He studied at the Freiberg University of Mining and Technology in Saxony, and on completing his curriculum traveled in Germany and France.

[1] Immediately after the revolution of 1848, Engel was attached to the royal commission in Saxony appointed to determine the relations between trade and labor.

Raised to the rank of Geheimer Regierungsrat, he retired in 1882 and lived henceforward in Serkowitz, today part of Radebeul near Dresden, where he died in 1896.

[2] Engel was a voluminous writer on the subjects with which his name is connected, but his statistical papers are mostly published in the periodicals which he himself established, namely, Preuss.

[1] Among his works were Die Methoden der Volkszählung ("Census methods," 1861), Die Volkszählungen, ihre Stellung zur Wissenschaft und ihre Aufgabe in der Geschichte ("Censuses, their place in science and role in history," 1862), Land und Leute des Preussischen Staates ("The Prussian land and people," 1863), and Das Zeitalter des Dampfes ("The era of steam," 1881).