Friedrich Gruber (cloth merchant)

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Friedrich Gruber (around 1850)

Friedrich Gruber (born September 15, 1805 in Lindau (Lake Constance) , † February 15, 1850 in Palermo ) was a German cloth merchant and banker .

Life

The son of a Lindau patrician family attended school until 1819 and then worked in his father's company. From 1821 to 1826 he did a commercial apprenticeship in Marseille and continued his training in London from 1827. In 1828 he founded a branch in Genoa as a representative for the trading houses Souchay, Mylius and Co. and Schunck, Souchay & Co. , which were active in Frankfurt, London, Manchester, Moscow and Riga, and in 1830 under the company F. Gruber & Co . own trading company. This opened a branch in Palermo before 1838 under the direction of Karl Wedekind . In 1830 he also became a partner in the Swiss textile company Vonwiller & Züblin based in Fratte di Salerno. Friedrich Gruber was very successful as a businessman. His nephew August Gruber reported in his memoirs that he was also called "Napoleone Commercianti" in Genoa.

A lung disease forced him to plan his retirement from business life at the age of 35. In 1840 he bought 40 small farms, mostly vineyards, on Lindau's shore of Lake Constance, and between 1842 and 1847 created Gut Lindenhof as a place of retreat and summer residence. The villa was built by Franz Jakob Kreuter (1813–1889); the park was created by Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe (1775–1846). In 1845 he founded a branch on the Greek island of Corfu , which was under British protectorate from 1815 to 1864. In 1847 Martin Fels (* 1815 in Lindau; † 1895 in Corfu, from 1868 Prussian consul) joined the company.

Land gate in Lindau, 1906

In 1847 Gruber donated the "Landtor-Anlagen", which today form the city garden of the island of Lindau (Oskar-Groll-Anlage), and in 1847 a scholarship named after his father, the Eliseus Gruber Foundation, from whose capital of 50,000 francs young Lindau residents who wanted to learn trade and technology. In 1850 Friedrich Gruber suffered a hemorrhage in the house of his business friend Karl Wedekind in Palermo and died. He was buried in Lindau.

Gruber was married to the Swiss Charlotte Schläpfer. The family lived in Villa Gruber in Genoa. Gruber's sons Jean and Carl died at an early age. He adopted two nieces of his wife, Augusta and Louise Sturzenegger, who both only survived him by a few years (Augusta Sturzenegger 1827–1857, Louise Sturzenegger 1829–1856).

literature

  • Marigret Brass-Kästl: The garden as a work of art: Friedrich Gruber, the Lindenhofpark and its creator Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe.
  • Eduard Gruber: Friedrich Gruber and his family , Freiburg i. B.
  • Jan Thorbecke: Friedrich Gruber. A merchant in Lindau. After letters and diaries. Krais, Stuttgart 1932.
  • Writings of the Association for the History of Lake Constance and its Surroundings , Volumes 118–119 (2000).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ according to E. Keyser Bayerisches Städtebuch: Handbook of urban history born in 1803
  2. ↑ Eduard Gruber: Friedrich Gruber and his family, 1909.
  3. ↑ Leo Weisz : Swiss pioneers in the southern Italian textile industry. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . No. 4188, October 4, 1966
  4. ^ Christoph Hölz: The Lindenhof in Lindau / Bodensee. Villa and park. Deutscher Kunstverlag, Art Guide No. 571/9, 1998.
  5. ↑ Marigret Brass Kästl: The garden as a work of art. Friedrich Gruber, the Lindenhofpark and its creator Maximilian Friedrich Weyhe. In: New Year's Gazette No. 32 of the Lindau Museum Association, 1992.
  6. ^ Edwin Fels: Land reclamation in Greece
  7. ↑ http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Ernennung_zu_Deutschen_Bundeskonsuln._Vom_8._Juni_1868 . . http://de.wikisource.org/wiki/Ernennung_zu_Deutschen_Konsuln._Vom_19._September_1871
  8. ↑ http://www.placesonline.de/europa/italien/ligurien/genua/foto_detail.asp?filename=42426_villa_gruber_genova
  9. ↑ Eduard Gruber, p. 391.
personal data
SURNAME Gruber, Friedrich
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German cloth merchant and banker
DATE OF BIRTH 1803 or September 15, 1805
DATE OF DEATH February 15, 1850
Place of death Genoa