In 1960, i.e. sixty years ago, the Kattwyk Coking Plant prepared a special
medal in memory of William Lindley. On the obverse there is a bust of William
Lindley with the inscription:
HAMBURGERGAS (Gas of Hamburg, in the upper part) and WILLIAM LINDLEY, ERBAUER DES ERSTEN
HAMBURGER GASWERKS (W.Lindley, constructor of the first gasworks in Hamburg, in in the lower part). There is a large inscription on the
reverse: HGW KOKEREI KATTWYK 1960 (Hamburger Gasworks, Coking Plant, Kattwyk 1960).
Collection: Societas Lindleiana
The commemoration involved the opening of a new coking plant in an industrial
district of Hamburg, opened in 1960. The new coking plant was short-lived. It
was extinguished in 1981 and was demolished a year later.
In August 1844, the foundation stone laying ceremony for the construction of the first gas coking plant at Grasbrook was held. A year later, the first public gas lanterns to illuminate Hamburg's main streets with coal gas were introduced. In the fall of 1845, there was such a large flood that the new gas facilities were unusable. A new building was needed. “It was taken over by the English engineer William Lindley, who was also responsible for building a modern water supply in Hamburg. The gas lanterns burned again at the end of 1846: 2020 in numbers. The brightness of the streets made the gas plant so popular that its image adorned the backs of playing cards, "writes Sasha Disko-Schmidt in the text Gasversorgung für die moderne Stadt (Gas supply a modern city).
Source:https://geschichtsbuch.hamburg.de/epochen/industrialisierung/gasversorgung-fuer-die-moderne-stadt/
Kattwyk, together with Altona, found itself within borders of Hamburg in 1937. Currently, this name is connected with the unusual Kattwykbrücke drawbridge over the southern Elbe for rail and road traffic. A 290-meter-long bridge connects Moorburg with the eastern Kattwyk peninsula, which belongs to the Elbe Hohe Schaar and Wilhelmsburg islands.
The School Director, Mr. JörnBuck, gave a warm welcome to the honorary guests, the teachers and the pupils. Official speeches were delivered by Senator Ties Rabe, the Chairman of the Guild of Installers and Plumbers Mr. Fritz Schellhorn, and Mr. Bottländer, head of personnel at e.on-Hanse.
Dr. Ortwin Pelc, from the Museum of Hamburg History, delivered a comprehensive lecture on the achievements of William Lindley in Hamburg. His lecture was illustrated with many great photographs from the collections of the Museum.
Eugen Deubner and Rainer Schulz, Chairman of Hamburger Institut für Berufliche Bildung (which is the organizational unit managing all the vocational schools of Hamburg) were asked to unveil the sculpture and the sign with the new name of the school.
Eugen Deubner’s short speech ended with handing over a gift to the headmaster - a framed copy of the picture of the famous section of the sewage canal designed by William Lindley for Warsaw. The design was made in the workshop of William H. Lindley in Frankfurt am Main and included a bilingual description in German and Polish.
Ryszard Żelichowski, acting as the president of Societas Lindleiana, congratulated the Director on the perfect organization of this event and the excellent idea of giving the school the name of William Lindley. He also passed on to Mr. Buck a letter of congratulations from the chairman of the board of the Water Supply and Sewage Company in Warsaw, together with a copy of the album “125 years of Warsaw Municipal Waterworks 1886-2011”.
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