Jean Cesar Godeffroy

Portrait of Friedrich Carl Gröger 1818, posthumously

Jean Cesar Godeffroy , also Jean Cesar IV. Godeffroy and Johan Cesar Godeffroy (born October 16, 1742 in Hamburg ; † May 7, 1818 ibid) was a German merchant from Hamburg.

Life

Jean Cesar Godeffroy , son of Cesar Godeffroy (1706–1758) and Catharina Susanne, née Arnal (1717–1753), came from a Huguenot family. The parents immigrated to Hamburg, where the father ran a wine trade in the last years of his life. His brother Peter was born in 1749, the fourth son of seven children , and six years later his sister Marguerite (1755–1804). After his mother's death in 1753, Cesar married Cathérine Gautier (1718–1776) a year later and died in 1758 when Jean Cesar was sixteen years old. In 1780 his sister married Peter Texier .

Even before Johan Cesar Godeffroy had acquired Hamburg citizenship on November 1, 1769 , he had worked as a merchant in 1766 under the name "JC Godeffroy". In 1782 he took on a partner in the company and from then on traded under the name "JC Godeffroy & Co". The company mainly imported linen from Silesia , but also from Saxony and Westphalia . The fabrics were usually bought through the Wroclaw bank Eichborn & Co. and exported from Hamburg by chartered ships to Cádiz , where merchants there shipped the merchandise to the Spanish colonies in South America . Sugar was imported from Havana.

After the death of his uncle Isaac Godeffroy in 1770, Godeffroy inherited 42,571 pounds sterling from his property, which he had earned as a merchant with plantations in the Dutch colony of Suriname . Due to good business Godeffroy was able to double the fortune within a few years.

Country house Cesar Godeffroy around 1865

In 1781 he bought a house at Alten Wandrahm 103 (later No. 25) from Pierre Chaunel . The house was 1796 with 48,000 Mark Banco rated and served the next two generations of the family as a residential and commercial building. In 1783 Godeffroy bought a house in Hamm as a country estate , which he sold again in 1786 after purchasing a piece of land in Dockenhuden. On October 30, 1786, as the highest bidder in the sale of the estate of the Hamburg merchant Berend Johann Rodde for 33,100 marks , he was able to acquire around 111 hectares of land in Dockenhuden . He commissioned the Danish architect Christian Frederik Hansen to build a summer and country house in Dockenhuden . The building known today as Landhaus JC Godeffroy was built from 1789 to 1792 and was his first private commission in Altona.

In 1793 he and his brother-in-law Peter Texier took a trip to the southern Spanish port city of Cádiz . Godeffroy survived the economic crisis of 1799 without major damage. The blockade of the Elbe and the time of the first French occupation of Hamburg between 1806 and 1810 caused a serious collapse in business. In 1806 he took on his son of the same name Johan Cesar (1781–1845) as a partner. From this year they operated under the name "JC Godeffroy & Sohn". Godeffroy's fortune in 1808 was an estimated two million marks Banco. At the time of the second occupation 1813-1814, the family moved their residence and business to Kiel . Despite bad business, Godeffroy was able to leave his son, who was running the company when he died in 1818, half a million marks in a banco.

Godeffroy was married twice. In 1769 he married Emilie Boué (1748–1778) in Hamburg. This marriage remained childless. After the death of his first wife, he married Antoinette Magdalena Matthiessen (1762-1818), sister of Conrad Johann Matthiessen, on November 15, 1779 in Hamburg . From this marriage came the two sons Johan Cesar (1781–1845) and August (1783–1863).

Portraits

Friedrich Carl Gröger : Portraits by Jean César Godeffroy ( posthumous ), oil on canvas, 1818 and by Antoinette Magdalene Godeffroy, geb. Matthiessen, oil on canvas, 1818.

literature

Claus Gossler: Godeffroy, Jean (Johan) César IV . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 141-142 . (Served as a template for this article).
Gabriele Hoffmann: The house on the Elbchaussee . The story of a shipowner's family. Kabel, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-8225-0465-3 .
Maria Möring: The Huguenot family Godeffroy. In: Hamburg Economic Chronicle . ( Band 12 ). Verlag Hanseatischer Merkur, Hamburg 1990, ISBN 978-3-922857-11-2 .
Kurt Schmack: JC Godeffroy & son merchants in Hamburg . Performance and fate of a world trading house. Broschek, Hamburg 1938, DNB 576039713 , p. 19-25 .
Richard Hertz : The Hamburg maritime trading house JC Godeffroy and son (1766-1879) . In: Publication of the Association for Hamburg History . tape 4 . Georg Westermann, Hamburg, Braunschweig 1922, DNB 570331633 .
Ascan Lutteroth: Hamburg gender book (5th vol.) . In: Bernhard Koerner (ed.): German gender book . 27th volume. CA Starke , Görlitz 1914, p. 23–24 ( digitized pages 165–166).
Ernst Baasch : Sources on the history of Hamburg's trade and shipping in the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. 5 volumes. Gräfe & Sillem, Hamburg 1908–1910.
Kurt Moriz-Eichborn: The debit and credit of Eichborn & Co in 175 years . A Silesian contribution to the national economic history. WG Korn, Breslau 1903, urn : nbn: de: hbz: 061: 1-481025 (ULB Düsseldorf).
Richard Ehrenberg : From the prehistory of Blankenese and the neighboring towns of Wedel, Dockenhuden, Nienstedten and Flottbek . Otto Meißner, Hamburg 1897, DNB 456513043 , p. 96 ( digitized SUB Hamburg).
The directory of persons and companies: The Hamburg Commercium or a complete alphabetical directory of all Hamburg merchants in: Almanach for travelers from 1782 (pages 38–39).

