Johann Jacob Schweppe
Encyclopedia
Johann Jacob Schweppe was a German-born naturalised Swiss watchmaker and amateur scientist who developed the first practical process to manufacture carbonated mineral water, based on a process discovered by Joseph Priestley in 1770.
Schweppe was born in Hesse
(Witzenhausen
). He moved to Geneva
in 1765 to work as a watchmaker and jeweler. He founded the Schweppes Company in Geneva in 1783. The addition of carbon dioxide was considered, at the time, to have medicinal properties. In 1792 he moved to London to develop the business there, but it was not successful and failed in 1795. However Erasmus Darwin
, the grandfather of Charles Darwin
, started talking up the beverage, which started to become popular. Schweppe returned to Geneva in 1821. In 1831, King William IV of England adopted the beverage which could then use the famous "by appointment of". It subsequently became very popular.
Schweppe was born in Hesse
Hesse
Hesse or Hessia is both a cultural region of Germany and the name of an individual German state.* The cultural region of Hesse includes both the State of Hesse and the area known as Rhenish Hesse in the neighbouring Rhineland-Palatinate state...
(Witzenhausen
Witzenhausen
Witzenhausen is a small town in the Werra-Meißner-Kreis in northeastern Hesse, Germany.It was granted town rights in 1225, and until 1974, it was a district seat....
). He moved to Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
in 1765 to work as a watchmaker and jeweler. He founded the Schweppes Company in Geneva in 1783. The addition of carbon dioxide was considered, at the time, to have medicinal properties. In 1792 he moved to London to develop the business there, but it was not successful and failed in 1795. However Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin
Erasmus Darwin was an English physician who turned down George III's invitation to be a physician to the King. One of the key thinkers of the Midlands Enlightenment, he was also a natural philosopher, physiologist, slave trade abolitionist,inventor and poet...
, the grandfather of Charles Darwin
Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin FRS was an English naturalist. He established that all species of life have descended over time from common ancestry, and proposed the scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection.He published his theory...
, started talking up the beverage, which started to become popular. Schweppe returned to Geneva in 1821. In 1831, King William IV of England adopted the beverage which could then use the famous "by appointment of". It subsequently became very popular.