MISTRESS OF MILLIONS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 210, 9 October 1914, Page 4

MISTRESS OF MILLIONS.

<'a - ROMANCE OF KRUPP WAR FACTORY. Bertha Krupp, mistress of the world's greatest war-factory, is the world's richest woman. Her income, prior to the outbreak of war, was estimated at one and a half millions sterling. When Freidrieh Krupp leaving no son to carry on the management of this vast business, he directed in his will that the property should pass into the possession of his eldest daughter, Bertha, to be managed as a joint stock company by a board of six in number, and it was thus that Bertha Krupp became the world's greatest heiress. In 1906 Fraulein Krupp married, and her husband, who also assumed the name of Krupp, became president of the board. The story of the growth, of this gigantic enterprise is interesting. The original little Krupp workshop is still preserved at Essen, where, 104 years ago, Freidrieh Krupp, great-gfanjlfather of Bertha Krupp, tried to make cast steel, the secret of which was guarded in England. His experiments at first were a failure. Persevering, however, he managed to produce an inferior quality of cast steel, but found that the demand was not sufficient to keep ithe works going. Freidrieh Krupp died in 1826, a disappointed man, but before he died .he confided to his fourteen-year-old son, Alfred, the secret of making cast steel. The boy left school and worked at the crucibles, and the attention of the world was first drawn to his work at the great Exhibition of 1851, when he showed a huge cast steel ingot and a 6-pounder cannon of east steel. This secured fame, and in 1861 Prussia adopted Krupp's breech-loading cannon-guns, which were largely used in the Franco-Prus-sian war of 1870. -

But although it was Alfred Krupp who thus laid the foundation of this great firm, it was his son Freidrieh who developed it on modern lines, and who extended it until it became the world's greatest war-factory. Some idea of the manner in which he developed the works may be gathered from the fact that during his management the number of men employed rose from about 20,000 to 47,000 in 1901, a year before he died. The works to-day employ something like 70,000 people. It is somewhat difficult to estimate their extent, for apart from the steel works and coal mines at Essen, there are iron ore mines, foundries, shipbuilding yards, and steel works in other parts of Germany. Little did Freidrieh Krupp dream, when telling his son the secret of making cast steel, that his little forge would grow into the giant works of to-day; still less did he dream that this great enterprise, which has a share capital of nine millions sterling, would come under the control of one woman 1