"Fusa sum arow" - "cast in Aarau"

The bell foundry trade has been carried out in Aarau for almost 700 years. "Fusa sum arow" - "cast in Aarau" says the inscription on a bell in Hilterfingen that was cast in the 14th century. The label on the "Barbara" bell, which still rings in the cathedral of Fribourg, declares its year of origin as 1367 and its Aarau foreman, Walter Reber.

The Reber family, the first authenticated founder family, were renowned as bell and gun founders both at home and abroad, as verified by an entry in the "Augsburger Chronicles". Bells cast by Walter's son Johann also still exist today and are partially still in use.

Other founder families, all of whom cannot be mentioned here, succeeded the Rebers in the middle of the 15th century. According the records of the Aarau town council, a smelting-works was built by the bell founder Hans-Jakob Stalder at "Am Rain", which is where the Aarau bell foundry still stands today.

At the beginning of the 19th century, Johann-Heinrich Bär sold the foundry to his co-workers Jakob and Sebastian Rüetschi. The combination of bell and canon casting, which had existed since the middle ages, came to an end with Emanuel Rüetschi's last delivery in the year 1873, due to the introduction of Krupp steel guns. 

The last of the founder family Rüetschi died in 1917. They had run the business, rich in tradition, for nearly a century - almost as long as the Reber family had at the beginning of the Aarau bell foundry trade. In 1920 the bell foundry was converted to a joint-stock company, the H. Rüetschi AG.

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Bell Foundry