Remarks

↑ The French form of the first name is used in the article by Claus Gossler in the Hamburgische Biografie and in the description of his portrait of Friedrich Carl Gröger published in the Hamburg portraits in 1913 . German-language publications and Hamburg address books from the time indicate the first name with "Johan" or "Johann" or "Joh." For short.

^ Letters from Peter Godeffroy and Georg Parish from the years 1813 and 1814. Communicated by Hans Nirrnheim , Journal of the Association for Hamburg History (ZHG) 1914, p. 115

↑ The author Richard Hertz had documented the founding year of “JC Godeffroy & Co” in 1766 with a text passage in the obituary for Cesar Godeffroy (see footnote 35). After that, "he headed the house for 52 years". In fact, however, the names "JC Godeffroy & Co" or "Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Co ”for the trading house was only introduced after Cesar Godeffroy had taken on a partner in 1782. Initially, Cesar Godeffroy traded under his name “JC Godeffroy” (evidence: The Almanac for Travelers from 1782 still has the entry “Joh. Ces. Godeffroy”, the Hamburg merchant's almanac for the year 1784 then lists “Johan Cesar Godeffroi & Comp. ". Comparable information can be found in Ernst Baasch, volume 5.)

^ In addition to trading in canvas , "JC Godeffroy & Co" operated propre trading . (See: The companies of the most prestigious Hamburg trading houses ... , in: Johann Christian Herrmann: General Contorist , who gives the latest and most reliable news of all and every objects of action in all trading places in and outside Europe ..., Zweyter Theil, from C to König, Schwickert, Leipzig 1789, p. 446).

↑ Richard Hertz names Kurt Moriz-Eichborn as a source for the linen trade: The debit and credit… . The information given there about the collaboration between Godeffroy and Eichborn is of a general nature, e.g. For example: "The prospects for our action ... are extremely sad."

↑ Richard Hertz (p. 10): “In general there is hardly any news about the trading activities of the company at that time: we only see from the account books that the linen sales of JC Godeffroy in the 90s with some other companies came first stands without our being able to name numbers. "

↑ Ernst Baasch, page 621ff.

↑ The information on the currency of the inheritance is questionable. The statement "pound sterling" is first used by the author Kurt Schmack (page 21) and has consequently been adopted by the authors of subsequent works. The author Ms. Hoffmann ( Das Haus an der Elbchaussee ) named the florin (French name for Dutch guilders) (p. 26) and Ms. Möhring ( The Huguenot family Godeffroy ) the guilder (p. 14) as the currency . According to recent research, it was the currency of the livre , which was valid in France at the time , and whose currency symbol £ was confusingly similar to that for the British pound ₤. The testator Isaac Godeffroy had lived in Paris after he left Suriname and died there. There was no reason to keep the money in English currency or to bequeath it.

↑ Richard Hertz (p. 11, footnote 42) it says among other things: "The lap book estimates the inheritance on the wall frame 1796 at 48,000 Mk. Bco.".

↑ It was demolished in 1886 for the construction of the Speicherstadt .

↑ The information given by the author Richard Ehrenberg on the area and currency units were common when his work was printed (1897), but not at the time of purchase (1786), (p. 96).

↑ There is an extensive travelogue that was found in the estate of Peter Texier and later published.

↑ Richard Hertz (p. 11) and (footnote 43) it says among other things: "A broker [Georg Ludwig Wilhelm] Grasmeyer estimated ..." and the accompanying footnote: "Man [uscript] in private ownership". (For Grasmeyer see Hans Schröder : Lexicon of Hamburg writers ... , No. 1294).

↑ Richard Hertz (p. 11) it says among other things: “Through the death (of the mother), ... my only brother August and I ... come into possession of the ... property. … It is ½ million Mark Banco for each of us… “Cesar Godeffroy and his wife Antoinette both died in 1818, he in May and she in November.

