Richard Hartmann (8 November 1809 - 16 December 1878) was a German engineering manufacturer.

Life

Richard Hartmann was born on 8 November 1809 in Barr, Bas-Rhin

Barr, Bas-Rhin

Barr is a commune in the Bas-Rhin department in Alsace in north-eastern France.-History:Barr was originally an imperial property, but in 1522 the Habsburgs leased it to Nicolas Ziegler, and a few years later give him the freehold. Ziegler's sons sold Barr to the city of Strasbourg...

, the son of a tawer (Weissgerber, a tanner of white leather). In his Alsace

Alsace

Alsace is the fifth-smallest of the 27 regions of France in land area , and the smallest in metropolitan France. It is also the seventh-most densely populated region in France and third most densely populated region in metropolitan France, with ca. 220 inhabitants per km²...

 homeland he learnt the trade of a toolmaker (Zeugschmied). In 1828 his years of travel as a journeyman

Journeyman

A journeyman is someone who completed an apprenticeship and was fully educated in a trade or craft, but not yet a master. To become a master, a journeyman had to submit a master work piece to a guild for evaluation and be admitted to the guild as a master....

 began, ending up in 1832 in Chemnitz

Chemnitz

Chemnitz is the third-largest city of the Free State of Saxony, Germany. Chemnitz is an independent city which is not part of any county and seat of the government region Direktionsbezirk Chemnitz. Located in the northern foothills of the Ore Mountains, it is a part of the Saxon triangle...

, allegedly with only 2 talers in his pocket. In Chemnitz, Hartmann began to work for various factory owners. One of his employers was Carl Gottlieb Haubold, the founder of the Chemnitz Engineering Works (Chemnitzer Maschinenbau). In Haubold's company, Hartmann rose from journeyman to foreman (Akkordmeister). In 1837 he earned became a citizen. That same year he left Haubold's factory and bought an engineering shop with his work colleague, Karl Illing, in Annaberger Strasse at the foot of the Kassberg. Here, Hartmann and Illing repaired cotton-spinning machines, together with three journeymen. The business flourished and after a short time it took on the manufacture of complete spinning machines.

In 1839 Hartmann fell out with Illing and founded the firm of "Götze & Hartmann" with August Götze, in which Götze was responsible for the commercial side and Hartmann for the technical aspects. In the same year Hartmann secured the rights to a slubbing frame (a type of wool spinning machine) for 1000 talers from a penniless inventor. This proved to be the beginning of a breakthrough for the company, which at that time numbered about 30 workers. These slubbing frames established Hartmann's reputation as a spinning machine producer beyond the Chemnitz area. In 1840 the growing company, which already had 76 employees, moved to new premises in Gablenz, but just a year later it outgrew those and the firm moved again to Chemnitz's Klostermühle. Its range of products had expanded in the meantime. In 1840 the firm delivered its first steam locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

. In 1843 Richard Hartmann was awarded a gold medal for a new spinning machine. In 1844 Hartmann moved his company again and found new sheds at what later became Hartmannstrasse. At that time he employed about 350 workers. That year the company also set up its own iron foundry

Foundry

A foundry is a factory that produces metal castings. Metals are cast into shapes by melting them into a liquid, pouring the metal in a mold, and removing the mold material or casting after the metal has solidified as it cools. The most common metals processed are aluminum and cast iron...

.

The year 1848 was a milestone in the life of Richard Hartmann and his company. Together with Theodor Steinmetz the firm succeeded in manufacturing its first steam locomotive

Steam locomotive

A steam locomotive is a railway locomotive that produces its power through a steam engine. These locomotives are fueled by burning some combustible material, usually coal, wood or oil, to produce steam in a boiler, which drives the steam engine...

. The Saxon state government had supported the step towards locomotive construction with a credit of 30,000 talers in order to be able to develop its own locomotive manufacturing base that was not reliant on imports. The Hartmann locomotives proved to be competitive against their English counterparts and were exported worldwide in the decades that followed. Hartmann became the main supplier to the Royal Saxon State Railways

Royal Saxon State Railways

The Royal Saxon State Railways were the state-owned railways operating in the Kingdom of Saxony from 1869 to 1918...

, but he was far-sighted enough not to concentrate exclusively on locomotive construction. At the end of the 1850s the production portfolio of his firm including the manufacture of turbines and mill equipment, mining machinery, drilling equipment and heavy machine tools. In 1857 his company numbered 1500 employees.

In 1870 the company became the Sächsische Maschinenfabrik vormals Richard Hartmann AG

Sächsische Maschinenfabrik

The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz was one of the most important engineering companies in Saxony in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. Including its various predecessor businesses, the firm existed from 1837 until its liquidation in 1930, and...

. At that time it had a work force of 2700. Hartmann took over the chairmanship of the board.

