Tomb of Augustin Jindřich Beer in Příbram

1815–1879 

Augustin J. Beer (1815–1879) was born in Příbram and was a mining engineering scientist, pedagogue and mining prospector. His work affected the whole region of Kladno, where he led the coal deposits prospections and also the Příbram region where he later worked not only for the mining office, but also as one of the main pedagogues of the mining vocational school (promoted to Mining Academy in 1865). Here he had written many textbooks and study materials and in the 1875–1878 period he was the headmaster of the Mining Academy.

 

Augustin Beer was born at the time of the emerging industrial revolution that brought the opening of coal and ore mines. He went to the high school in Prague`s Malá Strana in 1836 at the time when Josef Jungmann and other Czech national revivalists worked there. As student Beer attempted to write literary work in the Czech language. A scrapbook with his poems has survived, they are puns and paraphrases of folk art with mining topics (“Miners what you be a-doing/This here earth why you`re a-digging?”). Beer successfully graduated from the mining academy in Báňské Štiavnica (Slovakia) and was awarded a two-year scholarship to tour important European mines and metallurgy enterprises where he was to make contacts, collect knowledge, follow new developments, etc. The preserved diary of his journey, together with the reports he had to send to Vienna, are now valuable historical documents charting innovations in mining and industry. Beer was very precise and thorough in his diaries, and he also mentions many of the social aspects of life. He also reports on his visits to Jan Evangelista Purkyně in Wroclaw, with whom he was good friends. Immediately upon his return from his travels (1842) he was put in charge of all prospecting and mining works on all newly opened shafts in Central Bohemia. These would go on to become centres of the coal and metallurgy (Radnice region, Kladno region and Příbram region). The development of the whole area depended on coal. It must be said that these were the early days of the scientific knowledge of prospecting work that Beer could rely on. The influence of Augustin Beer on the development of the field key to the monarchy`s industry was crucial. He was an associate and friend of the mining officer Johann Grimm. He worked both for the mining office and for the newly founded mining school in Příbram, where he taught both theoretical and practical subjects. He trained several hundred students and influenced a whole generation of future mining engineers with his comprehensive approach, but also with his humane example and warm relationship to his surroundings.

 

References

Majer, J.: Z dějin Vysoké školy báňské v Příbrami. Sympozium hornická Příbram ve vědě technice. 1984, s. 151–252.

MZ

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