Siemens, Dr Ernst Werner von

SUBJECT AREA: Electricity, Land transport, Railways and locomotives

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b. 13 December 1816 Lenthe, near Hanover, Germany

d. 6 December 1892 Berlin, Germany

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German pioneer of the dynamo, builder of the first electric railway.

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Werner von Siemens was the eldest of a large family and after the early death of his parents took his place at its head. He served in the Prussian artillery, being commissioned in 1839, after which he devoted himself to the study of chemistry and physics. In 1847 Siemens and J.G. Halske formed a company, Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens und Halske, to manufacture a dial telegraph which they had developed from an earlier instrument produced by Charles Wheatstone. In 1848 Siemens obtained his discharge from the army and he and Halske constructed the first long-distance telegraph line on the European continent, between Berlin and Frankfurt am Main.

Werner von Siemens's younger brother, William Siemens, had settled in Britain in 1844 and was appointed agent for the Siemens \& Halske company in 1851. Later, an English subsidiary company was formed, known from 1865 as Siemens Brothers. It specialized in manufacturing and laying submarine telegraph cables: the specialist cable-laying ship Faraday, launched for the purpose in 1874, was the prototype of later cable ships and in 1874–5 laid the first cable to run direct from the British Isles to the USA. In charge of Siemens Brothers was another brother, Carl, who had earlier established a telegraph network in Russia.

In 1866 Werner von Siemens demonstrated the principle of the dynamo in Germany, but it took until 1878 to develop dynamos and electric motors to the point at which they could be produced commercially. The following year, 1879, Werner von Siemens built the first electric railway, and operated it at the Berlin Trades Exhibition. It comprised an oval line, 300 m (985 it) long, with a track gauge of 1 m (3 ft 3 1/2 in.); upon this a small locomotive hauled three small passenger coaches. The locomotive drew current at 150 volts from a third rail between the running rails, through which it was returned. In four months, more than 80,000 passengers were carried. The railway was subsequently demonstrated in Brussels, and in London, in 1881. That same year Siemens built a permanent electric tramway, 1 1/2 miles (2 1/2 km) long, on the outskirts of Berlin. In 1882 in Berlin he tried out a railless electric vehicle which drew electricity from a two-wire overhead line: this was the ancestor of the trolleybus.

In the British Isles, an Act of Parliament was obtained in 1880 for the Giant's Causeway Railway in Ireland with powers to work it by "animal, mechanical or electrical power"; although Siemens Brothers were electrical engineers to the company, of which William Siemens was a director, delays in construction were to mean that the first railway in the British Isles to operate regular services by electricity was that of Magnus Volk.

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Principal Honours and Distinctions

Honorary doctorate, Berlin University 1860. Ennobled by Kaiser Friedrich III 1880, after which he became known as von Siemens.

Further Reading

S.von Weiher, 1972, "The Siemens brothers, pioneers of the electrical age in Europe", Transactions of the Newcomen Society 45 (describes the Siemens's careers). C.E.Lee, 1979, The birth of electric traction', Railway Magazine (May) (describes Werner Siemens's introduction of the electric railway).

Transactions of the Newcomen Society (1979) 50: 82–3 (describes Siemens's and Halske's early electric telegraph instruments).

Transactions of the Newcomen Society (1961) 33: 93 (describes the railless electric vehicle).

PJGR