Caspar Honegger (1804–83)

The Swiss engineer and industrialist Caspar Honegger was known as the ‘Weaver King’ for his improvements to textile looms, which he manufactured at Rüti in north-west Switzerland under the company name Caspar Honegger Maschinenfabrik Rüti.

His father, Salomon Honegger, worked as a spinner and handloom weaver but by 1816 opened his own a spinning mill at Rüti. Caspar showed technical ability and was made a foreman at the mill when he was 15, then technical manager at 17. Salomon gave the business to Casper and his brother Heinrich in 1827, though Casper separated from him soon afterwards.

In 1834 he opened a multi-storey cotton-weaving factory powered by waterwheels at Siebnen, importing 50 looms from Britain. He saw ways to improve the equipment and invented his own loom in 1841. He made several improvements, including increasing the speed of inserting thread. He expanded the Siebnen factory to begin manufacturing looms. However, as a result of civil war he moved the factory and its workforce to Rüti in 1847. He devised improvements to silk weaving equipment and also built other textile machinery, machine tools, steam engines and turbines. By 1870, he had sold 30,000 ‘Rüti’ looms to factories in many countries. (In 100 years of manufacturing, 400,00 were produced by the company.) He opened a succession of further weaving and spinning mills for cotton or wool at Einsiedein in 1848 and then at Kottern and Kempten in Bavaria, Nuolen, Wangen, Lachen, Thusis and Baldenstein. He also operated foundries to support his engineering works.

Honegger was drawn to liberal politics and first became mayor of Rüti at the age of 24. He was elected later to the Zürich Grand Council. He helped to promote the construction of the Glattal railway, which served his factory at Rüti. He set up a factory health insurance fund for workers in 1834, the first in Switzerland. He also supported the establishment of pension funds and the construction of workers’ housing, schools and churches.

Honegger contributing significantly to the mechanization of the Swiss textile industry as well as to the growth of mechanical engineering in the country. Examples of Rüti looms are in many museum collections worldwide.