Heinrich Voelter (January 1, 1817 in
Heidenheim – September 13, 1887 in Heidenheim) was a German inventor and paper manufacturer.
Heinrich Voelter grew up in Heidenheim and attended elementary school there, where he was taught by his grandfather. At age 14, he began an
apprenticeship
Apprenticeship is a system for training a potential new practitioners of a trade or profession with on-the-job training and often some accompanying study. Apprenticeships may also enable practitioners to gain a license to practice in a regulat ...
at a Heidenheim
weaver shop. In addition, he learned from his father, who operated a local
paper mill, the art of paper production. After the apprenticeship Voelter went to
Bautzen to continue and complete his studies of paper manufacturing. While in
Saxony
Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...
, he met
Friedrich Gottlob Keller (1816–1895), from whom he took over an 1846
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an sufficiency of disclosure, enabling discl ...
for manufacturing paper from wood fiber mash. He further developed the method such that mass production of paper from wood became possible - until then, paper had been produced from rags. He returned to his hometown after his father's death in 1848, where he benefited from the help of
Johan Matthäus Voith (1803–1874), who in 1852 constructed two grindstones for the Voelter paper mill.
From 1856 to 1861 Heinrich Voelter served in the Parliament in Stuttgart.
Voelter and Voith sold grindstones to paper manufacturers in the whole world, including the Kübler und Niethammer paper factory in
Kriebstein in Saxony. In 1864 the Voelter paper mill burnt down, and paper production in Heidenheim ceased for good (paper had been manufactured there since 1530).
Voith AG, founded by Voith, still develops and produces paper machines for international customers.
References
External links
* http://www.voith.com.br/index_d.php(Voith AG site, including company history)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voelter, Heinrich
19th-century German inventors
People from Heidenheim
1887 deaths
1817 births
Pulp and paper industry
German politicians
History of forestry
Papermakers