Grace's Guide To British Industrial History

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Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 162,259 pages of information and 244,500 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Grace's Guide is the leading source of historical information on industry and manufacturing in Britain. This web publication contains 147,919 pages of information and 233,587 images on early companies, their products and the people who designed and built them.

Friedrich Siemens

From Graces Guide
1875. Cremation furnace.

Friedrich Siemens (1826-1904), Engineer of Vienna.

Brother of William Siemens, he ran a large glassworks in Dresden.

c.1856 Inventor of the regenerative furnace with the assistance of his brother William Siemens, who worked heartily with him, and was the chief agent in directing its various applications. It was patented in 1856, and was described in a paper read before the Institution of Mechanical Engineers in June 1857.

1862 Frederick Siemens, 3 Great George Street, London.[1]

1875 Lignite was burnt in his Dresden factory, but he had set up a number of factories in other places which used only peat. [2]

1891 Werner V Siemens, 74, manufacturing engineer, employer, with Frederick Siemens 64, manufacturing engineer, employer and Carl Siemens 62, manufacturing engineer, employer, were visitors in Westminster[3]


1904 Obituary [4]

FRIEDRICH SIEMENS died at his residence in Dresden on May 24, 1904. Born at Menzendorf near Lubeck in 1826, he was a member of one of the most remarkable families in Germany, almost all of whom subsequently became famous in the realm of applied science.

In 1848 he proceeded to England, and was occupied with the introduction of the telegraphic apparatus devised by his brother, Dr. Werner von Siemens. He then worked for many years with his brother, Sir William Siemens. He was the inventor of the application of the regenerative principle to the open-hearth furnace, and on the first patent (No. 2861) granted in England on December 2, 1856, his name alone appears. The importance of this invention to the steel industry is shown by the fact that in the year 1902 the production of open-hearth steel in the United States. Germany, and Great Britain amounted to 11,462,096 tons.

On his marriage in 1864, Friedrich Siemens took up his residence in Berlin and devoted his attention to the introduction of his furnace on the continent. On the death of his brother Hans he took over the glass-works he had founded in Dresden. The glass furnace invented by him forms the basis of the modern system of glass manufacture.

In 1880 he devised an improvement in his regenerative furnace by the employment of the free flame and high arch. A few years ago he devised a new regenerative system, in which a portion of the heated products of combustion are converted into fuel gas that can be conducted under the grate of the gas producer in place of cold air. He was also the inventor of the regenerative gas burner, and of many important appliances in glass manufacture. In recognition of his many important inventions he received on April 23, 1900, the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering at Dresden.

He was elected a member of the Iron and Steel Institute in 1884, and contributed to its proceedings papers on combustion in 1883, and on a new method of heating the regenerative furnace in 1884.



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