1815 births

John Melchior Bosco, SDB (Italian: Giovanni Melchiorre Bosco; Piedmontese: Gioann Melchior Bòsch; 16 August 1815 – 31 January 1888), popularly known as Don Bosco (IPA: [ˈdɔm ˈbɔsko, bo-]), was an Italian Catholic priest, educator and writer of the 19th century. While working in Turin, where the population suffered many of the ill effects of industrialization and urbanization, he dedicated his life to the betterment and education of street children, juvenile delinquents, and other disadvantaged youth. He developed teaching methods based on love rather than punishment, a method that became known as the Salesian Preventive System.A follower of the spirituality and philosophy of Francis de Sales, Bosco was an ardent devotee of the Virgin Mary under the title Mary Help of Christians. He later dedicated his works to de Sales when he founded the Salesians of Don Bosco, based in Turin. Together with Maria Domenica Mazzarello, he founded the Institute of the Daughters of Mary Help of Christians, now commonly known as the Salesian Sisters of Don Bosco, a religious congregation of nuns dedicated to the care and education of poor girls. He taught Dominic Savio, of whom he wrote a biography that helped the young boy be canonized. He is one of the pioneers of mutual aid societies that were initiated as collaborative financial support to young migrant Catholic workers in the city of Turin. In 1850, he drew up regulations to assist apprentices and their companions when any of them was involuntarily without work or fell ill.On 18 April 1869, one year after the construction of the Basilica of Mary Help of Christians in Turin, Bosco established the Association of Mary Help of Christians (ADMA) connecting it with commitments easily fulfilled by most common people, to the spirituality and the mission of the Salesian Congregation (CG 24 SDB, 1996, NR. 80). The ADMA was founded to promote the veneration of the Most Holy Sacrament and Mary Help of Christians (Don Bosco, Association of the Devotees of Mary Help of Christians, San Benigno Canavese, 1890, page 33).In 1875, Bosco began to publish the Salesian Bulletin. The Bulletin has remained in continuous publication, and is currently published in 50 different editions and 30 languages. In 1876, he founded a movement of laity, the Association of Salesian Cooperators, with the same educational mission to the poor. Bosco established a network of organizations and centres to carry on his work.
Bosco's sainthood cause was opened after his death, and following his beatification in 1929, he was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1934.

Gustave-Adolphe Hirn (21 August 1815 – 14 January 1890) was a French physicist, astronomer, mathematician, and engineer who made important measurements of the mechanical equivalent of heat and contributions to the early development of thermodynamics. He further applied his science in the practical development of steam engines.

Josephine Caroline Lang (14 March 1815 – 2 December 1880) was a German composer. Josephine Lang was the daughter of Theobald Lang, a violinist, and Regina Hitzelberger, opera singer. Her mother taught young Josephine how to play piano, and from age five it became apparent that Josephine was possessed with great potential as a composer. As early as age eleven Josephine started giving piano lessons herself. Through her godfather, Joseph Stieler, Josephine was exposed to some of the greatest artists of her time. Both Felix Mendelssohn and Ferdinand Hiller went to great lengths to ensure that Lang learned the proper theory for song-writing, and used their connections to publish Lang's music. Even Robert Schumann published a song of Josephine's in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1838.

