Franz Heinrich von Rigal

Franz Heinrich von Rigal, oil painting by Caroline Bardua (1828)

Franz Heinrich Freiherr von Rigal (born August 17, 1785 in Krefeld , † May 13, 1852 in Bonn ) was a German entrepreneur.

Live and act

Von Rigal came from a Huguenot family known to have been since the 17th century who fled to Switzerland after the Edict of Fontainebleau (1685) and settled in Neuhaldensleben near Magdeburg around 1699 . Franz Heinrich's grandfather Jean Pierre Rigal (1688–1769) had started the production of silk stockings there. Having worked in Amsterdam and Stuttgart in the meantime, he had founded the first Palatinate silk manufacture in Heidelberg on behalf of the Palatinate Elector Karl Theodor (later known as Rigal jun. & Co. ). Franz Heinrich's father and partner in this company, the electoral Palatine court chamber councilor Louis Maximilian Rigal (1748–1830), had Heidelberg in 1799 because of his marriage to Maria Sibylle (also Sibylla ) Heydweiller (1752–1789), the daughter of one of the leading silk manufacturers in Krefeld , where he joined the company as a partner. Franz Heinrich, the eldest son of Louis Maximilian and Maria Sibylle Rigal, was taught in Krefeld first by private tutors and later in an institute in Hamburg . He later spent a few years with his father in Paris , who was a member of the National Legislative Assembly and Comte Sénateur there.

In Krefeld, Rigal headed the LM Rigal company founded by his father around 1808 . There he married Henriette Sybille (also Sibylla ) Heydweiller (1789–1869), through whom he came into the possession of the manor Grunland in the mayor's office of Orsoy . During the French period (1798-1814) Rigal was, in addition to his entrepreneurial activity, adjoint du maire (councilor of the mayor) in Krefeld and later district council and deputy (in 1832, deputy) district administrator of the Krefeld district . In 1828 he was by Friedrich Wilhelm III. to the Prussian nobility and in 1840 by Friedrich Wilhelm IV. due to his possession of the manor Grunland to the baron status; In this capacity, von Rigal was also one of 25 representatives of the knighthood in the provincial parliament of the Rhine Province . In addition to the inherited Grunland estate, Rigal also acquired the Husenhof, Streithof and Werthov estates and the Götterswick estate near Voerde (Lower Rhine) . On January 1, 1842, he withdrew from the Rigal-Heydweiller company .

Von Rigal and his wife Henriette Sibylle had four children, including three sons, two of whom died unmarried. The family lived in Krefeld in winter and on Gut Grunland in summer. Henriette Sibylle was the founder of the women's association in Krefeld and was actively involved in the foundation of the hospital in the city. In 1846 the couple moved to Bonn . There the family donated a significant amount for the construction of the evangelical Friedrich-Wilhelm-Stift (1852-1854), a poor, hospital and orphanage. The couple's resting place is in the Old Cemetery in Bonn with a grave architecture by Friedrich von Schmidt . The son Ludwig Maximilian Freiherr von Rigal-Grunland (1809–1885) followed his parents to Bonn; In neighboring Godesberg he had the Villa Rigal Castle built in 1849 and the Rigal Chapel as a private chapel adjacent from 1856 to 1858 . The son Carl Hermann Freiherr von Rigal (1814-1884) was commissioned district administrator of the Krefeld district in 1840/1841 .

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  Grave architecture for the von Rigal family at the Old Cemetery in Bonn (2009)

Rigal's villa

In 1846 Rigal had a villa built for himself on Bonn's banks of the Rhine (most recently at Coblenzerstraße 59 ), which he and his wife moved into. After Rigal's death, the widow lived in the house alone with a household of five (as of 1852). At the latest after she too died in 1869, her son Ludwig Maximilian Freiherr von Rigal-Grunland took over the property. In 1905/06 the grandchildren of the client, Franz Ludwig Maximilian and Maria Pauline Henriette, married von Schloezer, had the villa demolished and the site parceled out and through a new road (today's Schaumburg-Lippe-Strasse ) from today's Adenauerallee to the banks of the Rhine (Rathenauufer) open up.

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  Villa von Rigal, Rhine front (before 1906)

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  Villa von Rigal, Rhine front (around 1905)

Web links

Commons : Franz Heinrich von Rigal  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k} Olga Sonntag : Villas on the banks of the Rhine in Bonn: 1819–1914 , Bouvier Verlag, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-416-02618-7 , volume 2, catalog (2), p. 40 -44. (also dissertation University of Bonn, 1994)
2. ↑ ^{a b c} ancestors of Franz Heinrich VON RIGAL ( Memento from December 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), GedBas, Verein für Computergenealogie
3. ↑ Henriette Sibylla HEYDWEILLER , GedBas, Association for Computer Genealogy
4. ^ Hans Carl Scheibler, Karl Wülfrath: Westdeutsche Ahnentafeln (= publications of the Society for Rhenish History , Volume 44), Verlag Hermann Böhlau, 1939, p. 308.