Friedrich Bayer

Friedrich Bayer was a nineteenth century German merchant and dye manufacturer from Barmen, born Friedrich Beyer in 1825, who founded the firm that grew into the Bayer chemical and pharmaceutical group. By the age of twenty he was trading in natural dyes, and he built a distribution network that sold dyewoods to cities such as London, Brussels and Saint Petersburg. With his partner Johann Friedrich Weskott he began producing coal tar dyes from 1861, and their small fuchsine works was entered in the local commercial register on 1 August 1863 as Friedr Bayer et comp., with Bayer in charge of commercial management and Weskott of technical operations. The company later moved its headquarters to Elberfeld. At his death in 1880 it employed about 340 workers, and his son and sons-in-law carried it on.