Gottlob Christoph Jonathan Hoffmann (December 2, 1815 – December 8, 1885) was born in Leonberg in the Kingdom of Württemberg, Germany. His parents were Beate Baumann (1774-1852) and Gottlieb Wilhelm Hoffmann (1771-1846), who was chairman of the Unitas Fratrum congregation in Korntal. Gottlieb's theological thinking was inspired by reading the works of Johann Albrecht Bengel, whose studies had led him to the conclusion that Christ would return in 1836.Christoph Hoffmann had a Pietist-Christian background and enjoyed a Christian education with the Brethren congregation in Korntal. As a young man he studied theology in Tübingen. An opponent of the much better known liberal theologian David Friedrich Strauss, Hoffmann was elected to the First National German Parliament, which met in Frankfurt am Main in 1848.
The failure of his efforts to create a better Christian State through politics caused him to return to the roots of Christianity as expressed by Jesus. He became convinced that Jesus had called for a radical change of attitude in people. The better state of being after such a change of attitude he saw as the Kingdom of God which was to be established. To this end he applied for the position of a missionary inspector with the Protestant St. Chrischona Pilgrim Mission of Basel in 1853, but left the position after two years.Hoffmann dedicated his life to collecting people striving for such a "kingdom" and setting up communities in which their striving would express itself in daily life. Initially (1854) known as the Friends of Jerusalem, the group in June 1861 formed itself into an independent Christian religious organisation known as Deutscher Tempel, its members identified themselves as Templer. In 1868 the Templer started to create settlements in Palestine.
The Templer could buy in Jaffa some houses and land from failed colonists around George Adams, returning to the USA in 1869. On 5 March 1869 also Peter Martin Metzler, a missionary of St. Chrischona and personal acquaintance of Hoffmann from his times at the Pilgrims' Mission, sold his Jaffa-based mission station, including an infirmary and most of his real estate and other enterprises to the new colonists, before he left Jaffa.
While the Lutheran Evangelical State Church in Württemberg condemned and fought the Templer as apostates, the Prussian position was somewhat milder. Their settlement in the Holy Land found a warm support through Wilhelm Hoffmann (*1806-1873*), who was no apostate from the official church, like his younger brother Christoph. Wilhelm Hoffmann served as one of the royal Prussian court preachers at the Supreme Parish and Collegiate Church in Berlin and was a co-founder and first president of Jerusalem's Association (German: Jerusalemsverein), a charitable organisation founded on 2 December 1852 to support Samuel Gobat's effort as bishop of the Anglo-Prussian Bishopric of Jerusalem. Between 1866 and 1869 Wilhelm Hoffmann dispatched his son Carl Hoffmann (1836-1903) as pastor of the German Protestant congregation of Jerusalem.
Hoffmann fell out with the Temple Society's co-leader Georg David Hardegg (*1812-1879*), so that in June 1874 the Temple denomination underwent a schism with Hardegg and about a third of the Templer seceding from the Temple Society and later mostly returning to an official German Protestant church body. Hoffmann died in the Templer settlement Rephaim near Jerusalem on 8 December 1885.
Hoffmann's literary output focusses on his vision of a New Jerusalem, a community based Kingdom of God that would eventually spread over all the nations:

He initiated publication of the religious sentinel Die Süddeutsche Warte in 1845, which later became Die Warte des Tempels and under that name is still, 161 years later, published today as the official voice of the Temple Society.
In Occident and Orient, Part 1, 2 and 3 first published in 1875, he produced a blueprint for community based social conditions leading towards a kingdom of God in the Middle East
Mein Weg nach Jerusalem came out in 1884 and can be seen as an autobiography of his struggle to bring his vision to reality.
with five Sendschreiben produced over the years Hoffmann tried to face some of the religious and social difficulties arising at the time.

Carl Reinhold August Wunderlich (4 August 1815, Sulz am Neckar – 25 September 1877, Leipzig) was a German physician, pioneer psychiatrist, and medical professor. He is known for his measurement of mean normal human body temperature of 37 °C (98.6 °F), now known more accurately to be about 36.8 °C (98.2 °F).

