Hinrich Braren

Hinrich Braren lived in this house in Tönning from 1802 until his death.

Hinrich Braren (born September 1, 1751 in Oldsum , † August 4, 1826 in Tönning ), also Hinrich Brarens , was a captain, pilot inspector and navigation instructor . He wrote one of the first German-language textbooks on shipping and founded the first state seafaring school in the Duchy of Schleswig .

Life

Hinrich Braren was born in Oldsum on the North Frisian island of Föhr in 1751 as the son of a whaling commander. At the age of 12 he was taken by his father on sea voyages and went whaling to Greenland every year from 1763 to 1780 . In 1780 he switched to merchant shipping and by chance acquired full command of his shipowner's Dutch merchant ship in the Mediterranean. In 1786 Braren drove from Copenhagen to hunt seals on behalf of Kongelige Grønlandske Handel and received an order on Iceland to support a Danish expedition to explore the east coast of Greenland.

Inspired by this research trip, Braren settled on Föhr in 1792 as a private navigation teacher. In 1794 he was also a merchant and harbor master in Wyk auf Föhr . In 1796 he received the license as an examiner and to establish a state navigation school. This was moved from Wyk to the Schifferhaus in Tönning an der Eider in 1799 , after Braren had been appointed there as pilot inspector for the Eider and canal pilots . Due to the continental blockade during the Napoleonic Wars , Tönning had risen to become an important trading port for a short time.

In the Tönninger Schifferhaus (Danish Skipperhuset), Braren continued the navigation school that had already been founded on Föhr.

Through his work as a nautical instructor, Braren recognized the lack of suitable German-language literature, as Dutch specialist literature was widespread at the time. He therefore wrote the textbook System der Praxis Steuermannskunde , which appeared in Magdeburg in 1800 and had three further editions. In 1807 he wrote another textbook, System der Praxis Schifferkunde, and published a so-called "cutlery book" in Altona in 1820 for the location of ships. The two “practical” textbooks remained in use in northern Germany until the second half of the 19th century.

family

Hinrich Braren married his first wife Thur, born in 1773. Früdden (born March 25, 1751 in Oldsum), who called herself Dorothea Brarens in Tönning. She died in 1809. In her second marriage, Hinrich Braren was with Margaretha, geb. Steffens, married from Itzehoe . The first marriage had ten children, while the second marriage was childless. His daughter Gundalena (née Jung Göntje Braren) married the Hamburg shipowner Robert Miles Sloman in 1806 , her sister Göntje married Sloman's younger brother John Miles four years later . His grandson, the Hamburg lawyer Henry B. Sloman, and his great-grandson, the Hamburg saltpeter importer Henry B. Sloman , bore the name Brarens as their time name in memory of him.

After the family moved to Tönning, they called themselves Brarens .

bibliography

• Hinrich Brarens: System of practical helmsman knowledge . Wilhelm Heinrichshofen, Magdeburg 1800 (new editions 1807, 1819 and 1844).
• Hinrich Brarens: System of practical skipper knowledge . Friedrichstadt 1807 (new edition 1819 (Wilhelm Heinrichshofen, Magdeburg)).
• Cutlery book, Altona 1820.

literature

• Th. F. von Levetzau: Hinrich Braren . In: Schleswig-Holstein Provincial Reports . 1828, p. 225-227 .
• Lorenz Braren: Gender series St. Laurentii-Föhr . Husum printing and publishing company, Husum 1980, ISBN 3-88042-092-0 , p. 328-330 (reprint).
• Uwe Zacchi: People from Föhr. Life paths from three centuries . Boyens & Co., Heide 1986, ISBN 3-8042-0359-0 , p. 25-29 .