The March night was slowly turning into morning. The sky was already shimmering, but darkness still dominated the road. The Tammerkoski lake murmured in the silence of the night, and the red-brick Finlayson factory building next to it still seemed quiet.
People had gathered in one of the factory's weaving halls. Despite the early morning, everyone seemed to be alert and awake. The atmosphere was tense and expectant. Attention was focused on a man in his thirties who seemed to have his hands full with work. Then something amazing happened.
In the darkness of March, the dark weaving room began to bathe in light. The light came from one hundred and fifty light bulbs, lit for the first time in the Nordic countries. Applause and enthusiastic exclamations filled the weaving hall. One of those present smiled with particular satisfaction. He was Carl Samuel von Nottbeck, the Finnish engineer whose electrical design had made it possible for natural light to illuminate our country.
Carl Samuel von Nottbeck was no ordinary electrician. He was born in Finland in 1848, but the world quickly became familiar to him. He earned his university degree in Tartu, then went on to Switzerland. The doors of the Zurich University of Technology opened for the talented young man, and he soon graduated with a certificate in mechanical engineering in his pocket.
The world was open, and life led Carl to the United States in the late 1870s. At the same time, a gentleman a year older than him, Thomas Edison, was working there. Edison had made a breakthrough on the great issue of the day, the light bulb: the bulb he made lasted for 1200 hours. Everything seemed to be in place for the spread of lighting on a wider scale. Coincidence or not, it was around this time that a young Finnish engineer, Carl Samuel von Nottbeck, enrolled in Edison's factory. Work could now begin for him.
Some years later, Carl returned to Finland, richer in experience. He had been right at the heart of seeing and learning about one of the greatest technological breakthroughs of the time: the invention of electric light. It was time to put experience and learning into practice.
In 1881, on 15 March, there was a sense of celebration at the Finlayson factory in Tampere. The first electric lighting in the Nordic countries had been successfully introduced, made possible by engineers Carl Samuel von Nottbeck and Istvan von Fodor from Hungary. In the weaving room, 150 light bulbs flickered on, powered by two 110-volt DC dynamos. Things now started to move forward rapidly: within a year, the whole factory was lit up and its own substation had been built.
The whole Nottbeck family was a major player in Tampere. Carl's brother Wilhelm was the manager of the Finlayson factory. They built a church, a school, an orphanage and a retirement home on the site. These were important social reforms for a working-class town. Carl later worked in St Petersburg as a representative of the Edison factory until he moved to Paris. France became his home for the rest of his life, and he passed away in November 1904.
Although the age of the light bulb is over, Carl Samuel von Nottbeck's life's work was decisive. Bringing new things to society and technology has always required courage and open-mindedness. His work can serve as an example to us all today. Progress does not stand still, but it takes courageous people to make it happen.