Jean Adrien Philippe (April 16, 1815, La Bazoche-Gouet, Eure-et-Loir – January 5, 1894) was a French horologist and cofounder of watchmaker Patek Philippe & Co. of Geneva, Switzerland.In 1842, Adrien Philippe invented a mechanism for watches which allowed them to be wound and set by means of a crown rather than a key. His patented invention earned him a Bronze Medal at the French Industrial Exposition of 1844 (World's Fair). At the Exhibition, Adrien Philippe first met Antoni Patek and a year later became head watchmaker at Patek & Co. in Geneva under an agreement that entitled him to one third of all company profits.
Adrien Philippe proved to be very capable at his craft and a product innovator whose value to the firm was such that by 1851 he was made a full partner and the firm began operating as Patek Philippe & Co. In 1863 he published a book in Geneva and Paris on the workings of pocket watches titled Les montres sans clef.
In 1875, Adrien Philippe commissioned a watch that he later gave his daughter, Louise, as a wedding present, which is known as the only wristwatch dating back to be owned by either Patek or Philippe. This historical watch is known as “The Watchmaker’s Daughter” and was auctioned at Sotheby’s in 2023 by the descendants of Adrien Philippe. The watch was purchased most probably by the Patek Philippe Museum though this is not confirmed and may be owned by a private collector. The wedding between Louise and Joseph Antoine Bénassy-Philippe that the watch was presented at is noted as the wedding that saved Patek Philippe by providing the company a much needed successor to Antoni Patek for the company to survive the founding generation.
His partner Antoni Patek died in 1877 and in 1891 the 76-year-old Adrien Philippe handed over the day-to-day management of the business to his son Joseph Emile Philippe and Francois Antoine Conty.Jean Adrien Philippe died in 1894 and was buried in St-Georges Cemetery in Geneva.

Charles Victor Naudin (14 August 1815 in Autun – 19 March 1899 in Antibes) was a French naturalist and botanist.

Louis Pierre Gratiolet (French: [ɡʁasjɔlɛ]; 6 July 1815 – 16 February 1865) was a French anatomist and zoologist who was a native of Sainte-Foy-la-Grande, Gironde. He succeeded Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1805-1861) as professor of zoology to the Faculty of Sciences at the University of Paris.
Gratiolet is remembered for his work in neuroanatomy, physiognomy and physical anthropology. He did extensive research in the field of comparative anatomy, and performed important studies regarding the differences and similarities between human and various primate brains. He is also credited for introducing the demarcation of the brain's cortical surface into five lobes, (frontal lobe, temporal lobe, parietal lobe, occipital lobe and insular cortex).
With Paul Broca (1824-1880) he performed correlative studies of aphasia and the frontal lobe. Gratiolet was a vocal critic of Broca regarding the latter's belief that a larger brain equated to higher intelligence.

Jean Baptiste Prosper Bressant (24 October 1815 – 23 January 1886) was a French actor born in Chalon-sur-Saône, Saône-et-Loire, in 1815. In 1838, he went to the French theatre at St. Petersburg, where for eight years he played important parts with ever-increasing reputation. His success was confirmed at the Gymnase when he returned to Paris in 1846, and he made his debut at the Comédie Française as a full-fledged sociétaire in 1854.From playing the ardent young lover, he turned to leading roles both in modern plays and in the classical repertoire. His Richelieu in Mlle de Belle-Isle, his Octave in Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de Marianne, and his appearance in de Musset's Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée and Un caprice were followed by Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Don Juan. Bressant retired in 1875, and died on 23 January 1886. During his professorship at the Conservatoire, Jean Mounet-Sully was one of his pupils.He introduced a new hairstyle; a magazine of the period described it as follows: "The Bressant hairstyle is this: the hair is left long on both sides and raised, a little bouffant, above the ears; on the top of the head it is cut short, no part, neither to right, nor to the left."

Germain Sommeiller (February 15, 1815, Saint-Jeoire – July 11, 1871) was an Italian civil engineer from Savoy. He directed the construction of the Fréjus Rail Tunnel between France and Italy, also known as the Mont Cenis Tunnel. This was the first of a series of major tunnels built in the late 19th century to connect northern and southern Europe through the Alps. Sommeiller pioneered the use of pneumatic drilling and dynamite to achieve record-breaking excavation speeds. This 12.8-km tunnel was completed on December 26, 1870, 11 years ahead of schedule. It remained the longest tunnel in the world until the opening of the Gotthard Rail Tunnel in 1882.