Krupp

Krupp, ALFRED, head of the gigantic iron and steel works at Essen in Prussia, was born in humble circumstances there in 1812. He succeeded his father, who had founded a small iron forge there in 1810, and took control of the works in 1848, when he found 'three workmen and more debts than fortune.' Almost simultaneously with the introduction of the Bessemer steel process in 1857 and the use of the steam-hammer came the demands from artillerists for larger guns, and from railway companies and shipbuilders for more durable materials of construction. Krupp established at Essen the first Bessemer steel works erected in Germany, and the first forging-hammer as well. The first steel gun manufactured at Essen (1847) was a 3-pounder muzzle-loader. Krupp showed in the International Exhibition of 1851 a 6-pounder steel gun. To Krupp undoubtedly belongs the credit of introducing steel as a material for gun construction, and of pioneering that material for many years when it was disregarded by the governments. In 1862 he exhibited a cast-steel block weighing 20 tons, which was designed to show what the Essen works were capable of doing in the manufacture of ordnance. He showed a similar block at Paris of 50 tons (1867), and a block of 52 tons at Vienna in 1873. At the Düsseldorf Exhibition of 1880 he showed a steel gun of 100 tons weight, being the first to demonstrate the possibility of producing a piece of ordnance of such enormous size. The manufacture of cast-steel axles was begun in 1852, and of tires from solid forged pieces in 1853. The subsequent history of the Essen works is an epitome of the records of the German iron and steel industry. In all matters of technical and industrial development Krupp took a leading part. He acquired large mines and collieries, and every year saw additions made to his establishment at Essen (q.v.). The works cover about 1000 acres, and about 20,000 persons find employment there in all departments. Krupp was a man of much decision of character, and great penetration. Naturally Germany owed him much, and was not slow to acknowledge her obligations. The late Emperor William frequently visited him, and it was probably to this circumstance that the popular ruin of his partnership in the works was due. Krupp supplied artillery to almost every government in Europe, and was the recipient of many foreign orders and decorations. He died 14th July 1887, and sixty thousand people attended his funeral.—His son, Alfred, succeeded as head of the great house at Essen; and under him was manufactured in 1888–90 the 135-ton gun for the fortifications of Cronstadt. See CANNON; and Alfred Krupp, by Bädeler (Essen, 1888).