![Pintsch Julius 1815 1884](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a8/Pintsch_Julius_1815_1884.jpg)
Carl Friedrich Julius Pintsch (6 January 1815 – 20 January 1884) was a German
tinsmith
A tinsmith is a person who makes and repairs things made of tin or other light metals. The profession may sometimes also be known as a tinner, tinker, tinman, or tinplate worker; whitesmith may also refer to this profession, though the same w ...
, manufacturer and inventor who is primarily known for the invention of Pintsch gas. The gas, distilled from
naphtha
Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ' ...
or other petroleum products, was widely used in railway transport and marine navigation applications from its invention in 1851 until the 1930s.
Life
Born in
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...
, Pintsch completed an apprenticeship as a tinsmith in 1833 and, after his
journeyman years
In a certain tradition, the journeyman years () are a time of travel for several years after completing apprenticeship as a craftsman. The tradition dates back to medieval times and is still alive in France, Scandinavia and the German-speaking c ...
, took up a position at a local lamp factory. Having obtained his ''
Meister
''Meister'' means 'master' in German (as in master craftsman, or as an honorific title such as Meister Eckhart). The word is akin to master and maestro. In sports, ''Meister'' is used for the current national, European or world champion (e.g. ...
'' certificate, he established his own small workshop near the municipal
gasworks
A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space.
Early gasworks
Coal ...
at
Frankfurter Bahnhof in Berlin-
Friedrichshain
Friedrichshain () is a quarter (''Ortsteil'') of the borough of Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg in Berlin, Germany. From its creation in 1920 until 2001, it was a freestanding city borough. Formerly part of East Berlin, it is adjacent to Mitte, Prenzl ...
, in 1843.
While the City of Berlin continuously enlarged its gas network in order to supply the growing population, Pintsch received numerous repair orders from the public
GASAG
GASAG (german: Berliner Gaswerke Aktiengesellschaft; English: ''Berlin Gas Works Corporation'') is the main natural gas supplier and vendor in Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3 ...
utility company. He achieved major success in 1847 with the development of a reliable
gas meter
A gas meter is a specialized flow meter, used to measure the volume of fuel gases such as natural gas and liquefied petroleum gas. Gas meters are used at residential, commercial, and industrial buildings that consume fuel gas supplied by a ga ...
that was used by the city administration and would eventually be used worldwide.
![Friedrichshain Andreasstraße 1108-2017 (16)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2b/Friedrichshain_Andreasstra%C3%9Fe_1108-2017_%2816%29.jpg)
In 1851, he created a
gas lamp
Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either directly ...
that was suitable for use in
railroad cars. The lamps were illuminated by Pintsch gas, a long-burning
oil
An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...
gas that would remain lit during the rough motion of train journeys. Pintsch gas was essentially purified, compressed gas distilled from
naphtha
Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ' ...
, that was regulated and reduced to ounce per square inch of pressure to the
burner
Burner may refer to:
* Gas burner, coal burner or oil burner, a mechanical device that burns a gas or liquid fuel in a controlled manner
** Laboratory gas burners:
*** Bunsen burner
*** Meker–Fisher burner
*** Teclu burner
** Hot-air balloon de ...
. Pintsch gas was later replaced by an improved
Blau gas
Blau gas (german: Blaugas) is an artificial illuminating gas, similar to propane, named after its inventor, Hermann Blau of Augsburg, Germany. Not or rarely used or produced today, it was manufactured by decomposing mineral oils in retorts by ...
for railroad car usage.
Starting in 1863, Pintsch had a large factory built on Andreasstrasse in Berlin, followed by subsidiaries in
Dresden
Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...
,
Breslau,
Frankfurt
Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , " Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on it ...
,
Utrecht
Utrecht ( , , ) is the fourth-largest city and a municipality of the Netherlands, capital and most populous city of the province of Utrecht. It is located in the eastern corner of the Randstad conurbation, in the very centre of mainland Net ...
and
Fürstenwalde
Fürstenwalde/Spree (; Lower Sorbian: ''Pśibor pśi Sprjewje'') is the most populous town in the Oder-Spree District of Brandenburg, Germany.
Geography
The town is situated in the glacial valley (''Urstromtal'') of the Spree river north of the ...
. Those plants designed and constructed a wide range of gas-related devices including gas meters,
gas pressure regulators, and gas analyzers.
After his death in 1884 in
Fürstenwalde
Fürstenwalde/Spree (; Lower Sorbian: ''Pśibor pśi Sprjewje'') is the most populous town in the Oder-Spree District of Brandenburg, Germany.
Geography
The town is situated in the glacial valley (''Urstromtal'') of the Spree river north of the ...
, his sons Richard, Oskar, Julius Karl, and Albert inherited the business and became successful in the manufacture of compressed Pintsch gas for use in
beacon
A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...
s and unmanned
lighthouses. Products included
gas mantle
A Coleman white gas lantern mantle glowing at full brightness
An incandescent gas mantle, gas mantle or Welsbach mantle is a device for generating incandescent bright white light when heated by a flame. The name refers to its original heat sou ...
lamps, as well as light
buoys used in the
Kronstadt Bay and the
Suez Canal. In 1907, the business was transformed into a public limited company (''
AG''). Some branches were later acquired by the
Schaltbau GmbH Munich.
Pintsch gas
![Julius Pintsch gas meter Gas Museum in Warsaw](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/06/Julius_Pintsch_gas_meter_Gas_Museum_in_Warsaw.JPG)
Pintsch gas was a
compressed fuel gas
Fuel gas is any one of a number of fuels that under ordinary conditions are gaseous. Most fuel gases are composed of hydrocarbons (such as methane or propane), hydrogen, carbon monoxide, or mixtures thereof. Such gases are sources energy t ...
invented by Pintsch, which was derived from
distilled naphtha
Naphtha ( or ) is a flammable liquid hydrocarbon mixture.
