Jakob Aders

Johann Jakob Aders , black and white photo of a painting by Heinrich Christoph Kolbe

"Brodmarke" of the Elberfelder Kornverein

Back of the "Brodmarke" 1816/17

Johann Jakob Aders (born July 26, 1768 in Elberfeld (now part of Wuppertal ); † March 22, 1825 there ) was Elberfeld's mayor , banker and social reformer.

After attending the Elberfeld Latin School , he completed a commercial apprenticeship in a Bremen trading company. When he returned to Elberfeld, he initially worked in his father's company, but in 1793 he joined the banking house “Johann Heinrich Brink und Comp.”. In the same year he married Anna Helena Brinck, the daughter of his employer. He soon became a partner in the bank. They lived together in the nationally known Wunderbau . In 1799 Aders was elected mayor.

In economically and socially difficult times, Aders designed a system of poor relief in addition to church activities and thus paved the way for the Elberfeld system . In 1800 he founded the " Allgemeine Armenanstalt ", in 1802 the " Allgemeine Armenanstalt ". A school for the poor was connected to the poor house, at which the philanthropist Johann Friedrich Wilberg taught. At that time, the poor institution was one of the first institutions for civic poor relief, a task that up to now was almost exclusively performed by the church.

As a result of the famine that occurred in the year without the summer of 1816, Aders founded the " Elberfelder Kornverein ", which made it possible to keep the price of bread low by purchasing and storing large quantities of grain at low cost and thus avoiding greater misery.

Aders was instrumental in founding (1821) and managing the foreign trade company " Rheinisch-Westindischen Kompagnie ", whose decline he did not live to see after his death in 1825. His wife, with whom he was evidently a happy marriage, outlived him by nearly twenty years. The couple had seven children, three sons and four daughters. Oskar Aders was a grandson, Eduard Freiherr von der Heydt was one of the couple's great-great-grandchildren.

literature

• Rudolf Bergmann, 300 years of Reformed Diakonie in Elberfeld , Wuppertal 2002
• Rudolf Boch: Johann Jacob Aders (1768-1825). In: Wolfhard Weber (Ed.) Bergisch-Märkische entrepreneurs of the early industrialization. (= Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien , Volume 18.) Aschendorff, Münster 2004, pp. 215–233.
• Gustav Grote, Jacob Aders, in: Wuppertaler Biographien, 5th episode, Wuppertal 1965, pp. 19–31
• Walther:  Aders, Jakob . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1875, p. 84 f.
• Gerhart Werner:  Aders, Johann Jakob. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 1, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1953, ISBN 3-428-00182-6 , p. 66 ( digitized version ).

predecessor	Office	successor
Peter Karl Weber	Mayor of Elberfeld 1799	Johann Heinrich Bergfeld