Julius Rudolph starts his music shop in Gotha (Vogtland-Germany) in 1872. He dies in 1900 and the company,comprising the shop and a factory with several employees by now, is taken over by his son Gotthard. In 1911 the firm is producing wind and string instruments in a two-storey building in Gotha. All the parts for the instruments are made by the company itself. They start publishing music too and from 1920 onwards advertise with:

Erste Thüringer
Orchesterinstrumentenfabrik
mit elektrischem Kraftbetrieb
Julius Rudolph
Hofinstrumentenmacher Gotha

The great depression of the late twenties struck also this company. At the end of the crisis only 2 of the once 15 employees remained. But fate really took it's toll when in 1938 both Gotthard Rudolph and his son,who was to take over the company, were killed in a car crash. And yet, the company continues under the second son, again a Julius Rudolph. When he dies at the end of the Second World War, the management of the company comes into the hands of his widow and one of his employees, Raimund Thoma. From 1953 Thoma continues working independantly. The shop is taken over in 1977 by Johannes Keilwerth, one of the pupils of Thoma. One year later the building that housed the firm since 1891 is demolished and the history of the Hofinstrumenten Fabrik Julius Rudolph ends.
Since there has been no change in the name of the factory since its foundation it is difficult to say when this instrument has been made. Since the flute catalogues as a "Schwedler-Kruspe Reform" flute 1915 might be a good guess. The flute has several nice features: there is a F#-G trill and a F#-G# trill with the same finger (left first finger). There are also a lot of supplementary keys, which I have not tried yet!
Visit also Rick Wilson's Historical Flutes Page for 'everything you always wanted to know about simple system flutes'. This site has a section on Schwedler flutes

(thanks to W. van Hulst for additional information)