HARDTMUTH, Joseph

As the fourth of eight children of Anton H., master carpenter, H. grew up in a simple environment. Despite the lack of school education, on the basis of his talent for drawing, interest in experimenting and his ingenuity, he managed to create a career that would lead him to become a great industrialist.
After being trained as a carpenter, he followed his master, maternal uncle to Vienna where he entered the service of Prince Alois Liechtenstein. After his uncle’s death he became a master mason and construction manager for the Prince of Liechtenstein. Among other things he constructed the façade of today demolished Liechtenstein palace at Herrengasse in Vienna.
Experiments with clay lead him to the priceless „Vienna porcelain“ for which he received the privilege in 1798. After establishing a ceramics factory in Vienna in 1790, H. dealt with further experiments, which led to its most important invention, i.e. pencil leads as we know them today.
Unlike pure graphite rods, used at that time or rods containing a mixture of graphite and sulfur or graphite and antimony, H. used a mixture of clay and powdered graphite. He pushed the dark paste of clay and graphite through the cylindrical mold then cut off piece of the paste to the desired length and dried it. H. realized that the different ratio of mixing graphite and clay could make different hardness of the pencil leads. The advantages of this new procedure were the same hardness of lead in one pencil and the lower price by more than ninety per cent in comparison with pencil leads imported from England, as he used graphite pieces from Czech Republic and was thus not dependent on expensive English graphite.
After receiving the privilege for the mass construction of such pencils in 1804, the product based on quality and affordability was a true sales hit in his home country and abroad. Twenty-five years later, in 1829 the factory produced more than two million pencils per year, while H. himself would not witness this success.
After his death the factory was led by his widow and his two sons Ludwig H. (1800 -1861) and Carl H. (1804 - 1881, elevated in 1873), but was in 1874 moved to České Budějovice. His uncle, Franz v. H. (1832-1896) continued his work and in 1889 invented the famous drawing pencil „Koh-i-Noor“ which had 17 different degrees of hardness.
H. in 1793 married Elisabeth born Kissler, Mon Marchand’s widow, who lived from 1762 to 1828. H. would receive further privileges in 1808, namely for the manufacture of ink and in 1810 for a flexible blackboard (made of smooth, thin sheets of black or dark grey slate stone), for artistic pumice and the Neapolitan yellow colour.

*He was baptized on 13 2.1758. The year of birth 1752, which is published in a number of biographies is based on an error. In 1752 his older brother Joseph was born, who had already died in 1754 and his name was transferred to six years younger H., which repeatedly gave rise to confusion.