Background
Johann Georg Repsold was born at Wremen in Hanover, Germany on September 23, 1771.
Johann Georg Repsold was born at Wremen in Hanover, Germany on September 23, 1771.
He received an honorary doctorate from Göttingen in 1911.
He became an engineer and afterwards chief of the fire brigade in Hamburg, where he started business as an instrument maker early in the 19th century. He was killed by the fall of a wall during a fire at Hamburg on the 14th of January 1830. The business was continued by his sons Repsold introduced essential improvements in the meridian circles by substituting microscopes (on Jesse Ramsden's plan) for the verniers to read the circles, and by making the various parts perfectly symmetrical. For a number of years the firm furnished meridian circles to the observatories at Hamburg, Konigsberg, Pulkova, etc. ; later on its activity declined, while Pistor and Martins of Berlin rose to eminence. But after the discontinuance of this firm that of Repsold again came to the front, not only in the construction of transit circles, but also of equatorial mountings and more especially of heliometers.
He was a member of Hamburg Geographical Society.
In 1799 he married Eleonore Scharf. They had 2 sons: Georg (1804 - 1884) and Adolf (1806 - 1871), and grandsons Johann Adolf and Oskar Philipp.