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Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon GRUHL, Ernst Friedrich Born: fl.1803 Died: c.1852 Bell Founder The Gruhl Bell Foundry, situated in Kleinwelka in Bautzen in the former East Germany, was a family business that ran from 1803 until 1896 and made between 1 700 and 2 000 church bells. When Ernst Friedrich died, his wife married the foundry head, Theodor Werner, who guided the firm until 1882 and again from 1886 to 1896. In the interim, an uncle, Ernst Gruhl, took care of the business. Because of the family character of the business, all the bell makers in the foundry used the "Friedrich Gruhl" label. The links between Gruhl and South Africa are strong and the Gruhl name is a familiar one in the Moravian Church. The Moravian mission stations at Genadendal, Mamre and Enon each have a Gruhl bell. Furthermore, the St Martini Evangelical Lutheran Church in Cape Town has two Gruhl bells, dating from 1887. The Dutch Reformed Church Moederkerk in Stellenbosch initially had three Gruhl bells, dating as far back as 1864 (Extracted and edited from de Wet, Teugels and Deventer 2014 'Historic bells in Moravian Missions in South Africa's Western Cape' Historia accessed 2026 04 16 15:00 UTC +2).