Benjamin Metzler

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Benjamin Metzler (born January 14, 1650 in Cranzahl ; † March 30, 1686 in Frankfurt am Main ) was a cloth merchant and founder of the B. Metzler seel banking house. Sohn & Co. KGaA . Benjamin Metzler comes from an old Saxon pastor's family.

Beginning

Metzler moved to Nuremberg in 1663 at the age of 13 to complete a commercial apprenticeship in a trading company. He stayed there for eight years and moved to Frankfurt am Main in 1671. Benjamin Metzler initially worked as an accountant in a well-known cloth shop before setting up his own business in 1674.

Several of his brothers followed him to Frankfurt, where they worked for foreign trading houses and also founded their own companies. A younger brother of Benjamin, August Metzler (born September 12, 1654), went to Stuttgart and founded the JB Metzler'sche Verlagbuchhandlung in 1682 .

trade

Benjamin Metzler mainly traded in linen and woolen fabrics, but also in yarn , wool and flax as well as clothing .

His trade relations reached from Saxony to Strasbourg , from Basel to Wesel .

In 1674, on April 27th, he married Katharina Voss, the daughter of a successful businessman . The marriage produced five children, of which twins died in childhood. He acquired the citizenship of the city of Frankfurt in 1676.

After his untimely death in 1686, Benjamin Metzler left the company he founded, successfully established and flourishing to his wife and three underage children.

At first his wife took over the management together with the Frankfurt "merchant and specialty dealer" Johann Zwirlein, whom she married in 1687. The business was later continued by the eldest son Johann Jeremias Metzler (1677–1743), from whose twelve children the line led via Wilhelm Peter Metzler (1711–1762) to the founder of the bank in the narrower sense, Friedrich Metzler (1749–1825).

The cloth shop founded by Benjamin Metzler has been family-owned since it was founded and has developed over 11 generations into today's Metzler bank.

literature

  • Karl Kiefer (ed.): Frankfurter Blätter for Family Stories 5 (1912), Frankfurt am Main, pp. 136-137.
personal data
SURNAME Metzler, Benjamin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cloth merchant and founder of the Metzler bank
DATE OF BIRTH January 14, 1650
PLACE OF BIRTH Cranzahl , Electorate of Saxony
DATE OF DEATH March 30, 1686
Place of death Frankfurt am Main