Burmeister & Wain
| Industry | Manufacturing, marine engineering |
|---|---|
| Fate | Acquired |
| Predecessor | Baumgarten & Burmeister (B&B) |
| Successor | MAN B&W Diesel |
| Founded | 1865 |
| Founder | Hans Heinrich Baumgarten, Carl Christian Burmeister, William Wain |
| Defunct | 1980 |
| Headquarters | Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Products | diesel engine |
Burmeister & Wain was a large established Danish shipyard and leading diesel engine producer headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded by two Danes and an Englishman, its earliest roots stretch back to 1846. Over its 150-year history, it grew successfully into a strong company through the end of the 1960s. In the 1970s, global competitive pressures, particularly from the far east, began to take their toll. In 1980, B&W became MAN B&W Diesel A/S, part of MAN B&W Diesel Group, a subsidiary of the German corporation MAN AG, with operations worldwide. The company still maintains operations at three main sites in Denmark for manufacturing, servicing, and licensing of its two-stroke engines and complete propulsion systems.
Hans Heinrich Baumgarten (1806–1875) was from the town of Halstenbek near Pinneberg, in Schleswig-Holstein, an area of Germany that was then part of Denmark. He was apprenticed as a coffin maker by a farmer whose livestock he cared for. Later he was a carpenter before becoming a machine minder at the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende, whose printing office he later worked for in Berlin.
After trying to start a business with different partners, while in Berlin he was allowed an audience, on the subject of establishing a business in Copenhagen, with Crown Prince Christian of Denmark who was visiting. Shortly thereafter, in 1843 he was granted a Danish Royal Charter and what would later become Burmeister & Wain was launched with the opening of a mechanical workshop in Copenhagen.
Carl Christian Burmeister (1821–1898) was born into poverty. The son of a cook and restaurant keeper, he studied at the Polytechnical Institute in Copenhagen from 1836–1846, now the Technical University of Denmark. He had been awarded a scholarship abroad after recommendation following an assistantship to Hans Christian Ørsted who was director there at the time. Burmeister joined the H.H. Baumgarten Company in 1846, which became a partnership with the opening of its engineering works, and was renamed B&B.
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