Ludvig Nobel

Ludvig Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on July 27, 1831. His father was the architect, inventor and engineer Immanuel NobelImmanuel NobelImmanuel Nobel (1801–1872) was a Swedish inventor, engineer and industrialist who worked as a builder and inventor in Stockholm before founding an engineering works in St. Petersburg and developing naval mines for Russia; he was the father of Robert, Ludvig, Alfred and Emil Nobel.Open the full entry, and his mother was Andriette. The couple had six children, four of whom, all sons, survived childhood: Robert (1829–1896), Ludvig, Alfred (1833–1896) and Emil (1843–1864).⁠[1][2][3]

In 1837 Immanuel went bankrupt and left Sweden to avoid debtors’ prison, while his wife and children stayed in Stockholm. After a year in Åbo (Turku) he settled in St. Petersburg, where the sale of his underwater mine patent to the Russian government gave him enough money to bring over his family and start a mechanical workshop.⁠[2]

In 1842 the Nobel family moved to St. Petersburg to join Immanuel. Ludvig and his brothers were taught languages, mathematics and chemistry by outstanding scholars and received practical training in their father’s factory; he spoke fluent Russian and became a mechanical engineer.⁠[4][5][2][6]

Immanuel’s business grew into a large mechanical engineering company, Fonderies & Ateliers Mécaniques Nobel & Fils, which besides mines made machines for fabricating wagon wheels and steam engines for Volga steamboats.⁠[6]

After the Crimean War (1853–1855) the Russian government cancelled its orders and the Nobel works was forced into liquidation; Immanuel went bankrupt for the second time and returned to Sweden in 1859. The creditors appointed Ludvig to administer and wind up the business.⁠[2][6][4]

Ludvig married his cousin Wilhelmina (Mina) Ahlsell; their children were Emanuel (born in St. Petersburg in 1859), Carl (born 1862) and Anna (born 1866). He also had an illegitimate son, Hjalmar Crusell, born in 1856.⁠[5][7]

In 1862 Ludvig formed the Ludvig Nobel Engineering Works Company in St. Petersburg, reviving part of his father’s business. He first rented a small machine workshop that made water pipes, heating elements, wheels and wagon axles, and later bought it.⁠[4][6][2]

In the 1860s government orders made the factory expand rapidly. It converted muzzle-loading rifles into breech-loaders and produced cannons, gun carriages, underwater mines and artillery shells, as well as drilling machines, lathes, steam hammers and hydraulic presses, growing into one of Russia’s biggest machine factories.⁠[2][5]

He introduced profit sharing, giving 40 percent of profits to senior office staff and engineers, and paid wages more often to curb drunkenness; he worked to improve conditions in his factories and had good relations with his employees.⁠[2][3]

In 1864 Ludvig wrote to his brother Robert that petroleum had a bright future; the same year Robert started Aurora, a lamp and lamp-oil warehouse in Finland.⁠[4]

Mina died in 1869. Ludvig later married Edla, and they had seven children: Mina (born 1873), Ludvig (1874), Ingrid (1879), Marta (1881), Rolf (1882), Emil (1885) and Gösta (1886).⁠[5]

In 1870 Ludvig was granted the privilege of using the Russian imperial emblem, the double-headed eagle.⁠[4]

In 1872 Ludvig and the Russian officer Peter A. Bilderling built a model weapons factory in Izhevsk in the Urals, which produced some 200,000 Berdanka rifles for the Russian War Office.⁠[4][5]

In 1873 Ludvig commissioned Robert to make 500,000 rifle stocks for the Berdanka at the Izhevsk factory. Robert searched the forests west of Baku for walnut without success, and Ludvig paid him 25,000 roubles in compensation.⁠[8][4]

In 1874 Robert bought a refinery and a plot of land in Baku, and production began in autumn 1875. Ludvig financed Robert’s oil venture in Baku.⁠[8][9][2]

In 1876 Ludvig sent his works manager, Alexander Bary, to Pennsylvania in the United States to study pumps and pipelines. The same year he and his eldest son Emanuel visited Robert in Baku and were caught up in the oil rush, planning to organise the whole industry from extraction to transport and distribution.⁠[4][10][5]

