April i, 1902.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



207 



A GERMAN RUBBER MANUFACTURER. 



FRANZ CLOUTH, founder of the Rhenish Rubber Works 

 at Cologne-Nippes, was born at Cologne-on-the-Rhine, 

 February 18, 1838, being the son of William Clouth, a 

 publisher and printing house proprietor, and his wife 

 Katherine, 7iee Ritter. In his native town he attended the city 

 high school (the present Gymnasium of Arts), completing the 

 course, and then entered the commercial house of C. & P. 

 Erlemocin, at Cologne. He fulfilled his military obligation in 

 the Twenty-third infantry regiment. Next he was for one year 

 merchant's clerk in the Antwerp commission house of L. Aug. 

 Miller & Co. Later he was employed successively at Brussels 

 and in London, returning to Cologne in i860, where he repre- 

 sented various houses in the corn and spirits trades. 



Happening to be requested to accept also the representation 

 of the Magdeburg rubber manufacturing firm of C. W. Julius 

 Blancke, Mr. Clouth soon decided to devote himself exclusively 

 to this then new line of business, and gradually retired from all 

 other business connections. After visiting Berlin, Paris, and 

 London, to acquaint himself more fully 

 with the India-rubber and Gutta- 

 percha industries, Mr. Clouth, in 1864, 

 began the manufacture on his own ac- 

 count, on a small scale. By 1870 the 

 factory at Nippes required the employ- 

 ment of 70 workingmen. The marked 

 commercial development in Germany 

 which followed the war with France in 

 1870-71 was not without a favorable 

 effect upon the business founded by 

 Mr. Clouth, a result of which was the 

 necessity, within a short time, for the 

 erection of a larger factory, employing 

 200 men. 



Not only in Germany, but in Holland, 

 Belgium, and Switzerland, the products 

 of the factory began to find a sale, and 

 finally its market extended over the 

 whole of Europe. Various state author- 

 ities placed their orders with this firm, 

 and particularly the German army and 

 navy. Large orders were received for 

 army tents, and for diving apparatus. 



Besides, the German railway administrations became good 

 customers, and nearly every important industrial establish- 

 ment in the country has had business transactions with the 

 firm. All of which led to the continual growth of the factory 

 and an increase in the number of employes. 



The constantly enlarging scope of the applications of electri- 

 city led Mr. Clouth, in 1891, to erect another factory, for the 

 production of insulated wires and cables. He thus was in a 

 position to supply to an important extent the demands of the 

 imperial German posts with equipment for telegraph and tele- 

 phone lines, as well as the telegraph administrations of Swit- 

 zerland, Sweden, and other countries. Electriclighting plants 

 were also equipped for many large cities, including St. Peters- 

 burg, besides a plant for lighting the Kaiser Wilhelm canal. 

 Mr. Clouth's electrical works have now been turned over to a 

 separate corporation, of which he is the head, besides which he 

 is interested in submarine cable works at Nordenham, with 

 Felten_& Guilleaume and some important banking interests. 



FRANZ 



The three Clouth factories at Cologne-Nippes- — the India- 

 rubber and Gutta-percha factory, the electrical works, and th& 

 canvas or camp-tent factory — occupy an area of over 25,000 

 square meters [= 270,000 square feet.] There are employed 

 ten steam engines, besides dynamos and gas motors, with a 

 combined capacity of 1000 h. p. On an average 1000 working 

 people are employed, and between 70 and 80 technical and 

 commercial officers. Many of the staff have been connected 

 with the works for a long time, being encouraged to remain by 

 the scale of wages and the provision made in various ways for 

 their welfare, as by hospital funds, funeral aid, pensions, and 

 gratuities, as a result of which strikes have been unknown in the 

 establishment. 



Mr. Clouth, besides being the head of the establishment 

 Franz Clouth, Rheinische Gummiwaaren-Fabrik.Coln-Nippes — 

 lately converted into a limited liability company, to which two 

 of his sons have been admitted — is chairman of the board of 

 the Land- und Seekabelwerke, Aktiengesellschaft, at Cologne, 

 to which has been transferred the cable 

 factory established by Mr. Clouth ; a 

 director in the Norddeutsche Seeka- 

 belwerke, Aktiengesellschaft, cable 

 manufacturers at Nordenham, Ger- 

 many; and a director in the Deutsch- 

 Atlantische Telegraphen-Gesellschaft, 

 n control of the cable laid in 1900 from 

 1 orkum, Germany, to New York. He 

 is also president of the German Rub- 

 ber Manufacturers' Union ; member of 

 the German Manufacturers' Central 

 Union ; member of the Union for the 

 Protection of the Interests of the 

 Chemical Industry ; member of a com- 

 mittee of the Rhineland and West- 

 phalia Commercial-Union ; president of 

 the board of the Manufacturers' Union 

 for the government ditrict of Cologne ; 

 and a member of various other associa- 

 tions for promoting general or special 

 interests. 

 CLOUTH. While giving the closest personal at- 



tention to the management of his fac- 

 tory, Mr. Clouth still found time to make repeated visits to 

 the various countries of Europe, making observations which he 

 was able later to make of value as applied to his business. Nor 

 has his interest been confined to private affairs. During the 

 Franco- Prussian war he twice sent a train load of supplies for 

 the German troops to the ramparts of Paris. He has shown 

 a lively interest in German colonial development, at one time 

 seeking to promote a trade with German Africa by the purchase 

 direct of the rubber existing there. While the quality of the 

 rubber detracted from the success hoped for in this regard, he 

 has, none the less, supported all efforts for the further devel- 

 opment of the colonies. He has also written a monograph — 

 " Gummi, Guttapercha, und Balata"— which appeared first in 

 1873 and in an enlarged form in 1879 and 1899, taking an im- 

 portant position among works devoted to the rubber interest. 

 Mr. Clouth in 1862 married Miss Theodore Wahlenberg, of 

 Cologne, who died during the Franco-Prussian war. In 1872 

 he married Miss Josephine Baum, of the same city. 



