News
William Lindley and William H. Lindley got Blue Plaque in London
Lindleys works in Warsaw the Monument of History
Magical Winter and a happy New Year 2015
(Photo by Ursula Frydrych)
This summer, Warsaw’s artistic landscape has been enriched by the new effigy of William Heerlein Lindley. It is the the bust of W.H. Lindley sculptured by professor Jan Pastwa from Warsaw Fine Art University. He is also the author of the full sculpture of W.H. Lindley standing next to the bench dedicated to him at Warsaw Podzamcze Park. The bench has been designed by Dr Norbert Sarnecki with assistance of Anna Sarnecka.
The bust of W.H. Lindley stands in the latest addition to Warsaw Supply Company - water ozonation and water filtration on the activated carbon.
The relief depicting William Lindley-father on the pediment of the building is visible from Filtrowa Street but the bust of William Heerlein is not publicly accessible. It can be admired only by the guests of the Company.
We are very glad of the fact that W.H. Lindley is also commemorated in the new Water Supply Company building, but we regret that Professor Pastwa has not benefited from our iconography and gave his sculpture the profile (intuitively rightly) of the author of this note, who tirelessly do research into career and life of the Lindleys, the family of the great English Civil engineers...
About the artists see: http://sculpture.com.pl/files_NS/index.htm
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The Family on the Lindleystreet in Frankfurt on Main. From l. to r.: Hanna Żelichowska, Karin Deubner, Ma Neubauer, Ursula Caspar, Beatrice Caspar, Alexander Caspara and Eugen Deubner
Day one – 30 August (Thursday)
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From that day on we followed a master plan prepared by Eugen Deubner. We visited HESSENWASSER, MAINOVA and the municipal SEF (Stadtentwässerung, FFM), which supply the water, power and sewage respectively to the population of Frankfurt. Dr. Rödel, historian and retired monument preserver, gave us some information about civil engineering in Frankfurt between 1806 and 1914, as well as interesting information about the biographies of the Lindley’s in Frankfurt. Presentation took place in Goldstein Waterworks, where William and William H. Lindleys worked on the first modern water supply system for Frankfurt.
The same day was to the combined heating and power plant, Heizkraftwerk WEST. Extensive tour was conducted by a passionate man Mr. Joachim Siebenhaar. And there was a lot of history as well. William H. Lindley built his first electric power plant in Frankfurt (1892-1896), with Oskar von Miller.
Day two – 31 August (Friday)
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On all locations we were treated with great esteem and were able once more to realize how important the Lindleys were also for this city.
After the tour we went to the city and met Mr. Volker Harms-Ziegler, an historian from the City Archive, who gave us brief historical tour of Römer and Zeil.
Day three – 1 September (Saturday)
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This day was organized by Ryszard Żelichowski. We went to Evangelical Reformed Church - West (Deutsch Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche) on Freiherr vom Stein Strasse No. 8, (former Church of England) founded by William Heerlein Lindley. It was very disappointing since the church is gone and replaced by a big modern religious center of Evangelical Reformed Church. However, the commemorating stone has been preserved and exposed in front of a new religious center.
Next we went to former Blittersdorffplatz 29. It was another disappointment. The historical place is gone and the square is now called François-Mitterrand-Platz (he became a honorary citizen of Frankfurt a.M. in 1986).
We gave up walking through the Neue Mainzer Strasse (to No. 51, where the Getz family used to live). There was nothing to see either. The number 51 is incorporated into huge new Frankfurter Sparkasse and the street has become mainly a brick-canyon for the mass city traffic.
Later we took tram No. 11 to Lindleystrasse, and it was rewarding. It has been built-up with many decent houses and the East Harbour (Osthafen) has been renovated and decorated with a monument dedicated to the city-mayor Franz Adickes (1890-1912), under whose authority W.H. Lindley worked until 1896.
Departures, 2 September (Sunday)
Afteer the breakfast we went to our own destinations. We have planned next family-reunion for 2014 in England. Full report on the family-reunion you can see : E-library on this page |
On the 22nd of April 2015 in Blackheath (London Borough of Greenwich) was unveiled a plaque funded by English Heritage Blue Plaques, dedicated to William Lindley and his eldest son, William Heerlein.
In this way, we have completed long-lasting process to bring to the Pantheon of those with outstanding imerits for the British Empire, two engineers, natives of the County of Yorkshire, the pioneers of hygiene, who had worked most of their life in the three empires-Austro-Hungarian, German, and Russian.