Ludvig ordered stronger pipes from an ironworks in Glasgow, Scotland, which arrived in Baku in 1877 and were buried two metres deep to deter sabotage. Carting oil cost 35 kopeks per pud, against just under 3 kopeks by pipeline; the investment was recouped within a year, and he later built pipelines for other companies.⁠[10][9][4]

In 1877 he lectured at the Imperial Russian Technical Society on oil extraction in Baku and completed the plan for distributing Baku paraffin to the Russian market. As no railway tank wagons were made in Russia, he built them himself with an engineer from the Riga wagon works, starting with 100 and later expanding the fleet to 1,500.⁠[4][10][11]

In November 1877 he ordered a steel tank steamer with built-in cisterns.⁠[12]

In 1878 the Zoroaster, a tanker designed by Ludvig and built in Gothenburg, Sweden, entered service; it is regarded as the world’s first successful modern oil tanker and was named after the ancient Iranian prophet Zarathustra. It ran between Baku and Astrakhan.⁠[13][14][12][4]

The ship was built by the Lindholmen yard, owned by the Motala works, and in May that year sailed from the Baltic through Russia’s inland waterways to Baku; its dimensions were limited by water levels on the Don and the Volga, and its eight loose cisterns could be removed to reduce draught. Because the Nobels were Swedish citizens, the Finnish-Russian citizen Peter von Bilderling formally became responsible for the shipping business.⁠[12]

The same year the Nobels built Russia’s first oil pipeline with a steam pump, running 9 kilometres from the Balakhany field to Baku’s Black Town, with a capacity of about 1,300 tonnes a day.⁠[11]

In 1879 Naftaproduktionsaktiebolaget Bröderna Nobel, shortened to Branobel, was formed in St. Petersburg; its largest shareholders were the brothers Ludvig, Alfred and Robert and Peter A. Bilderling and his brother. The statutes were confirmed on May 18, 1879, the start-up capital was three million roubles, and the company was managed by Ludvig in St. Petersburg and by Robert in Baku.⁠[5][15]

Robert opposed forming the limited company, felt outmanoeuvred by his brothers and left Baku in 1880.⁠[9][16]

In 1881 Emanuel became responsible for Branobel’s financial matters; after Tsar Alexander II was assassinated that year, Ludvig’s import of Alfred’s dynamite was stopped. In 1882 a technology patented by Ludvig allowed continuous operation at the refinery, and six tankers were delivered to the company.⁠[4]

In 1883 Alfred travelled to Russia to see the oil company headed by Ludvig, in which the three brothers were the main shareholders; Branobel’s factory, office and residence stood near the Samson quay in St. Petersburg.⁠[6]

In 1884 Villa Petrolea in Baku was inaugurated, and Ludvig and his son Carl visited Baku. The residential estate offered good housing for some 100 employees and their families.⁠[4][14][5]

In 1886 Branobel faced a financial crisis, and by the end of that year Ludvig was worn out and had heart problems. In 1887 Alfred, concerned about his health, asked Emanuel to relieve his father of all business troubles; the same year Alfred resigned from Branobel’s management.⁠[4][17]

Ludvig travelled to Cannes, France, to rest and died there on April 12, 1888; he was buried in St. Petersburg. On his deathbed the brothers Robert, Alfred and Ludvig were reconciled, and Edla thanked Alfred for coming to Cannes and smoothing things out.⁠[5][1][17]

At his death his eldest son Emanuel, aged 28, took over Branobel, while his son Carl took charge of the engineering works; Carl died in 1893.⁠[4][7][16][2]

A widely repeated story holds that at least one French newspaper believed it was Alfred who had died and ran an obituary calling him a “merchant of death,” prompting Alfred to reflect on how he would be remembered. Historians, however, have yet to find an original copy of the obituary, and some dismiss the story as a myth.⁠[18][19]

Soon after Ludvig’s death his family set up a foundation to give awards to innovators in industry; it lasted until the family’s assets were nationalised after the Bolshevik Revolution.⁠[20]

The Petrolea, Branobel’s first ocean-going bulk tank steamer of 1886, was renamed Ludvig Nobel after his death. In 1912 the Ludvig Nobel engineering works in St. Petersburg celebrated its 50th anniversary.⁠[12][4]

In 2005 the prize named after Ludvig Nobel was revived with a broader scope, honouring outstanding professional achievements; it carries a medal and a diploma but no money.⁠[20]