Conrad Heinrich Schöffer

Conrad Heinrich Schöffer (* October 1815 in Gelnhausen ; † 13 August 1878 there ) was a coffee merchant.

origin

The parents, the cooper Johann Conrad Schöffer (1792-1840) and Susanna, b. Hayn, who came from both butcher families, married in 1814 and moved into the house at Langgasse 17 in Gelnhausen. In addition to Conrad Heinrich, they had children: Luise (1817–1886), Johann Georg (1821–1872), Katharina Elisabeth (1823–1841), Justus Friedrich (* 1827), Susanna Maria (1829–1893) and Ludwig Wilhelm (1831 -1904).

Heinrich's mother named October 3rd as his birthday, whereas October 10th is recorded in the birth register.

The mother's younger brother, Johann Georg Hayn (1789–1874) had learned in the Frankfurt colonial goods store "JH Hofmann junior" in the Grünen Linde , married into the family and made sure that his nephews also completed an apprenticeship there.

Life

In his four-year apprenticeship, Heinrich learned how to carry bales, barrels and money bags, customs clearance, in the third year the secrets of the invoice book and finally correspondence.

In 1835 Hoffman sent him to Rotterdam, Kreglinger & Co. for three years, establishing new trade connections on his travels to Poland and Switzerland. In March 1837 he married Dorothea Hoffmann, who was two years his junior and a daughter of his teacher, in Frankfurt.

The couple moved to Amsterdam, where on April 10, 1838 they founded the “Hofmann, Schöffer & Co.” branch. They later moved into a house on Keizersgracht. Julia (called Julie ) was born on January 28, 1839, Conrad Heinrich Schöffer junior on March 29, 1840, Georg Carl Valentin on June 11, 1841 and Emma Katharina Elisa on November 20, 1842. After that, Dorothea fell ill with typhus for months .

The coffee trade, on whose auctions the Dutch trading company had a monopoly, brought Holland high profits for a long time. After the crisis year of 1848, however, competition arose in London and Hamburg, and coffee was traded on the stock exchange. In October 1847 Schöffer was elected consul of the Free City of Frankfurt for Amsterdam.

His younger brother Ludwig Wilhelm, who followed suit and who he had briefly taken on in the business, moved on to London in 1854 after friction and opened his own coffee trading house W. Schöffer & Co in Rotterdam in 1855 . From 1865 Conrad Heinrich Schöffer moved back to Gelnhausen. He left the management of the trading house to his son Carl and Emma's husband Alexander Rehbock († 1914).

The Schöffer family owned the parcel of land in the west of Gelnhausen, "On the golden foot". From 1861 Heinrich bought the surrounding fields and vineyards and built a gardener's house. They were able to move into the newly built mansion in 1865. After the war in 1866, Prussia pushed the expansion of the railway construction and Schöffer pushed ahead with the connection to Gelnhausen. In 1871 he founded the sociable association.

After Frankfurt financiers made limitless funds available after 70/71 with unlimited willingness to take risks, he was able to establish the first coffee consortium with his brother and two other trading houses in Holland, which auctioned over half of the offer. After some resentment and boycott, he was able to liquidate his supplies in 1873 and get out again at a large profit. In 1874 he officially left the trading company "Hofmann, Schöffer & Co.", which was liquidated one year after the death of Frits Carl Rehbock's descendant (1908–1944).

With his son-in-law, the consul Carl Becker , he founded a "preservation and employment institution for children of pre-school age" in November 1873. From 1873 to 1878 Conrad Heinrich Schöffer was elected to the Prussian House of Representatives as a member of the district "Kassel 3: Schlüchtern, Gelnhausen with the Orb office". As a member of the state parliament for the national-liberals, he represented a bourgeois, business-oriented and national line. In Berlin he was involved in the renovation of the St. Catharine Church . He has not recovered from a severe cold that he caught while supervising the construction work in the winter of 1877/78. Schöffer did not live to see the solemn inauguration of the church on August 29, 1878.

Dorothea might have been infected, fell ill with tuberculosis and pneumonia the next spring, recovered and lived until January 4, 1893.

family

He married Dorothea Hoffmann (1818–1893) in Frankfurt in March 1837 . The couple had several children:

• Julia (Julie) (born January 28, 1839; † 1917) ∞ Carl Becker (1821–1897), banker and consul, parents of Minister Carl Heinrich Becker
• Conrad Heinrich Schöffer, junior (born March 29, 1840)
• Georg Carl Valentin (born June 11, 1841)
• Emma Katharina Elisa (born November 20, 1842; † 1930) ∞ Alexander Rehbock (1829–1914), parents of Theodor Rehbock

literature

• Kristina Michaelis, Ulf Morgenstern : The Gelnhausen upper middle-class families Becker and Schöffer ; 2013

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Heinrich Hofmann, the founder of the old Frankfurt coffee wholesaler: JH Hofmann junior; 1798-1928