Garrels (family)
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Garrels is the name of a family originally resident in Leer since the early 17th century .
The Garrels family is one of the oldest merchant families in East Frisia . Your timber trading company has existed since 1759 and is considered the oldest still in existence in the region.
For generations, members of the family shaped the economic life of the city of Leer and the surrounding area through their entrepreneurial ideas. In the course of the 18th and 19th centuries, family members settled in Hamburg, Schleswig, Amsterdam, Antwerp, London, the USA and Hong Kong, where they established branches of the company.
history
The first verifiable ancestor was the merchant Harm Garrels from Saterland , who had lived in Leer since at least 1682 and was a member of the then still young Lutheran parish. His sons Hero (1704–1766) and Geerd (1706–1762) became merchants in Wittmund and Leer, respectively. Geerd left behind considerable assets, including several houses in Leer. In 1759 his eldest son Johann Hinrich (1734–1801) founded the trading company in Neue Straße, which has been operating under the name "Johann Hinrich Garrels Ludwig Sohn" since it was taken over by his grandson Johann Hinrich (see below). In addition to a lucrative timber trade, J. H. Garrels exported agricultural products from East Friesland and the Emsland and established international trade relationships, particularly to England and Holland. In 1766, together with J. Börner and JE Zimmermann, he received the concession for one of the first windsaw mills. Two more mills were built a little later and laid the foundation for efficient wood processing, which subsequently became one of the most important branches of the company. Towards the end of his life, JH Garrels had a sizeable overseas business and thus became an example of the flourishing trade in Leer in the second half of the 18th century.
Johann Hinrich's son Tjard Ludwig (1762–1804) did not become a partner in the timber business, but founded his own trading business. He expanded the close family ties to England and Holland , where he was involved in the business of his brother Peter Wilhelm (1772–1799) and his widow. He fitted out several ships for overseas business, for example a ship for the route Leer-Lisbon-USA-Leer in 1799. The local history museum of the city of Leer resides in his English-style house. At the end of his life, Tjard Ludwig lost a large part of his own fortune and that of his younger brother Johann Hinrich Garrels junior. (1766–1818) due to shipping accidents and economic bottlenecks after the crisis year 1799. 47 letters from his third brother Hermann Jacob Garrels (1768–1808) have received from his successful London years from 1789, which provide a historically valuable insight into the German-English Giving trade and merchant history around 1800.
The Garrels wood trading company was continued after 1800 by Elisabeth Margaretha Oltmanns (1744–1825), widow of Johann Hinrich senior, from 1814 by his grandson Johann Hinrich (1789–1868) and his younger son Claas Hermann (1824–1906). The latter expanded timber sales through the newly built railway lines across East Frisia to the Rhenish-Westphalian industrial area and the Netherlands . During this period, Leer became the most important transshipment point for Scandinavian timber and goods, the transport of which was largely taken over by the shipping company Schulte & Bruns in Emden for the Garrels company from the end of the 19th century. Claas Hermann Garrels subsequently became Swedish and Norwegian consul in Leer, from 1866 to 1871 and again from 1874 to 1881, in addition, a member of the Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Masonic Lodge in Leer. His son Hermann Garrels jun. (1865–1939), whose older brothers moved to Hong Kong, Schleswig and Antwerp, took over management of the company as sole owner in 1899. In 1891, he expanded the company to include a planing mill , which was necessary due to customs legislation in the German Empire so that processing no longer had to be outsourced. Around 1900 the company suffered damage from several severe storm surges. With extensive new buildings, Hermann Garrels changed the family property in the area of Neue Straße. From 1901 to 1906 around thirty people were employed, from 1906 to 1914 around sixty, and after the First World War in 1919 again over fifty. In 1911 the company's total assets were over one million Reichsmarks. From 1897 to 1911 and again after a professional break from 1917 to 1924, Hermann Garrels was Senator for the city of Leer and thus a member of the Leer city council. As chairman of the Leeraner "Verein der Liberalen" (Liberal Association) he was a founding member of the Leeraner local association of the DDP.
His brother Johann Hinrich Garrels (1855-1924) lived for a time as a merchant in China and since 1897 in Hamburg. In 1903 and 1907, as a candidate for the Reichstag for the National Liberals and the Liberals in constituency I (western East Frisia), he was just inferior to the conservative candidate Prince Knyphausen . In Hamburg he was a member of the citizenship, in 1917 he became a senator there.
The Garrels Foundation was established in 1909 to mark the company's 150th anniversary. A street was named after the family on a site behind the town hall donated by the family to the city of Leer. Hermann Garrels' sons Hermann Wilhelm (1893–1978) and Tjard Ludwig (1899–1969) jointly continued the wood business in the sixth generation. By marrying Pia Russell, cousin of the banker Emil Russell , Wilhelm Garrels deepened the long-standing family ties with the Emsland merchant family Russell, who were related and above all to the Earl of Bedford and Earl of Somerset (William Russell) through their English family was rooted in London. From 1935 Wilhelm Garrels was also active as an honorary city councilor. His older brother Johann Hinrich Garrels (1892–?) Worked as an economist in Leipzig , where he received his doctorate in 1920 with a legal thesis on “The development of the presbyteral and synodal constitution in the refugee communities united to Wesel and Emden”.
In the last days of April 1945, the factories and one of the houses were destroyed by Allied fighter-bombers. In 1946 the remaining operations were confiscated by the British occupation forces for "North German Timber Control" and the large quantities of wood were sent to England. In 1948 the ascent began almost penniless, from 1956 Wilhelm Garrels 'son Johann Hinrich (born 1921) and Tjard Ludwig Garrels' son Tjard Ludwig (1935–1993) continued in the seventh generation.
literature
- History of Freemasonry in Leer from 1804–1904 on the occasion of the centenary of Freemasonry in Leer by the lodge “Georg zurrue brother loyalty” in the Leer region. Zopfs, Leer 1904, pp. 3, 54, 64.
- Festive font for the 150th anniversary of the J. H. Garrels Lud company. Sohn, Leer (East Frisia), 1759–1909. Gente, Hamburg 1909.
- Theodor HM Behrens: Festschrift of the St. Johannis Lodge "To the East Frisian Union" in the Or. Emden on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of Freemasonry in Emden, 1763–1914. Emden [1914], p. 117.
- Ernst Esselborn: History of an Empty Vinegar Factory. In: Sheets of the Association for Homeland Security and Local History Leer. 3, 1938, No. 6.
- Ernst Esselborn: 200 years of JH Garrels Lud. Son 1759-1959. Leer 1959.
- Onno M. Folkerts: The development of the liberal parties of the Weimar Republic in East Frisia. Thesis for the examination for the teaching post at elementary schools. Oldenburg 1975 (Maschr.), Pp. 35-37.
- Wolfgang Henninger: The Garrels family. (BLO III, Aurich 2001, pp. 160-163) Link
- Margrit Schulte Beerbühl: German merchants in London: World trade and naturalization (1660-1818).
- Sir George Clarke: The Later Stuarts, 1660-1714. 2nd Edition. Clarendon Press, 1955, pp. 97-99.
- Helmut Lensing: Russell, Emil. In: Study Society for Emsland Regional History. Volume 16, Haselünne 2009, pp. 215-226.
Web links
- Wolfgang Henninger: Garrels Fam. (PDF file; 60.7 kB) (= Biographical Lexicon for East Friesland. Vol. III, Aurich 2001, pp. 160–163.)