/ Reliable drive technology since 1892 /
We know our way around electric motors.
Founded in 1892, family business, managed by the fourth generation, around 285 employees, headquarters in Herford, second plant in Ivanec, Croatia.
Behind these sober facts lies a lively company history: it all began with power-generating machines for the electrification of the town of Herford. We also built and powered light railways, which were used, among other things, as tractors for trolleys in the brickworks. The step towards electromechanical drives for ringing bells was a small but revolutionary one. Already at that time, we were able to set new standards in church tower technology with innovative developments.
Since then, we have had two mainstays – we are the market-leading specialist in the field of special motors and at the same time experts in bell ringing and church tower technology. In both areas, we set standards in terms of development performance, quality and reliability.
/ Closely interwoven: Family and company /
On 1 October 1892, Friedrich Bokelmann (senior) founded the company ‘F.Bokelmann,
Ingenieur, Herford’. With the entry of Eduard Kuhlo just one year after
the company was renamed ‘H.E.W. Bokelmann & Kuhlo’.
Eduard was the son of a priest, which may explain the company’s further development towards bell ringing technology.
The first electromechanical ‘Model M’ ringing machine in 1896 was followed as early as 1903 by the invention of the electric motorised ringing machine followed in 1903 – a hit, as it turned out, because as early as 1908, the 4,000th machine was built. Since then, countless electric motorised
ringing machines have been installed worldwide and prove their reliability on a daily basis.
At the same time, HEW developed and produced electric motors for a wide range of applications beyond church tower technology, including for slurry pumps and threshing boxes in agriculture and for driving bellows in organs.
Even the Pope knows HEW.
In 1910, HEW began building electric locomotives, which were used, for example, in small railways for brickworks. In the same year, we electrified Cologne Cathedral. Then in 1931 HEW electrified the bell drive in St Peter’s Cathedral. At the time, Pope Pius XI thanked personally Friedrich Bokelmann (junior) for this achievement.
In the war year 1941, Friedrich Bokelmann (senior) and his son, Friedrich Bokelmann
(junior) died in the war. Marion Georgine, the wife of Friedrich Bokelmann
(junior) inherited the company, She commissioned external managing directors with the management of the company until Helmut Arzdorf, her second husband, took the fate of HEW into his own hands. The company continued to focus on electric motors
and bell ringing technology and successfully emerged from the turmoil of war. The growth required more space, so that in October 1960 the company moved into the new building at
the current location at Goebenstraße 106.
Successor sought and found.
In 1972, Helmut Arzdorf passed away at the age of 49. Marion Georgine Arzdorf, the grandmother of our current managing director Maximiliane Scheidt, was left to manage the company on her own again. The actual heir, her son Ronald Arzdorf,
fell ill with MS and was unable to take over the company. So she relied on until her second son, Raimund Bruno Arzdorf, took over the management of the company.
Together with his sister, Marion Arzdorf-Scheidt, he inherited the company and made it fit for the future. This included the outsourcing of the engine winding operations to the new site in
Ivanec / Croatia in 1995 and an expansion of the Croatian site in 2012.
Since 2014, Maximiliane Scheidt, the daughter of Marion Arzdorf-Scheidt, has been the sole
Managing Director of HEW in Herford.