Richard Hartmann lived in the immediate vicinity of his factory ina villa on Kassbergstrasse. He died here on 16 December 1878 following a stroke.

From 1874-77 he had a summer residence known as Villa Hartmann built on the banks of the Elbe

Elbe

The Elbe is one of the major rivers of Central Europe. It rises in the Krkonoše Mountains of the northwestern Czech Republic before traversing much of Bohemia , then Germany and flowing into the North Sea at Cuxhaven, 110 km northwest of Hamburg...

 river at Laubegaster Ufer 34 in Dresden

Dresden

Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....

-Laubegast by the architects Hübner & Baron in the style of Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper

Gottfried Semper was a German architect, art critic, and professor of architecture, who designed and built the Semper Opera House in Dresden between 1838 and 1841. In 1849 he took part in the May Uprising in Dresden and was put on the government's wanted list. Semper fled first to Zürich and later...

. This villa was used by his son Gustav Hartmann from 1881 as his house. The villa is still used today and can be visited on anniversaries.

In 1880 the road nearest the factory was named Hartmannstrasse. The Vierfeld sports hall, opened in 2002 on the site of the former factory, and the Chemnitz vocational school also bear his name. Of the former factory structures only a few remain, of which one is under a preservation order, the engineering building known as the Richard-Hartmann-Halle and the former headquarters building which is now used by the police service.

Significance

Richard Hartmann was one of the most important Saxon businessmen and the most successful factory owner in Chemnitz in the 2nd half of the 19th century. He was an important trailblazer and pioneer for engineering in Saxony

Kingdom of Saxony

The Kingdom of Saxony , lasting between 1806 and 1918, was an independent member of a number of historical confederacies in Napoleonic through post-Napoleonic Germany. From 1871 it was part of the German Empire. It became a Free state in the era of Weimar Republic in 1918 after the end of World War...

, which gained worldwide reputation through his efforts. Hartmann succeeded in establishing a locomotive construction industry in Saxony that rivalled that in England. The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik

Sächsische Maschinenfabrik

The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz was one of the most important engineering companies in Saxony in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. Including its various predecessor businesses, the firm existed from 1837 until its liquidation in 1930, and...

 that he founded was the largest company in Saxony and played a role in Chemnitz becoming one of the greatest industrial centres in Germany after 1870.

Award

The Industrieverein Sachsen 1828 (Industrial Society of Saxony) presents a "Richard Hartmann" award, with € 5000 of prize money, for outstanding industry-related, scientific, technical and economic successes with a high degree of innovation.

See also

• List of railway pioneers
• Hartmannwerke
• Sächsische Maschinenfabrik
  Sächsische Maschinenfabrik
  The Sächsische Maschinenfabrik in Chemnitz was one of the most important engineering companies in Saxony in the second half of the 19th century and the first two decades of the 20th century. Including its various predecessor businesses, the firm existed from 1837 until its liquidation in 1930, and...
  
  

Sources

• Richard Hartmann AG (Hrsg.): Lokomotiven. Ausgabe 1910. Selbstverlag, Chemnitz 1910 (Digitalisat)
• Richard Hartmann AG (Hrsg.): 1837–1912. Jubiläumsschrift aus Anlass des 75jährigen Bestehens der Sächsischen Maschinenfabrik vorm. Richard Hartmann Aktiengesellschaft. Selbstverlag, Chemnitz 1912
• Günther Reiche: Der Chemnitzer Maschinenbauer Richard Hartmann und seine Lokomotiven. Eine Faktensammlung. Oberbaum Verlag, Chemnitz 1998, ISBN 3-928254-56-1
• Günther Reiche: Richard Hartmann. 8. November 1809 - 16. Dezember 1878. Vom Zeugschmied zum sächsischen Lokomotivenkönig. Reihe Chemnitzer Lebensbilder Band 6, Verlag Heimatland Sachsen, Chemnitz 2007, ISBN ISBN 3-910186-60-2
• Tilo Richter (Hrsg.): Der Kaßberg. Ein Chemnitzer Lese- und Bilderbuch. Passage-Verlag, Leipzig 1996, ISBN 3-9805299-0-8
• Bernhard Rost: Richard Hartmann, der große Chemnitzer Maschinenbauer. Ein Lebensbild zur 100. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages. Chemnitz 1909
• Gabriele Viertel: Von André bis Zöllner. 125 Biografien zur Chemnitzer Geschichte. Reintzsch-Verlag, Radebeul 1998, ISBN 3-930846-13-6, S. 42.
• 600 Jahre Laubegast, 1408 - 2008, Verlag Die Fähre, 2004

External links

• Documentation about Hartmann's factory
• Book about the Hartmann factory
• Short biography on the website of the Richard-Hartmann School in Chemnitz
• There is a relevant English-language forum at Railways of Germany