Water, our most important food stuff, harbours many dangers resulting from contamination by micro-organisms. Scientists began to investigate methods of combating especially dangerous water bacteria more than 130 years ago.
Charles F. Wallace and Martin F. Tiernan discovered in New York in the early 1920's that chlorine offered the best possibility of killing this bacteria and disinfecting the water supply. Shortly afterwards they developed and built the world's first chlorine feeder system, the Chlorinator.
This invention was made at a favourable moment, because at the same time a polluted river contaminated the water supply system of Jersey City. The first Chlorinator found its successful application!
After some initial problems the unit was improved and that is how the world's first automatic chlorine gas feeder, run on six torch batteries, came into being.
As
early as in 1926 Wallace & Tiernan founded their first daughter company, starting
in Europe, in the City of London. The offices of Wallace & Tiernan were appropriately
located in Water Lane!
Three years later, in 1929, a subsidiary was founded in Berlin which saw the start of Wallace & Tiernan's history in Germany.
Wallace & Tiernan rapidly developed to be a successful global company which became synonymous with gaseous chlorination.
As a result of several mergers and acquisitions the Wallace & Tiernan® brand is now part of the product offering of Siemens Water Technologies, the water business of Siemens, one of the world's largest electrical, automation and process technology companies.
The company has manufacturing centres in Gemany, Mexico, UK and the USA with business and distribution centres in Australia, Brazil, China, Canada, France and Singapore as well as manufacturer's agents and representatives in virtually every corner of the world.
The division “Water Technologies” is part of Siemens' Industrial Solutions and Services Group (I&S) which is a system and solution provider for industrial and infrastructure facilities and global service provider for the plant and projects business covering planning, installation, operation and the entire life cycle. In fiscal 2006 (to September 30), I&S employed a total of 36,200 people worldwide and achieved total sales of EUR 8.819 billion. Visit company website at www.siemens.com/water.