Warsaw's filters it is the joint work of the four Lindleys: the father William Lindley (1808-1900) and his three sons, William Heerlein (1853-1917), Robert Searles (1856-1925) and Joseph (1859-1906). The youngest of the brothers, Joseph, spent nearly his entire professional life in Warsaw, representing a family company.
Being placed on the list of Monuments of History means a serious step towards entering the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites.
You can view this wonderful album in our E-library (texts in Polish):
Dear Members, Dear Friends of the Societas Lindleiana,
In the hectic days day of traditional Polish Christmas, so important for every family, the Board of SL wishes you and your families, when you seat tired but happy by the handsomely stocked table and beautifully decorated Christmas tree, a moment of reflection over the passage of time.
And when the snow falls, we invite you to take a walk and seat on a certain bench near Royal Castle and look at the a certain English civil engineer patiently standing beside the bench. Think favorably about his life and what he has done for our city, and by the way, also about us.
We wish you a magical Winter, a happy Christmas, and all the best in 2015!
The Board of Societas Lindleiana,
Warsaw, Poland 2014
On June 19, 2014, a commemorative plate dedicated to engineer Stefan Skrzywan was unveiled in the city of Łódź. The plaque was affixed to a wall of the former headquarters of the city's water supply company at the Narutowicz Street 65, where Rectorate of the University of Łódź is located. The sponsor of the plaque was the state company AZERSU JSC, of Baku, Azerbaijan. The unveiling of the plaque was one of the events connected with preparations for the celebration of the centenary of the completion of the water works in Baku, which falls in 2017.
Participating in the ceremony were Hasan Hasanov, Ambassador of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Teyyub Jabbarov, Vice President of AZERSU, Hanna Zdanowska, President of the city of Łódź, Professor Włodzimierz Nykiel, Rector of the University of Łódź and Czesław Cieslak, a representative of the Water and Sewerage Company of Łódź.
Stefan Skrzywan (1876-1932) was born in Odessa. After graduating from the Institute of Technology in St. Petersburg in 1911, he worked in the construction of water and sewage system in Warsaw under the direction of William Heerlein Lindley. When construction of the water supply in Baku began in 1911, Skrzywan replaced Englishman Frank Durham, who had previously represented W.H. Lindley in the Caucasus.
Construction of the water works in Azerbaijan impressed the Europeans. The viaduct for the water extended about 180 km, originating from the springs of in the foothills of the Caucasus in Shollar, near the town of Guba. Water, by the force of gravity travelled to a pump station located about 40 km from Baku, from where it was sent under pressure through the water pipe network.
The waterworks in Baku was the final fully completed project of Sir William H. Lindley. In February 1917, despite the raging war and the Russian Revolution, he was present in Baku for the occasion of opening of the taps with clean water. In December of that year, Sir W.H. Lindley died in London.
Engineer Stefan Skrzywan survived World War I and was invited to finish the work on a comprehensive water supply and sewer system of the city of Łódź. The project included most of the work carried out by the W.H. Lindley and his associates earlier in the 20th century. No one was more qualified to be the contractor of the project than Skrzywan. Thanks to Skrzywan’s diligence, attention to detail and his understanding of the concept of aesthetic and engineering, Lindley’s project was completed posthumously and still appeals to us today with its timeless beauty.
On 7-13 April 2014, four members of the Lindley family from Germany, Switzerland and Scotland, along with the President of Societas Lindleiana and his wife, received an invitation to the CATEC W- ater Technologies Exhibition and Conference, organized in Baku by Azersu OJSC (State water supply Company, open joint-stock company). Azersu organized us a wonderful program, through which we were able to not only learn about the history of the Republic, the city and the great changes made by Presidents Heydar Aliyev and Ilham Aliyev, but also see Shollar, a magic place where he William H. Lindley found the source of drinking water for Baku.
Group employees of Azersu with guests of the Lindley family( from left to right: Manaf Suleymanov, Xadija Abdullayeva, Ryszard Żelichowski, Hanna Żelichowska, Alexander Caspar, Tasognov Abdulbagi, Karin Deubner, Hijran Aliyeva-Sztrauch, Catharina Porter, Eugen Deubner and Shakir Mammadov. In the background the monument of H. Tagiyev w Shollar).