Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube

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Friedrich Wilhelm Taube , since April 25, 1777 Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube (born March 12, 1728 in London , † June 16, 1778 in Vienna ) was a German administrative officer in Austria .

Life

family

Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube was the son of the physician Christian Ernst Taube († 1742). His siblings were:

  • Sophia Eleonora Taube (* 1716);
  • Margaretha Johannata Taube (* 1719);
  • Johann Daniel Taube (born March 4, 1725 in Celle ; † December 8, 1799 there).

In 1769 Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube married the sixteen-year-old Fanny (* 1753), daughter of the architect Thomas Lightowler, who was appointed to Vienna by the imperial court.

His father was the personal physician of Queen Caroline Wilhelmine , who was married to King George II . When she died on December 1, 1737, the medical support she received during her last illness was so severely criticized that his father decided to move the whole family from London to Celle that same month .

education

A year after the death of his father enrolled him 1743 at the age of fifteen years at the University of Göttingen and studied there until 1747 law ; he heard, among others, the lectures of Johann Christian Claproth (1715–1748), Christian Ludwig Scheidt and Georg Ludwig Böhmer .

After completing his studies, he undertook extensive trips that took him to Africa and America . Following this he was probably from the law faculty of the University of Göttingen Dr. jur. explain and examine at the Higher Appeal Court in Celle and swear in as a lawyer .

Career

He became a lawyer in Hanover , but then entered the service of the Reichshofrat Freiherr von Hammerstein in 1754 , before he entered the service of Imperial Field Marshal Philipp Ludwig Freiherr von Moltke († 1780) in Vienna in 1756 ; as a result, he served as a volunteer in the Austrian army for a short time . After being slightly wounded in the Battle of Kolin , he soon returned to his former position and converted to Catholicism . He prepared an extensive report on the defense of the legal freedoms that were adhered to in the Wulften estate , which was owned by the Moltke family; However, the text did not appear until 1766. It comprised a large number of documents and other deductions and pieces of evidence relating to the constitution of Germany in the Middle Ages.

In 1763, because of his knowledge of the English language, he accompanied Count Christian August Seilern , who was going to London as the imperial ambassador , as private secretary . He used his stay in England to write a pamphlet in English, which appeared in 1766, about the British colonies in North America and their behavior towards the motherland. During his stay in England he made the acquaintance of the watchmaker John Harrison .

When the imperial royal embassy secretary in London, Baron von Locella, was sent to Copenhagen in 1764 , Taube was to be his successor, but Ambassador Seilern advised Empress Maria Theresa that Taube was a born subject of the English king, and so he was only with entrusted to the administration of the Embassy Secretariat.

On July 31, 1766, he wrote to the President of the Council, Patrice François de Nény (1716–1784) in Brussels, whose acquaintance he had previously made in London and whose brother Corneille Neny (1718–1776) was Maria Theresa's secret cabinet secretary in Vienna, a letter about the political situation, about the views of the newly appointed British ministry and about the dangers that could arise for Austria if she were to exchange her alliance with France for that with England. By chance, Count Johann Karl Philipp, Count Cobenzl , treasurer and plenipotentiary minister of state for whom Karl Alexander von Lorraine was governor in the Austrian Netherlands , received the letter. Because he suspected that Taube would presume to take a position in his low position that he was not entitled to, he forwarded the letter to State Chancellor Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg . The State Chancellor agreed with Cobenzl, but because the letter was addressed to an Austrian civil servant and not a stranger, he did not see Taube as a "perjurer". The State Chancellor turned to Ambassador Seilern and informed him that Taube's act was criminal because he had written the letter without prior knowledge or instructions from the Ambassador and, so that the incident would not repeat itself, Taube to voluntarily return to Austria should be moved.

When he arrived in Vienna on November 8th, 1766, he had a recommendation from the ambassador, from which it emerged that he had not been guided by "bad will" and that he had a "good and honest disposition", and that the ambassador recommended indulgent treatment. As a result, Taube, who was previously in a private employment relationship, got a state job and was appointed court secretary to the imperial court commerce council, which was responsible for economic administration.

In 1776 the Court Commerce Council was abolished and then Emperor Joseph II used Taube in difficult political missions in Transylvania and Slavonia , where he enforced the new regulations in the Synod of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Karlowitz ; later he was sent to the Timisoara Banat and Belgrade .

In March 1777 he was appointed to the council of the Lower Austrian provincial government; on April 25, 1777 he was raised to the Austrian knighthood .

Writing

Friedrich Wilhelm von Taube published his first work on the supposed contradictions between civil and natural law in 1747.

He published various writings, among other things on the history and the state of shipping at that time, the manufactories and the institutions of England relating to the colonies; in addition he published various articles in the magazine for historiography and geography by Anton Friedrich Büsching , with whom he was also close friends. After attending the Synod in Karlowitz, he wrote his perceptions during the trip in a script in which he presented a historical and geographical description of the Kingdom of Slavonia - a source work that is still accessed today.

Fonts (selection)

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holzhausen in the old days | Part 3 - Holzhauser live! Retrieved April 7, 2020 .
  2. ^ New general German nobility lexicon in association with several historians . Voigt, 1870 ( google.de [accessed April 9, 2020]).
  3. ^ Barbara Schmidt-Haberkamp: Europe and Turkey in the 18th century . V&R unipress GmbH, 2011, ISBN 978-3-89971-795-2 ( google.de [accessed April 8, 2020]).
personal data
SURNAME Taube, Friedrich Wilhelm von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Taube, Friedrich Wilhelm; Taube, Fridrih Vilhelm fon; Taube, Friedrich W. von; Taube, Friderich Wilhelm von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German administrative officer in Austrian service
DATE OF BIRTH March 12, 1728
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH June 16, 1778
Place of death Vienna