Heinrich Christian Meyer

Monument to Heinrich Christian Meyer in Hamburg-Hammerbrook

Heinrich Christian Meyer (born June 4, 1797 in Nesse in the Lehe district ; † July 26, 1848 in Hamburg ), known as Stockmeyer , was the son of a craftsman and is considered Hamburg's first major industrialist.

Life

As the son of an immigrant carpenter who ran a workshop for walking sticks in Hamburg, Meyer offered walking sticks on the street when he was 8 years old and was therefore called "Stockmeyer" by amused passers-by.

After founding his own workshop in 1816, within only two decades he succeeded in turning a tiny factory into a large and modern factory for the time, in which the steam engine was used industrially for the first time in the history of the city: the Company HC Meyer jr. In 1828 he set up a factory health insurance fund for his workers .

Meyer was not only a successful entrepreneur, he also tried to decisively improve Hamburg's economic structure. Together with other merchants, he therefore developed the Grasbrook and Hammerbrooks ( a monument on the Mittelkanal in Hammerbrook also reminds of his services to the Hammerbrook project ), two large fallow areas outside of the actual city fortifications. Meyer was the founding director of the Hamburg-Bergedorfer Eisenbahngesellschaft and helped to decisively modernize the city's water supply.

Due to his numerous activities, which could hardly be overlooked, the accusation, which could not be completely dismissed, was raised against him that he was one of the greatest speculators of his time, who always put forward "patriotic" reasons for his actions, but who was only interested in the own advantage. These accusations hit him hard, but "Stockmeyer" never attempted to refute them.

Meyer was married to Agathe Margarethe Beusch, who died in 1833, and had 11 children. Among them was Heinrich Adolph , who, in addition to his work as an entrepreneur, pursued a scientific hobby as a marine researcher (for this he received the academic degree of Dr. phil hc from the University of Kiel) and maintained a large hospitable house on the Baltic Sea, in which well-known Scientists, musicians and writers frequented the city. So z. B. Theodor Fontane , who even wrote a poem about this house “Forsteck”.

Meyer's second eldest daughter Bertha belonged to a group of women in Hamburg who had set up a "university for women". In her second marriage she married Johannes Ronge , the founder of German Catholicism. She followed him into exile in London for many years and started a kindergarten based on Froebel's principles .

Another daughter was named Amalie. She married the businessman Heinrich Westendarp, who later took over the company of his brother-in-law Heinrich Adolph Meyer.

Meyer's youngest daughter Agathe Margarethe married Carl Schurz in London in 1852 , who later became a Prussian general in the American Civil War , with whom she moved to the United States of America that same year. In Watertown she founded the first American kindergarten.

Heinrich Christian Meyer, whom everyone had just called "Stockmeyer", died in 1848.

literature

• Inge Hinrichsen: Aunt Tine tells us. The story of a Hamburg family. Erlangen 2006
• Eliza L. Follen: The Pedler of Dust Sticks . Boston 1857
• Heinrich Adolph Meyer: Memories of Heinrich Christian Meyer  : Collected for the family by his son. - Hamburg: s. l., 1887
• Heinrich Adolph Meyer: Memories of Dr. HA Meyer  : According to his own notes. - Hamburg: self-published, 1890
• HC Meyer Jr. - in: Historisch-biographische Blätter . The State of Hamburg, Volume 7, Berlin 1906
• Dieter Rednak:  Meyer, Heinrich Christian. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 17, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-428-00198-2 , p. 293 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Dieter Rednak: The history of the company HC Meyer jr. economic and social development of a company in the period from 1880 to 1980. - Hamburg: Univ. Dplomarb., 1980
• Dieter Rednak: Company social policy in the 19th and 20th centuries using the example of the Hamburg company HC Meyer jr. - in: Arno Herzig u. a., workers in Hamburg  : lower classes, workers and the labor movement since the end of the 18th century. - Hamburg: Verl. Education and Science, 1983. - pp. 299–308
• Dieter Rednak: Meyer, Abendroth and Ruperti - directors of the "Hamburg-Bergedorfer Eisenbahn-Gesellschaft" and initiators of the modernization of Hamburg in the 19th century . - in: Kultur & Geschichtkontor (publisher) Hamburg-Bergedorfer Eisenbahn from 1842 . - Hamburg: sn, 1992. - pp. 45-55
• Dieter Rednak: Heinrich Christian Meyer (1797 - 1848): called "Stockmeyer": From craftsman to large industrialist, a career in Biedermeier style. - Münster: Lit-Verl., 1992 - ISBN 3-89473-451-5
• Dieter Rednak: "... so we worked calmly and actively": The company history spanned six decades. HC Meyer Jr. Ernst Schuppe's notes . - in: Harburger Jahrbuch 19/1996. - Hamburg: sn, 1996. - pp. 275-305
• Dieter Rednak: "You still hope that the union leaders will take care of your cause." Wage conflicts in a traditional Harburg company in the first third of the 20th century .- in: Harburger Jahrbuch 22/2006 - Hamburg: sn, 2006. - pp. 147–157
• Arne Daniels, Stefan Schmitz: The history of capitalism. From the loom to the World Wide Web. Munich 2006
• Percy Ernst Schramm: Hamburg, Germany and the world. Performance and limits of the Hanseatic bourgeoisie in the time between Napoleon I and Bismarck . Munich 1943.
• Gustav H. Leo: William Lindley. A pioneer of technical hygiene. Hamburg 1969 (manuscript 1936)
• Ortwin Pelc / Susanne Grötz (ed.): Constructor of the modern city. William Lindley in Hamburg and Europe 1808–1900. Zugl. Exhibition catalog Museum for Hamburg History October 1, 2008 - February 22, 2009, Hamburg 2008 (series of publications by the Hamburg Architecture Archive).

Web links

• Literature by and about Heinrich Christian Meyer in the catalog of the German National Library