Ernst Dreyer

Ernst Dreyer (born January 1, 1816 in Altona , † November 22, 1899 in Herischdorf , district of Hirschberg in the Giant Mountains ) was a German shipbuilder and shipowner.

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Ernst Dreyer was the son of the ship owner and coal importer Joachim Christian Daniel Dreyer and his wife Anna Margaretha Dorothea, née Brügmann (1788–1862). The family lived at Palmaille 53, where Dreyer grew up. He completed an apprenticeship as a shipbuilder at the Wieckhorst shipyard in Blankenese . From 1833 to 1836 he trained at the Royal Shipyard in Copenhagen . Then he traveled to America.

On March 5, 1840, Dreyer bought a citizenship letter in his hometown of Altona. In the same year he acquired the shipyard from Johann Benk (Jean Behnk) on Neuhof . Since he had neither a journeyman nor a master craftsman certificate, starting his own business was difficult. Count Conrad Daniel von Blücher-Altona provided him with the missing documents on October 14, 1842. In 1844, Dreyer bought another shipyard from Johann Benk, which was located at 36 Grosse Elbstrasse.

Dreyer wanted to enlarge the acquired shipyard in Altona, for which he would have needed 200,000 marks. Since he could not raise the funds, he sold the company for 120,000 marks. Then he concentrated on his company in Neuhof. Here he built over 100 ships for merchants from Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein. He did not receive a permit for his plan, which he cherished between 1840 and 1850, to be the first entrepreneur in the Hanseatic city to build a dry dock for repairs and cleaning.

Together with the Hamburgers EB Crasemann and August Bolten as well as W. Pollitz, who in Vera Cruz the company Stürcken & Pollitz Succs. owned, Dreyer founded the Hamburg-Vera Cruz-Paketfahrt Gesellschaft in 1857 (existed until 1894). When he later left Hamburg, he resigned from the company.

In 1846 Dreyer took over the post of head of the poor. In 1849 he got a dismissal license as inspector of the warships that were built in the duchies. From 1854 he was co-director of the Altona Sunday School. In 1855 he joined the Altona deportee college. He also co-founded the Altona Museum . In 1867/68 he was involved as a lay judge and from 1868 to 1876 as a juror at the district jury. Dreyer was friends with the Altona physician Gustav Ross , with whom he founded the seaside resort of Westerland on Sylt around 1855/58 and supported it financially.

Dreyer bought large areas of land from slopes on Elbchaussee 159. He had a park laid out on it, which was called "Dreyers-Lust". When his son Bernhard died in November 1879 at the age of four, his second wife apparently felt uncomfortable and lonely in the family's spacious residence. Dreyer then put down all social engagement and moved with the family to Liegnitz in 1885 and to Herischdorf a year later . In 1888/89 he sold his property on Elbchaussee to the Hamburg merchant Johannes Christian Ferdinand Hansen. He sold the western section of the garden with the stables on it to Richard Henry von Donner, the younger brother and partner of Conrad Hinrich von Donner .

Ernst Dreyer died in November 1899 in his apartment in Herischdorf (Silesia) and was buried in Bad Warmbrunn .

family

Dreyer married on November 19, 1845 in the main church in Altona , his first marriage was Julie Jensen (born September 30, 1822 in Altona, baptized on March 23 of the same year), who died on July 20, 1865. His second marriage was on July 15, 1873 in Gembitz (Posen) Ulrike Henriette Cäcilie, née Ripke, widowed Roll (* March 6, 1839 in Posen ; † July 27, 1907 in Schmiedeberg ).

The first marriage resulted in four sons and five daughters. The son Christian Carl Adalbert (born September 24, 1850 in Ottensen , † November 20, 1896 in Neuhof am Reiherstieg ) took over the shipyard in the 1870s and died before his father. Since he only left three underage daughters, other people took over the company.

The second marriage resulted in two sons and a daughter. The son Paul Ulrich Ernst junior (born April 25, 1874 in Ottensen, † March 17, 1902 in Glogau ) became a lieutenant. His daughter married the son of the co-founder of the United Smyrna-Teppich Fabriken AG in Bad Warmbrunn , which was taken over by Vorwerk in 1956 .

literature

• Herbert Seitz: Dreyer, Ernst. in: Schleswig-Holstein Biographical Lexicon . Volume 2. Karl Wachholtz Verlag, Neumünster 1971, pp. 128–129