Carl Louis Schwendler (1838 – 1882) was a German

electrician An electrician is a tradesperson specializing in electrical wiring of buildings, transmission lines, stationary machines, and related equipment. Electricians may be employed in the installation of new electrical components or the maintenance ...

and one of the first proponents of the

Tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

based

incandescent light bulb An incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe is an electric light with a wire filament heated until it glows. The filament is enclosed in a glass bulb with a vacuum or inert gas to protect the filament from oxid ...

. He also published an influential textbook on

telegraph Telegraphy is the long-distance transmission of messages where the sender uses symbolic codes, known to the recipient, rather than a physical exchange of an object bearing the message. Thus flag semaphore is a method of telegraphy, whereas p ...

s, and worked in

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

at a senior post in the Telegraph Department. He was involved in setting up telegraphic communication between Agra and Calcutta solving problems in transmission of submerged cables. He was commissioned by the Railways to perform a feasibility study of lighting

Indian Railways Indian Railways (IR) is a statutory body under the ownership of Ministry of Railways, Government of India that operates India's national railway system. It manages the fourth largest national railway system in the world by size, with a tota ...

stations by electric lamp. Schwendler was a member of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In 1867 a zoo was proposed by

Joseph Fayrer Sir Joseph Fayrer, 1st Baronet FRS FRSE FRCS FRCP KCSI LLD (6 December 1824 – 21 May 1907) was a British physician who served as Surgeon General in India. He is noted for his writings on medicine, work on public health and his studies p ...

and the idea was again raised by Schwendler in 1873. He helped in the setting up of this garden and offered his small menagerie (prior to his leaving India) to create the nucleus of the

Alipore Zoological Gardens The Zoological Garden, Alipore (also informally called the Alipore Zoo or Kolkata Zoo) is India's oldest formally stated zoological park (as opposed to royal and British menageries) and a big tourist attraction in Kolkata, West Bengal. It has b ...

Kolkata Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , the official name until 2001) is the capital of the Indian state of West Bengal, on the eastern bank of the Hooghly River west of the border with Bangladesh. It is the primary business, comme ...

. The Zoological Gardens were formally inaugurated on January 1, 1876 by the Prince of Wales (King Edward VII) and opened to the public in May with Schwendler as its first superintendent assisted by

Ram Brahma Sanyal Ram Brahma Sanyal (1858 – 13 October 1908) was the first Indian superintendent of the Alipore Zoological Gardens in Kolkata (then Calcutta). He was a pioneer in captive breeding, and was one of the first zookeepers trained as a biologist. He wa ...

. This zoo became in 1875 the home of Robert Clive's tortoise,

Adwaita Adwaita (meaning "one and only" in Sanskrit) (c. 1750 – 22 March 2006), also spelled Addwaita, was a male Aldabra giant tortoise that lived in the Alipore Zoological Gardens of Kolkata, India. At the time of his death in 2006, Adwaita was b ...

, thought to be the longest-living animal in the world when he died in 2006 at an estimated of age 255. A memorial to Schwendler was erected at the zoo premises in 1883.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schwendler, Carl Louis German electrical engineers 1838 births 1882 deaths German expatriates in India