Lilpop, Rau and Loewestein

of Warsaw, Poland.

The important engineering firm had its origins in the firm Bracia Evans (Evans Brothers Company) in Warsaw where, in 1816 (1818?), Thomas Moore Evans had established an ironware warehouse.

Between the 1860s and World War II the company was the largest Polish producer of machinery, cars, lorries and railway equipment. The range of products produced by Lilpop included iron and steel, munitions, locomotives and rolling stock, trams, rails, automotive engines, licence-built vehicles (GM and Opel), steam turbines, electric equipment, pumps, agricultural machinery and many other types of machinery.

The Wikipedia entry provides a great deal of information on the company and its products. Information from some other sources is summarised below.

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The following information is largely condensed from here

1820 Evans leased the Reiski metal factory in Drzewica, near Opoczno.

1822 Evans, together with Joseph Morris, founded a small foundry.

1823 Thomas's brother Andrew Birch Evans (1795-1841) joined the company.

1824 J. Morris left the company. The factory subsequently operated as "Bracia Evans".

After Thomas's death in 1837, two other brothers joined the company: Alfred (1802-70) and Douglas (1808-66). Note: Other (or alternative) Evans names appear in connection with the firm. See below.

In 1842, the plants in Drzewica, significantly expanded by Messrs Evans, became the property of the company.

The company prospered until the outbreak of the Crimean War in 1854, when all British citizens, including Alfred and Douglas Evans, had to leave the Russian Empire and its dependencies. Shortly before their departure in 1855 the Evans brothers invited two people to join the company: Wilhelm Rau and Stanisław Lilpop, managers of the Government Machine Factory in Solec. Lilpop, a son of a watchmaker who had moved to Warsaw from Styria in the late 18th century, graduated from the Warsaw Piarist School in 1833 and joined the Evans Brothers company as a trainee.

By 1866 Lilpop and Rau bought remaining shares of the Evans Brothers firm and renamed it to "Lilpop i Rau"

In 1868, after the death of S. Lilpop in 1866, L. Loewenstein joins the company, who probably contributed the funds necessary to buy the Solec plant, thanks to which the company "Lilpop, Rau and Loewestein" came into the possession of two dynamically operating industrial plants in Warsaw.

Since 1872, both factories operated under the name of Akcyjne Zakłady Mechaniczne Lilpop Rau and Loewenstein, and since 1873 as the Industrial Society of Zakłady Mechaniczne Lilpop, Rau and Loewenstein Spółka Akcyjna.

In the following years, production from the former "Bracia Evans" factory was gradually transferred to the Solec plant. The plants on Świętojerska Street were finally closed in 1881.

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Much more information on the partners [Tomasza Moore Evansa, Jozefa Morrisa and Andrzeja Birch Evansa in Polish], the Evans business in a broader context, and indeed wider aspects of British involvement in Poland, may be found here (large pdf). This source gives a date of 1822 for the foundation of the Evans businessm and describes Thomas Moore Evans (1794-1837) as a Birmingham merchant present in Poland since 1815, Evans made a modest start by running a shop in Warsaw selling a wide range of British goods, from luxury items to agricultural implements and articles of everyday use. The success of this venture led him to consider producing such goods on the spot with the help of Joseph Morris, a British foundry worker resident in the city. In 1822 Evans took this idea to Staszic, who granted him free use of redundant church buildings in Warsaw's New Town. 'Evans' exploitation of his monopoly position, involving profit margins of up to 400 % on certain items, incurred the wrath of Prince Lubecki, who wrote scathingly of 'English rapacity'. .... Prince Lubecki 'decided to use government funds to construct a larger version of the Evans factory to produce equipment for the state sector. This led to the second major initiative in machine construction, the factory at Solec in Warsaw, founded in 1826 with the aid of Scottish engineer William Preacher, poached from the Evans plant.'

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The following information is condensed from here

In 1818 Thomas Evans and Joseph Morris, with the participation of a Polish engineer, Lesser, founded an iron and non-ferrous metal foundry in Warsaw. Morris left in 1824, and the name was changed to the Fabryka machin rolniczych Bracia Evans (Factory of agricultural machines, Evans Brothers). In 1854, 60% of the shares were bought by the Polish industrialist and constructor Stanisław Lilpop and the German Wilhelm Ellis Rau. After Stanisław's death (15 October 1866), his wife Joanna sat on the company's governing bodies. She was the first and only woman in the governing bodies of a joint-stock company in the Kingdom of Poland. Two years later Belgian industrialist Baron Seweryn Loewenstein joined the company. In 1873 the name Lilpop, Rau and Loewestein was adopted. Stanisław was succeeded by his son Karol.

From the 1920s, the factory produced small industrial petrol engines.

After the occupation of Warsaw, in January 1940, the Germans incorporated the factory into the "Herman Goering Werke", and production was resumed under the occupation authorities. In August 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the Germans removed all equipment and documents to the Reich. After the end of the fighting in Warsaw, German forces destroyed the factory buildings.

See Also

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