Gisbert von Romberg I.

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Gisbert Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Romberg (also Giesbert von Romberg I .; * July 19, 1773 in Brünninghausen (today Dortmund); † August 4, 1859 ibid) was a Brandenburg nobleman , mining entrepreneur and politician . From 1809 to 1813 he was Prefect of the Ruhr Department in the Napoleonic Grand Duchy of Berg .

Life

Gisbert von Romberg was born on July 19, 1773 at Haus Brünninghausen in the town of the same name in the Hörde district as the son of Caspar Adolf von Romberg and his wife Louise von Diepenbrock. The father was head of the noble family von Romberg from the Brandenburg region and worked as a mining entrepreneur, the mother came from a wealthy aristocratic family and was the heiress of Buldern Castle . He was baptized Reformed . Von Romberg initially received instruction from private tutors and at the age of twelve came to the school of the Berge monastery , at that time one of the most respected schools in the German-speaking area. Five years later he began to study law in Halle (Saale) , but was called back to Brünninghausen by his father after only three semesters. Gisbert embarked on an administrative career and became chamberlain of the Prussian court. From 1793 he belonged to the Märkische Knighthood . After his father's death in 1795, at the age of 22, he took over the management of the family property, which is valued at 900,000 Reichstalers. In 1796 he married Caroline von Boeselager , the founder of the Maria-Hilf monastery in Bonn . In 1803 their son Clemens Conrad Franz von Romberg was born. After the occupation of Westphalia in 1806 by French troops in the course of the fourth Napoleonic War , von Romberg belonged to the Brandenburg deputation, which negotiated with the new French administration, and was considered their spokesman. He was appointed Prefect of the Ruhr Department in the Grand Duchy of Berg and accepted the position after some insistence. After the reconquest by Prussia in 1813 he was appointed state director, three years later he resigned from the civil service. Von Romberg was very connected to rural life in Brünninghausen and had a new classical palace built next to the old castle house and the English-style palace park laid out between 1818 and 1822 . In 1826 he moved into the Westphalian provincial parliament and was appointed deputy state marshal at the suggestion of his friend Karl Freiherr vom Stein . After the end of the 1832 electoral term, he finally withdrew from politics. In 1856 he accepted his wife's Catholic faith. On August 4, 1859, Gisbert von Romberg died at the age of 86 in Brünninghausen.

Act

Gisbert von Romberg inherited a large family estate. The father Caspar Adolf von Romberg had acquired the Westhemmerde house and the Werl house attached to it through his wife’s line, as well as the Rüdinghausen and Ermelinghof houses . These houses included dependent peasant property, for which Caspar Adolf von Romberg introduced precise management. In 1752 he established the Glückauf Erbstollen , in 1765 he received the Erbstollenrechtlichkeit , in 1768 the Erbstollen at Wesselberg and Hacheneyer Kamp followed. From 1791 Gisbert von Romberg worked in this family estate and, together with his father, expanded the estate and colliery property. The purchase of Haus Stockum in 1794 is traced back to Gisbert von Romberg. After his father's death, Gisbert continued his expansion policy. In the first half of the 19th century, the von Romberg family was one of the largest owners in the Ruhr area. As the main work of the Vollmond colliery in Langendreer , he advocated the installation of a steam engine there, when one finally came into operation in 1803, it was the first in a West German mine. For more than 25 years, the Brandenburg Mining Authority Director Johann Ehrenfried Honigmann from Bochum served as a personal advisor in the management of his extensive mining property .

Romberg's political activity began in 1803, when he took an active part in the negotiations in the Brandenburg knighthood , into which he had been accepted ten years earlier. After the French occupation of Westphalia and the incorporation of the County of Mark into the Grand Duchy of Berg in 1808, he was appointed Prefect of the Ruhr Department in 1809 . He took this office out of political opportunism and on the advice of friends. As such he was responsible for all administrative, financial and military affairs. Von Romberg was instrumental in ensuring that his hometown Dortmund and not Hamm was designated as the seat of the prefecture. As a prefect and thus a French civil servant, he personally protested to Napoléon in 1811 against the high taxes and was thus able to prevent an increase. The high taxes, however, led to a black market against which, in the opinion of the imperial commissioner Jacques Claude Beugnot, von Romberg did not act tough enough. When Prussian troops marched into the Mark in November 1813, von Romberg was accused of collaborating with the enemy. However, these accusations fell silent when Ludwig von Vincke appointed him state director of the areas between the Rhine and Weser that were recaptured by Prussia. Gisbert von Romberg kept this office until 1816. When the office of regional president in Arnsberg became vacant in 1824, von Romberg was initially appointed on the advice of former minister Karl Freiherr vom Stein. He made the reform of the administration as a condition of the acceptance of the office, which is why his appointment failed. Gisberg von Romberg now concentrated on economic policy and became a member of the Provincial Parliament in 1826 and chairman of the Committee on Trade and Industry in 1828, 1830 and 1832. In 1828 he became deputy state marshal. At the end of the 1832 electoral term, he retired from active politics. However, he continued to work as the gray eminence of the Westphalian state policy, especially through his friendship with Karl Freiherr vom Stein.

Honors

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Walter Gronemann: Romberg, Giesbert Christian Friedrich Freiherr von . In: Hans Bohrmann (Ed.): Biographies of important Dortmunders. People in, from and for Dortmund . tape 1 . Ruhfus, Dortmund 1994, p. 121 ff .
  2. ^ Wilfried Reininghaus: The economic activity of the von Romberg family in the 17th to 20th centuries . In: Gudrun Gersmann, Michael Kaiser (Ed.): Zeitblicke . tape 4 , no. 2 . Department for Early Modern History of the History Department of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich, June 28, 2005, ISSN  1619-0459 , urn : nbn: de: 0009-9-1249 .
  3. ^ Law Bulletin of the Grand Duchy of Berg, Imperial Decree No. 68 ( Düsseldorf State Library )
personal data
SURNAME Romberg I., Gisbert von
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Romberg I., Gisbert Christian Friedrich von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Brandenburg nobleman, mining entrepreneur and politician; Prefect of the Ruhr Department
DATE OF BIRTH July 19, 1773
PLACE OF BIRTH Brünninghausen near Dortmund
DATE OF DEATH 4th August 1859
Place of death Brünninghausen near Dortmund