Johann Georg Halske

The master mechanic Johann Georg Halske, born on July 30, 1814 in Hamburg, started his own workshop in Berlin in 1844, which he ran together with his partner F. M. Böttcher. In 1847 Halske founded the Siemens & Halske Telegraph Construction Company together with Werner von Siemens. Halske was particularly involved in the construction and design of electrical equipment such as the press which enabled wires to be insulated with a seamless coat of gutta-percha, the pointer telegraph and the morse telegraph and measuring instruments. In 1867 he withdrew from the company because his views on company policy diverged from those of the Siemens brothers and devoted himself in his role as a Berlin city councillor to the administration of the city and the establishment of the Museum of Applied Art. He remained friends with Werner von Siemens until Halske's death in 1890. Even after his departure from the company he co-founded he continued to support it, and participated financially in the Siemens pension fund that was founded in 1872.

External links

* [http://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/people/data?id=per329 Picture, biography, and bibliography] in the Virtual Laboratory of the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science