Heinrich Smidt (politician, 1806)

Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Smidt (born January 28, 1806 in Bremen ; † August 20, 1878 in Bremen) was a German lawyer , politician, Bremen senator and archivist .

Life

Smidt was the son of the famous Mayor of Bremen Johann Smidt (1773-1857) and his wife Johanne Wilhelmine Rhode (1777-1848). He studied law at the University of Berlin, the University of Göttingen and the University of Heidelberg and obtained his doctorate in Heidelberg in 1829. jur.

In between, he accompanied the Bremen Senator Gildemeister (1779–1849) in 1827 when he signed a trade agreement for Bremen in Brazil .

From 1829 to 1832 he was secretary of the Bremen Senate Commission for Foreign Affairs. From 1832 to 1843 he was director ( inspector ) of the Bremen archive . He was able to successfully start improving the archive. In this capacity he promoted the historical holdings, their use and historical studies. From 1843 to 1849 he was the successor of August Ferdinand Arnold Iken as the second syndic of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen .

From 1849 until his death he was a senator after the Bremen constitutional amendment. He worked primarily in the field of foreign affairs as well as trade and shipping matters.

Smidt was married to the master builder daughter from Königsberger Christiane Juliane Wedeke (1823-1906); both had five children.

literature

• Herbert Black Forest : The Great Bremen Lexicon . 2nd, updated, revised and expanded edition. Edition Temmen, Bremen 2003, ISBN 3-86108-693-X .
• Nicola Wurthmann: Senators, friends and families. Rule structures and self-image of the Bremen elite between tradition and modernity (1813–1848) . Self-published by the Bremen State Archives, Bremen 2009, ISBN 978-3-925729-55-3 , ( publications from the State Archives of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen 69), (also: Hamburg, Univ., Diss., 2007).