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PAROW : S AFRICA 1??? C chime City Hall Tower FULDA : GERMANY 1897 F peal Dom zu Fulda (Cathedral) DENVER - STJ : USA - CO 1905 C chime/great Cathedral of St.John in the Wilderness (Episcopal) FULDA : GERMANY 1908 E peal Dom zu Fulda (Cathedral) Cazadero : USA - CA 1988 - great Odiyan Buddhist Retreat Center Köln (Cologne) : Germany 2005 - great "Johannes Paul II" Katholische Pfarrgemeinde St Aposteln cast by Hans-Göran Hüesker DITZINGEN : GERMANY 2011 C non-trad Geschäftshaus
Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock GmbH&Co.KG Hauptstrasse 5 48712 Gescher Westfalen, Germany Tel: 02542 / 9333-0 Fax: 02542 / 9333-12 E: info@petit-edelbrock.deThe full name of the foundry is Glocken- und Kunstgiesserei Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock. The words "Glocken- und Kunstgiesserei" can be translated "Bell- and Art-Foundry". "Gebr." is an abbreviation for "Gebrüder", which means "brothers."
The foundry Website (in German) provides extensive information on their history and current operations. Although they have made a few chimes, their principal production has been swinging bells, often in peals of three to six bells, but sometimes as many as ten.
The Wikimedia Commons category for the foundry has 16 photos of bell casting and other operations at the foundry, plus a sub-category with photos of bells and inscriptions.
The German Wikipedia article about the foundry recounts its history, and has a list of notable bells, beginning in 1764.
Members of the Petit family were casting bells from 1690 in Germany and the Netherlands. The first part of the foundry name refers to four generations under the name Petit, the last of whom was Alexius Petit the Younger (1765-1842), whose two brothers began the Petit & Fritsen bellfoundry in Aarle-Rixtel, Netherlands. The present foundry was established in Gescher in 1787. Having no sons, Alexius took into partnership two of his nephews, Joseph and Wilhelm Edelbrock. The brothers Edelbrock and their descendants were involved with the foundry from 1823 to 1912, taking the name Petit & Gebr. Edelbrock in 1842 following the death of Alexius Petit.
After the death of the last Edelbrock, two generations later, the foundry passed in 1912 into the hands of the Hüesker family, who operated it for three generations. After Hans Hüesker's death in 1979, his wife Florence Hüesker took over the company. She had been involved in it since their marriage in 1959. In 1988 she cast the 13,000 kg bell listed above, which was then the heaviest ever made in Germany since before the Second World War. In 1995, after the death of Florence Hüesker, the foundry was handed over to the son Hans-Göran Hüesker, under whose leadership computer-controlled burning processes were introduced. Hans-Göran Hüesker died on August 17, 2019 at the age of 58.
In 2010, the company went through bankruptcy, which ended in 2012. Management was under Rainer Esser from 2012 to 2016, then under Andreas Hahner in 2016-2017. Dirk Hüttemann took over in 2018. The company now has 26 employees.
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