Hermann Gruson was a descendant of a
Huguenot immigrant family, and son of Prime Minister Lieutenant Louis Abraham Gruson in Magdeburg citadel. He attended the , but then switched to the industrial and trade school, which he graduated in 1839, and did his military service as a one-year volunteer in a pioneer unit. He then attended the
University of Berlin, where he concentrated mainly on scientific and mathematical subjects and also attended lectures of his uncle
Johann Philipp Gruson. Gruson then worked for five years in the engineering works of
August Borsig, who was friends with his father, and learned machining. Borsig was able to place Gruson in a job with the
Berlin-Hamburg railway, which he held between 1843 and 1851. In November 1847, Gruson rescued a boy who was drowning, and was awarded a medal for saving his life. Then, beginning on February 1, 1851, he took a chief engineering position for Friedrich Wöhlert in Berlin for three years. In 1854, he was the first technical director of the
United Hamburg-Magdeburg Steamship Company. He founded on 1 June 1855 in
Buckau at Magdeburg the "Factory machinery and shipbuilding workshop H. Gruson Buckau-Magdeburg", located at the mouth of the
Elbe. The mainstay of his enterprise was the affiliated foundry. He improved the strength of
cast iron by mixing different types of
pig iron. As a result, chilled cast iron products from the Grusonwerken became a brand product. Gruson's improvements to cast iron products was an important development for mechanical engineering and railway construction in Germany, as many railway and car manufacturers exclusively purchased Gruson's hard cast wheels. In 1856, Gruson wrote for the inaugural meeting of the
Association of German Engineers (VDI) in Alexisbad. In 1859, his company went on strike. The conservative Gruson felt compelled in the face of a stronger labor movement to pursue a more social wage policy. Under his leadership, the company was subsequently never to strike again. He first carried out a successful deployment of the company's products at the
Magdeburg-Halberstadt Railway. After 1860, he received an increasing amount of defense contracts by the Prussian military. He accordingly expanded production capacity, whereupon more modern facilities were built in the Buckenauer Marienstraße in 1869–1871. At that time also, the Gruson company expanded in the Berggießhübeler iron ore mining area in
Saxony. The magnetic iron ore (
magnetite) in this region was of very high quality and had gained supra-regional reputation as "Pirnisch iron" in the 16th century. Gruson acquired the mine in 1870, "Mother of God united field including God with us and Friedrich Erbstolln" which he renamed after his daughter in "Marie Louise Stolln" and in the years to comprehensively modernized and expanded. However, the yield of the ore deposit fell short of expectations, so that the mining was in 1892 largely abandoned. An inscription above the entrance hole of the visitor mine "Marie Louise Stolln" commemorates to this day the former mine owners Hermann Gruson and his daughter Marie Louise. ==Fortification turrets==