Johann Beckmann

Johann Beckmann (1739–1811) was a German scientific author and coiner of the word technology, to mean the science of trades.

He was educated at Stade and the University of Göttingen, where he studied theology, mathematics, physics, natural history, and public finance and administration.

This office he relinquished in 1765, and travelled in Denmark and Sweden, during 1765–66, where he studied the methods of working the mines, factories and foundries as well as collections of art and natural history.

He therefore confined his attention to several practical arts and trades; and to these labors we owe his Beiträge zur Geschichte der Erfindungen (1780–1805), translated into English as the History of Inventions, discoveries and origins (1797, 4th ed 1846) a work in which he relates the origin, history and recent condition of the various machines, utensils, etc., employed in trade and for domestic purposes.

In 1772 Beckmann was elected a member of the Royal Society of Göttingen, and he contributed valuable scientific dissertations to its proceedings until 1783, when he withdrew from all further share in its work.

[4] Klemm states '[He] should be credited with being the first reliable historian of inventions' and so must be regarded as the father of the study of the History of Technology[citation needed] A Johann Beckmann Society was founded in 1987 at Hoya to celebrate his life and work.