Friedrich Bayer
Friedrich Bayer ( born June 6 in 1825 in Barmen- Wichlinghausen ( today Wuppertal), † May 6, 1880 in Würzburg) founded in 1863 in Elberfeld in the former Prussian Rhine province, the paint factory Friedrich Bayer, the Bayer AG today.
Life and work
The founding father and namesake of the future Bayer Group was born as the son of a Seidenwirkers with the family name Beyer. His ancestors were cloth merchants in Nördlingen. Originally the family that can be traced back to the 16th century, from the Upper Lusatia / Saxony, where does " bajer " (Stories ) narrator.
At 14, he joined as an apprentice in the chemicals act Wesenfeld & Co. in Barmen. There was Bayer (then called " Beyer " ) familiar with the basics and problems of dyeing.
Even as a 20 - year-old he began to act with natural colors. Three years later he founded his first retail company and built a sales network throughout Europe. The natural dyes, which he offered initially were extracted from dyewood and sold because of the high quality in the European capitals London, Brussels, St Petersburg and even to New York.
At about the same time made a fraudulent merchant named Friedrich Beyer from Leipzig talked about. Friedrich Beyer from Barmen feared because of the bad reputation of its namesake, a damage to business and changed its name to Bayer ( with " ay ").
The discoveries of organic chemistry in the field of dye manufacture and market potential associated prompted Friedrich Bayer to diversify its sales program. The initially imported from Bayer coal tar dyes aniline blue and fuchsin exceeded the natural dyes in terms of purity and intensity. Together with his future business partner Johann Friedrich Bayer Weskott experimented with the production and testing of coal-tar dyes. They managed to produce colors that were superior to the first generation quality.
The successful cooperation between Bayer and Weskott led to the creation of a first small manufacturing plant. This seed for the future Bayer AG was August 1, 1863 under the name Friedr. Bayer et comp. registered in the local company register. Bayer took over the technical management within the young company the commercial, Wescott.
Due to further developments in aniline dye, fuchsine and Alizarinbasis managed the company's founder, contrary to the now tense overall economic situation, significantly expand production capacity.
However, this brought enormous environmental problems: When Fuchsinherstellung arsenic poisoned the wells of the neighbors came. As their compensation demands were too high, Bayer and Wescott laid in 1866 and 1878, the production also the headquarters of their company to Elberfeld (now Wuppertal belonging to ). At least for that time to have been progressive Elberfelder production in terms of environmental and personal protection.
Bayer died in 1880 at the age of 54 years on a journey to a protracted pleural inflammation. He left behind a family business that employed at his death two authorized signatories, 14 chemist, engineer, 14 commercial clerk, 15 masters and 340 workers. The sons and sons of the founding fathers (eg, Henry Theodore Böttinger ) were closely associated as a partner with the firm.
Bayer was a member of the Corps Saxonia Bonn.