed into a mint from around 1830 , which soon began to produce pressed semi-finished goods was able to sell whole silverware beyond Bremen. At the same time, the production of medals began and between 1840 and 1861 he minted a total of 1.7 million coins on behalf of the state of Bremen.
Since 1851 Wilkens sent the world exhibitions . Since 1857 at the latest, a steam engine has been used to drive the presses and press benches .
Developments from 1859 to 1969
In 1859, the three brothers Wilkens moved the cutlery factory in what was then the Kingdom of Hanover belonging Hemelingen , ten years later, the entire production. Only the shop remained in Bremen. So you could produce cheaply within the limits of the German Customs Union , as only a quarter of the finished goods were sold in Bremen itself. The enormous increase in production meant that sales were no longer made directly to end consumers.
The order books available from 1866 therefore list the names of the major jewelers and silver dealers from almost all major German cities as customers. The end sellers were keen to remove the stigma of series production from the silverware. They therefore often asked for the manufacturer to be waived. The Bremen origin of some objects can only be recognized today by the inconspicuous factory mark next to the seller's name, by the order number or by a comparison with images in the sample books.
At that time, the “silver mint” was the most important company in Hemelingen, and the owner Diedrich Wilkens was the largest taxpayer in the old district of Achim . Before the First World War, the company belonged to Koch & Bergfeld in Bremen and Peter Bruckmann & Sons in Heilbronn as one of the three large German silver goods factories. In Hemelingen, the church and social institutions were built on the initiative and with financial support of the Wilkens family.
Table utensils and cutlery from Wilkens' production are still in demand in the antique trade today; The Focke Museum in Bremen has the most extensive collection .
In 1917 the great-grandson of the founder Martin-Heinrich Wilkens (1888–1966) took over the company. In 1921 he acquired the majority of shares in Bremer Silberwarenfabrik AG (BSF) . The majority of shares in the Hanseatische Silberwarenfabrik , which had been founded by the Brinckmann and Lange families around 1923 and existed until around 1962, soon fell to Wilkens. Martin Heinrich Wilkens managed the company until after the Second World War.
Younger corporate development
In 1969 MH Wilkens & Söhne AG merged with Bremer Silberwarenfabrik AG (BSF) to form Wilkens Bremer Silberwaren AG .
The Wilkens Bremer silverware AG in Bremen district of Hemelingen existed until 1995 independently and belongs since its brands Wilkens and BSF for Zwilling JA Henckels . In 2005 the logistics and sales divisions were merged in Solingen , but the production of silver goods remained in Bremen. The abbreviation BSF is currently used for a product line made of stainless steel by Zwilling AG.
In 2006, the factory in Bremen was taken over by the two managing directors, who agreed with the Zwilling company on a license to produce silver goods of the Wilkens brand. Wilkens & Söhne GmbH is again an independent Bremen company and owns the building in Hemelingen. Since 2008, stainless steel cutlery of the Wilkens brand has also been marketed and distributed from Hemelingen again.
The park and the Wilkens villa on Hemelinger Bahnhofsstraße / Diedrich-Wilkens-Straße became the property of the State of Bremen. The Hemelingen community center is currently housed in the old villa , and the academy of the Institute for Vocational and Social Pedagogy (ibs) has been located in the new villa since 2011. Parts of the property were used for the construction of the Hemelinger Tunnel , which connects the Daimler plant in Bremen with the Autobahn 1 - the remise to the villa was also located here .
The Wilkens family grave is located in the Hemelingen cemetery. There is also a Wilkens tomb in the Riensberg cemetery on the lake opposite the former crematorium (today Columbarium) and the Rutenberg mausoleum . It houses the pump for the water supply to the cemetery.
In addition to the factory shop in Hemelingen, Wilkens & Söhne opened their first shop in the Bremen Waterfront in autumn 2008 . In 2010 it was closed again.
Style development
While the strict forms of Empire and Biedermeier prevailed in the early years, more richly decorated forms have come to the fore since around 1840. In the middle of the 19th century, this style of ornament, which was later called the "second Rococo", increased. The changes in the history of style and the new achievements in production technology met each other in those years: thanks to machine stamping and series production, excessive decoration was no longer a decisive cost factor. In addition, the new techniques of pressing and embossing allowed extremely low wall thicknesses and thus a lower price. After the London World's Fair of 1851, a naturalism spread in the arts and crafts , which produced centerpieces and candlesticks in the shape of oaks, palms and grapevines, goblets in the shape of flowers and jugs with gnarled branch handles. Wilkens followed this direction more consistently and for longer than his competitors, although the naturalistic genre soon began to be aesthetically criticized. State-sponsored companies such as the educational institute installed at the Bremen Trade Museum supported the creative efforts of companies and traders with intensive artistic and stylistic training. The division of labor production method led to the role of draftsmen in the development process. In the increasingly efficient studios, the need for young draftsmen was even trained. In addition, well-known designers were occasionally called in around 1900 for individual orders. Heinrich Vogeler supplied some cutlery designs. His name, already known at the time, was also featured in advertising. Peter Behrens contributed designs for jewelry, and some cutlery also came from Albin Müller . However, these role models have not yet been able to bring about a lasting change in the company's range of styles and in the taste of the public, customers, clients and buyers of genuine silver goods. For decades, a wide range of consumer tastes held on to the decorative taste in furnishings of the second half of the 19th century. In those patterns that are more oriented towards Art Nouveau, an increasing hardening of the originally soft flowing ornaments has been observed since around 1905. The twenties brought new ideas in terms of form, but radical functionality, as represented by the Bauhaus, was hardly an option for a series product around 1925/30. Another typical feature of the time between the world wars is the martelé, the surface created by the hammer, on which the traces of impact were not removed but left as a decorative element. In addition to its decorative function, this processing mode obviously plays a role as a sign of the “handcrafted”. It was not until after the Second World War that a formal language at the level of international design was opened up more consistently.
