Portrait of Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden

People/engineer, politician

Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden

Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden (1752–1815), engineer, politician, from Germany. Linked to coal, lead, zinc.

The lucky break

Learned mining from his uncle and from 1779 headed the Silesian Oberbergamt, reorganising mine administration and modernising Upper Silesian industry.1,2

Legacy

Built up ore mining at Tarnowitz and the Friedrichshuette, where he installed the first steam engine in 1788 and which met all Prussia's lead needs. He became Prussian minister in 1803, succeeding Heynitz.1,2

Story cards

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Where next

Mines

Worked atTarnowskie Gory lead-silver-zinc mineThe Prussian mining chief who put the first steam engine into Silesian lead mining.1

Sources

  1. Reden, Friedrich Wilhelm Graf von Neue Deutsche Biographie / Deutsche Biographie
  2. File pages and licence metadata for portraits (via the Commons imageinfo/extmetadata API) Wikimedia Commons

Pictures on this page: Friedrich Wilhelm von Reden.jpg, not recorded on the file page (Public domain).

From the Prospector Trails mining history dataset: each fact links to the source it was checked against. Figures are as the source gives them, in the money of their day. Not investment advice.

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Cover photos from Wikimedia Commons: Froth flotation and tailings by Nina111955, CC BY-SA 4.0. Pictures: Dolcoath tin mine, Camborne, Cornwall: miners in a mine shaft, standing on wooden platforms connected by ladders. Photograph by J. C. Burrow, 1890/1910., Burrow, J. C., 1852-1914 (Public Domain Mark 1.0); NASA's ASTER Shows Brazilian City After Dam Disaster, NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Space Systems, and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (Public domain (NASA media, no copyright)).