↑ Images in: Johannes Meyer, Alfred Lichtwark (preface): Hamburger Bildnisse , Otto Meissner, Hamburg, 1913, pages 30–31, ( online ) and Peter Vignau-Wilberg: The painter Friedrich Carl Gröger . Wachholtz, Neumünster, 1971, page 157, no.233.

personal data
SURNAME	Godeffroy, Jean Cesar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Godeffroy, Jean César IV .; Godeffroy, Johan Cesar IV .; Godeffroy, Johann Cesar IV .; Godeffroy, Johan Cesar; Godeffroy, Jean César
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	German businessman
DATE OF BIRTH	October 16, 1742
PLACE OF BIRTH	Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH	May 7, 1818
Place of death	Hamburg

[1] The French form of the first name is used in the article by Claus Gossler in the Hamburgische Biografie and in the description of his portrait of Friedrich Carl Gröger published in the Hamburg portraits in 1913 . German-language publications and Hamburg address books from the time indicate the first name with "Johan" or "Johann" or "Joh." For short.

[2] Letters from Peter Godeffroy and Georg Parish from the years 1813 and 1814. Communicated by Hans Nirrnheim , Journal of the Association for Hamburg History (ZHG) 1914, p. 115

[3] The author Richard Hertz had documented the founding year of “JC Godeffroy & Co” in 1766 with a text passage in the obituary for Cesar Godeffroy (see footnote 35). After that, "he headed the house for 52 years". In fact, however, the names "JC Godeffroy & Co" or "Joh. Ces. Godeffroy & Co ”for the trading house was only introduced after Cesar Godeffroy had taken on a partner in 1782. Initially, Cesar Godeffroy traded under his name “JC Godeffroy” (evidence: The Almanac for Travelers from 1782 still has the entry “Joh. Ces. Godeffroy”, the Hamburg merchant's almanac for the year 1784 then lists “Johan Cesar Godeffroi & Comp. ". Comparable information can be found in Ernst Baasch, volume 5.)

[4] In addition to trading in canvas , "JC Godeffroy & Co" operated propre trading . (See: The companies of the most prestigious Hamburg trading houses ... , in: Johann Christian Herrmann: General Contorist , who gives the latest and most reliable news of all and every objects of action in all trading places in and outside Europe ..., Zweyter Theil, from C to König, Schwickert, Leipzig 1789, p. 446).

[5] Richard Hertz names Kurt Moriz-Eichborn as a source for the linen trade: The debit and credit… . The information given there about the collaboration between Godeffroy and Eichborn is of a general nature, e.g. For example: "The prospects for our action ... are extremely sad."

[6] Richard Hertz (p. 10): “In general there is hardly any news about the trading activities of the company at that time: we only see from the account books that the linen sales of JC Godeffroy in the 90s with some other companies came first stands without our being able to name numbers. "

[7] Ernst Baasch, page 621ff.

[8] The information on the currency of the inheritance is questionable. The statement "pound sterling" is first used by the author Kurt Schmack (page 21) and has consequently been adopted by the authors of subsequent works. The author Ms. Hoffmann ( Das Haus an der Elbchaussee ) named the florin (French name for Dutch guilders) (p. 26) and Ms. Möhring ( The Huguenot family Godeffroy ) the guilder (p. 14) as the currency . According to recent research, it was the currency of the livre , which was valid in France at the time , and whose currency symbol £ was confusingly similar to that for the British pound ₤. The testator Isaac Godeffroy had lived in Paris after he left Suriname and died there. There was no reason to keep the money in English currency or to bequeath it.

[9] Richard Hertz (p. 11, footnote 42) it says among other things: "The lap book estimates the inheritance on the wall frame 1796 at 48,000 Mk. Bco.".

[10] It was demolished in 1886 for the construction of the Speicherstadt .

[11] The information given by the author Richard Ehrenberg on the area and currency units were common when his work was printed (1897), but not at the time of purchase (1786), (p. 96).

[12] There is an extensive travelogue that was found in the estate of Peter Texier and later published.

[13] Richard Hertz (p. 11) and (footnote 43) it says among other things: "A broker [Georg Ludwig Wilhelm] Grasmeyer estimated ..." and the accompanying footnote: "Man [uscript] in private ownership". (For Grasmeyer see Hans Schröder : Lexicon of Hamburg writers ... , No. 1294).

[14] Richard Hertz (p. 11) it says among other things: “Through the death (of the mother), ... my only brother August and I ... come into possession of the ... property. … It is ½ million Mark Banco for each of us… “Cesar Godeffroy and his wife Antoinette both died in 1818, he in May and she in November.

[15] Images in: Johannes Meyer, Alfred Lichtwark (preface): Hamburger Bildnisse , Otto Meissner, Hamburg, 1913, pages 30–31, ( online ) and Peter Vignau-Wilberg: The painter Friedrich Carl Gröger . Wachholtz, Neumünster, 1971, page 157, no.233.