Brands
From around 1810 to around 1830, Wilkens was used in italics , and later the name in capital letters was used as a maker's mark next to the “Bremen Key” hallmark . Between 1874 and 1886 the half-moon mark was used as a symbol for 750 silver. The screw press has been a registered trademark of the company since 1886 and is still used today as a factory mark .
Order numbers
In addition to the factory mark and imperial stamp , Wilkens often also punched order numbers. They were assigned in chronological order and so the following table allows older parts of the company to be dated to the exact year. From around 1927, order numbers were only stamped for special one-off productions (a four-digit model number was used instead for series goods). Cutlery had its own, unstamped model number sequence. In the table, the last number assigned in the order books of the respective year is noted.
| In the year | was the last order number |
|---|---|
| 1866 | 8214 |
| 1867 | 10416 |
| 1868 | 12569 |
| 1869 | 14654 |
| 1870 | 16622 |
| 1871 | 18832 |
| 1872 | 21688 |
| 1873 | 24477 |
| 1874 | 27184 |
| 1875 | 29983 |
| 1876 | 32169 |
| 1877 | 34599 |
| 1878 | 36846 |
| 1879 | 39000 |
| 1880 | 42131 |
| 1881 | 45223 |
| 1882 | 48124 |
| In the year | was the last order number |
|---|---|
| 1883 | 51303 |
| 1884 | 54478 |
| 1885 | 51722 |
| 1886 | 61542 |
| 1887 | 66142 |
| 1888 | 71036 |
| 1889 | 76180 |
| 1890 | 80712 |
| 1891 | 85322 |
| 1892 | 89797 |
| 1893 | 94541 |
| 1894 | 99839 |
| 1895 | 105448 |
| 1896 | 110971 |
| 1897 | 116777 |
| 1898 | 122892 |
| 1899 | 129108 |
| In the year | was the last order number |
|---|---|
| 1900 | 134965 |
| 1901 | 140201 |
| 1902 | 145494 |
| 1903 | 150922 |
| 1904 | 157518 |
| 1905 | 163904 |
| 1906 | 170297 |
| 1907 | 176566 |
| 1908 | 183247 |
| 1909 | 190546 |
| 1910 | 198880 |
| 1911 | 208270 |
| 1912 | 218675 |
| 1913 | 229116 |
| 1914 | 237448 |
| 1915 | 240599 |
| 1916 | 247516 |
| In the year | was the last order number |
|---|---|
| 1917 | 251821 |
| 1918 | 255975 |
| 1919 | 265605 |
| 1920 | 274623 |
| 1921 | 285986 |
| 1922 | 294230 |
| 1923 | 301828 |
| 1924 | 312120 |
| 1925 | 323579 |
| 1926 | 335844 |
| 1927 | 356211 |
| 1928 | 358924 |
| 1929 | 361773 |
| 1930 | 362850 |
| 1945 | 364921 |
| 1960 | 366375 |
| 1970 | 366746 |
literature
- MH Wilkens & Sons (Ed.): 1810-1910. Brief history of the establishment of the business and its development over the 100 years of its existence. (Festschrift) Freese printing works, Bremen 1910.
- Hermann Entholt : Wilkens, Martin Heinrich. In: Historische Gesellschaft des Künstlerverein (Hrsg.): Bremen biography of the nineteenth century . Gustav Winter, Bremen 1912.
- Friedrich Rauer: Hemelinen's streets and their history. 1999.
- Alfred Löhr: Bremen silver. From the beginning to Art Nouveau. (Handbook and catalog for the special exhibition from December 6, 1981 to April 18, 1982 in the Bremen State Museum / Focke Museum ) Bremen 1981.
- Lena Fellmann: 200 years of Wilkens Bremen silver goods. On the history of a Bremen family business. In: Bremisches Jahrbuch , Volume 89 (2010), pp. 167–229.
Other sources
- Helmut Wilkens: Oral report on the occasion of the general meeting on September 6, 1985 of Wilkens Bremer Silberwaren AG, Bremen . ( Hectography )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Even after the founding of the Empire in 1871, Bremen and Hamburg and their ports initially remained outside the Imperial German customs area.
- ↑ Bremen silver. From the beginning to Art Nouveau. Catalog of the Focke Museum, Bremen 1981.
- ↑ The BSF was established in 1905 through the takeover of the Bremen silver goods factory Hüneke & Co. GmbH in 1901. Its corpus department was closed in 1915. The main focus was the production of silver-plated cutlery. In 1938 and again in 1955 500 people were employed. The production facility was located on the property at Sebaldsbrücker Heerstraße 176 until the 1970s. The BSF brand was continued.
- ↑ Wilkens brand again under one roof (PDF; 3.5 MB) In: Wirtschaft in Bremen 12/2007, p. 7 . Bremen Chamber of Commerce. Retrieved on December 11, 2008. ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Web links
- Homepage of Wilkens and Sons
- Early newspaper articles on Wilkens & Sons in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Coordinates: 53 ° 3 '33 " N , 8 ° 53' 9.5" E