Mixtures labelled ''naphtha'' have been produced from natural gas condensates, petroleum distillates, and the distillation of coal tar and peat. In different industries and regions ' ...
and used for illumination purposes during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Its primary use in the latter half of the 19th century was for illumination of buoys, isolated beacons, lighthouses and
railroad cars
A railroad car, railcar ( American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is ...
.
Railway carriages
Pintsch gas was first applied to the illumination of railway carriages on the
Lower Silesian Railway in Germany in 1871. The system was successfully trialled in 1874 on the
London and North Western Railway for its
Irish Mail
The ''Irish Mail'' was a named train in the United Kingdom that operated from London Euston via the West Coast and North Wales Coast lines to Holyhead from 1848 until 2002 connecting with ferry services to Dublin.
History
The first ''Iris ...
service: one tank of compressed gas in each carriage would provide for two Euston-to-Holyhead return journeys.
Its use was then taken up by many other railway companies in England. By 1888, some 23,500 railway carriages across Europe and the USA were lit on Pintsch's system, of which just under 15,000 were in Germany.
Lamps using Pintsch gas burned brighter and longer than the
oil lamp
An oil lamp is a lamp used to produce light continuously for a period of time using an oil-based fuel source. The use of oil lamps began thousands of years ago and continues to this day, although their use is less common in modern times. Th ...
s they replaced and could withstand vibration and rough usage without the light being extinguished.
[
In several ]railway accident
Classification of railway accidents, both in terms of cause and effect, is a valuable aid in studying rail (and other) accidents to help to prevent similar ones occurring in the future. Systematic investigation for over 150 years has led to the r ...
s, Pintsch gas lamps added fuel to any fire which started, for example in the Thirsk rail crash (1892)
The 1892 Thirsk rail crash happened at Manor House signal box on 2 November 1892, on the North Eastern Railway about north of Thirsk railway station in the North Riding of Yorkshire, England.
Events
James Holmes was the signalman at Manor ...
, the Sunshine rail disaster (1908), the Quintinshill rail disaster
The Quintinshill rail disaster was a multi-train rail crash which occurred on 22 May 1915 outside the Quintinshill signal box near Gretna Green in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, United Kingdom. It resulted in the deaths of over 200 people, and remai ...
(1915), and the Dugald rail accident (1947).
Electricity eventually replaced Pintsch illumination on railroad cars.[
]
Navigation lights
In 1878, the successful illumination of buoys was first achieved by Pintsch's Patent Lighting Company Ltd using their compressed oil-gas system. The gas became a popular means of illuminating buoys, beacon
A beacon is an intentionally conspicuous device designed to attract attention to a specific location. A common example is the lighthouse, which draws attention to a fixed point that can be used to navigate around obstacles or into port. More mode ...
s and unmanned lighthouses
A lighthouse is a tower, building, or other type of physical structure designed to emit light from a system of lamps and lenses and to serve as a beacon for navigational aid, for maritime pilots at sea or on inland waterways.
Lighthouses mar ...
, because it allowed the devices to remain lit for several months without servicing. The Clyde Clyde may refer to:
People
* Clyde (given name)
* Clyde (surname)
Places
For townships see also Clyde Township
Australia
* Clyde, New South Wales
* Clyde, Victoria
* Clyde River, New South Wales
Canada
* Clyde, Alberta
* Clyde, Ontario, a tow ...
Lighthouse Trustees were the first company to adopt the system officially. That was followed by the Suez Canal Company
Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same b ...
, which installed 59 buoys and 39 beacons lit using Pintch's system, to enable the canal to be navigable by night as well as by day. The buoys held compressed gas sufficient for two months' constant illumination between refills.
In 1884, the Pintsch company demonstrated its system as part of a trial of different lighthouse illuminants conducted on the cliffs by the South Foreland Lighthouses. After the trials, the Corporation of Trinity House
"Three In One"
, formation =
, founding_location = Deptford, London, England
, status = Royal Charter corporation and registered charity
, purpose = Maintenance of lighthouses, buoys and beacons
, he ...
purchased the associated gasworks
A gasworks or gas house is an industrial plant for the production of flammable gas. Many of these have been made redundant in the developed world by the use of natural gas, though they are still used for storage space.
Early gasworks
Coal ...
and re-erected it at their Blackwall depot to manufacture Pintsch gas for its own use. In the following year, they established the first of a number of illuminated buoys and unattended beacons on the Thames Estuary
The Thames Estuary is where the River Thames meets the waters of the North Sea, in the south-east of Great Britain.
Limits
An estuary can be defined according to different criteria (e.g. tidal, geographical, navigational or in terms of salini ...
using the system. By 1886, over 200 Pintsch gas-lit buoys, beacons, lighthouses and lightships were operational, in North and South America, Australia, and around the coasts of Europe, as well as on the Suez Canal. The automatic apparatus used in Pintsch gas beacons enabled them to be installed in relatively inaccessible locations, or used for 'unwatched' or unattended lights.
Pintsch gas lights continued to be used for navigation into the 20th century, but after the First World War, Pintsch gas began to be superseded by acetylene as the preferred fuel for unattended navigation lights. By the early 1930s, very few buoys or beacons were still being lit by Pintsch gas.
Electric light
Early in the twentieth century, Pintsch AG diversified its interests to include filaments for electric lighting, to electric lighting systems, and decorative neon lighting
Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode ...
.
References
External links
Biography of C.F. Julius Pintsch
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pintsch, Carl Friedrich Julius
1815 births
1884 deaths
Businesspeople from Berlin
19th-century German inventors