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.
On May 22, 2020, in the middle of the Coronavirus pandemic, Lindley Association commemorates the 120th anniversary of the death of William Lindley, the designer of Warsaw's sewage system and waterworks.
W. Lindley died on May 22, 1900, in his own home at 74 Shooters Hill Road in
London's Blackheath. He was less than 92 years old. The cause of death was
general age-related health problems and heart failure. In the last
moments of his life, he was accompanied by his eldest son, Sir William
Heerlein Lindley, continuator of his father's works, and his sister Julia.
The funeral took place three days later. He was buried at Charlton Cemetery in
London's Greenwich.
The bas-relief depicting William Lindley on the front of the Indirect Ozonation and Activated Carbon Filtration Station at the Filter Station in Warsaw. Author Andrzej Krawczak (2010)
William Lindley Snr visited Warsaw only once, in
June 1876, at the invitation of Governor-General Paweł Kotzebue and the temporary
President of Warsaw, general Sokrates Starynkiewicz. After a few days of
exploration of the city, he agreed to draw up a sewage and water supply project for
Warsaw. The project was published in 1879 when William Lindley retired at the
age of 71.
The contract with the city to run this great municipal investment was signed by his son, William H. Lindley. In 1881-1917 he was the main engineer for the construction of sewage and water supply in our city.
First chapter of the Polish and Russian edition
The authors of the work from 1911 do not mention the date of July 3, 1886, which in the interwar period gave rise to the celebrations that continue to this day. The collective work published by the engineer Szenfeld is the publication on the 30th anniversary of the approval of the projects [April 21, 1881] and the signing of the agreement with the Lindleys [July 23, 1881].
It is worth adding here that the associates of W.H. Lindley the beginning of the water supply works in Warsaw connected with 1882 and planned the first 25th anniversary celebrations in 1907. Probably for the same reasons, on July 4, 1907, at the Filter Station, next to the water tower, a monument (bust) of Socrates Starynkiewicz, carved by Jan Woydyga, was unveiled. However, these celebrations took place two years later.
For more details see: R. Żelichowski, Lindleyowie. Dzieje inżynierskiej rodu, Biblioteka Lindleiana, t. II, Warszawa 2019, s. 278-284.
After more than a half century, in August 2021, a new biography of William Lindley appeared on the German publishing market. His author is a Hamburger historian Ortwin Pelc and the title of his book is William Lindley (1808-1900). Ingenieur und Stadtplaner. Eine biographie (William Lindley (1808-1900). Engineer and urbanist. Biography). It is a 26th volume from the series "Hamburgische Lebensbilder" issued by "Verein für Hamburgische Geschichte" and published by Wallenstein Verlag (Göttingen 2021).
The book, with a handy
format 21.5 x 12.5 cm (192 pages), consists of 14 chapters, from which the vast
majority concerns Lindley's engineering achievements in the free Hanseatic city
of Hamburg.
This is a valuable and important book. Since the first publication by Gustav H. Leo, written in 1936, published sixty-three years later (Gustav H. Leo, William Lindley. Ein Pionier der Technischen Hygiene, Hamburg 1969) the knowledge of historians on William Lindley and his families increased significantly. A few new publications in Polish and German appeared, many occasional conferences devoted to W. Lindley in Poland and Germany took place.
Ortwin Pelc has gathered all new information on the achievements of this great English engineer (in Hamburg, also excellent urbanist) and put it in a nice literary form. His book is a highly recommend position in the library of every admirer of William Lindley's work, as well as people interested in the history of urban infrastructure in the 19th-century Europe.
On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the Lindley Society "Societas Lindleiana" in 2019, long awaited book The Lindleys History of an engineering family, was published. The book, in comparison with the first edition in 2002, is much extended and covers new cities like Dusseldorf, Samara and Moscow. The Author is Prof. Dr Ryszard Żelichowski, Chairman of our Society.
The book was published in Polish in the new “Societas Lindleiana” Library
series and consists of three volumes. The first
volume concerns the origin of the family and beginning of works of the Lindley family in
Great Britain and the German Empire, the second volume is focused on the Russian Empire (including Warsaw), and
volume III covers the history of the Lindley family and their descendants up to the 21st century. Their full
bibliographic description of the books with tables of contents can be
found at the following links:
https://e-isbn.pl/IsbnWeb/onix/summary.html?record_id=7667142
https://e-isbn.pl/IsbnWeb/onix/summary.html?record_id=7667143
https://e-isbn.pl/IsbnWeb/onix/summary.html?record_id=7667144
The "Lindley Hotel" in Frankfurt on Main, designed for the network
Lindenberg GmbH by a group of architects gathered around prof. Bernhard Franken,
is still under construction. The opening of this new four-star hotel is
scheduled for 2018.
The 4,340 sq. m hotel has 100 guest rooms. According to the designers, this is not a classic hotel concept but a "guest community", which will not only be focused on renting rooms, but also on sharing the common space.
The location of the hotel at the Lindley Street in Frankfurt Ostend has given the owners of the hotel network an idea for the excellent marketing operation. They invited Arthur Becker, a well-known author of the Polish origin who has been living in Germany for four decades, to write a hotel-roman called "The Immortal Mr. Lindley". The official premiere of the book took place in September 2018.
Artur Becker: Der unsterbliche Mr. Lindley: Ein Hotelroman, Verlag weissbooks 2018, Preis: 24,-- Euro
Artur Becker
tells the story about the meeting of a
certain family at the Hotel Lindley. One of their members, impressed by the historical
achievements of William Lindley, a designer and builder of waterworks in
Frankfurt in the 1860s, embarks on the drug journey in time and meets the English engineer…
"The Immortal Mr. Lindley" is a melancholic, historically based story
that says a lot about Frankfurt without being a guide-book. While reading the
book one realizes that we all inevitably become “a commodity" …
Address of the hotel:
Hotel Lindley Lindenberg, Lindleystraße 17 -19, 60314 Frankfurt am Main - Ostend
William Heerlein Lindley (1853-1917), 100 years anniversary
The Competition Jury of the Polish Society of Book Publishers nominated album William Heerlein Lindley. Warsaw Plan of 1912, written and designed by prof. Ryszard Żelichowski and Dr. Pawel E. Weszpiński for the Most Beautiful Book of the 2016 Year Award.
The
album was published by the Historical Museum of the City of Warsaw.
Unfortunately, in this category the jury awarded another beautiful book. Warsaw
Museum wan the price in this category last year. We still enjoy the nomination,
which is a proof of recognition of the Jury for our work, and for the artistry
of the Museum staff team. We want to thank and congratulate our colleagues for
the Museum!
The Jury verdict was announced during the 8th Warsaw Book Fair on May 18, 2017 at the National Stadium.
Cover of the two volumes
View of the content of the volume 1
The front cover of the album