Johan Cesar Godeffroy (businessman, 1781)

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Johan Cesar Godeffroy (born October 15, 1781 in Hamburg ; † July 3, 1845 there ) was a German merchant and shipowner from Hamburg.

Life

Johan Cesar Godeffroy came from the Huguenot family Godeffroy . He was the eldest son of the Hamburg merchant Johan Cesar Godeffroy (1742-1818) and his wife Antoinette Magdalena, née Matthiessen (1762-1818).

After completing his school education and apprenticeship, Godeffroy first went on a grand tour to Italy and joined his father's trading company , which was named JC Godeffroy & Son from January 1, 1806. Godeffroy became a citizen of Hamburg on September 8, 1809. At the time of the continental blockade, business was bad and the company's revenues plummeted to a twentieth of the previous years. During the second French occupation of Hamburg in 1813, the family moved their residence and business to Kiel , where the eldest son was born. After the French garrison withdrew, business in Hamburg resumed only slowly, and Godeffroy initially only owned two ships. By 1828 the number rose to five ships, which put the company in fifth place in Hamburg in terms of the number of ships.

After his father's death in May 1818, he took on Eduard Ferdinand Faerber, who was already an authorized signatory in the company, and Johann Heinrich Bohnenberg as partners. Associé Bohnenberg died on October 16, 1819. The partnership with Faerber existed until December 31, 1831. Faerber then went to Mexico City and established the company "Faerber & Godeffroy" there, which Godeffroy provided with a financial aid of 100,000 marks Banco supported. Faerber represented the interests of Hamburg as consul and those of Bremen as consul general for Mexico. In June 1841 he returned to Hamburg.

In 1844 JC Godeffroy & Sohn achieved more income from the shipping company than from trading. In 1845, the year Godeffroys died, the company rose to become the largest shipping company in Hamburg. He left a fortune of 625,412 Banco Marks, around 125,000 Banco marks more than he had inherited in 1818.

The country house JC Godeffroy on the Elbchaussee

Cesar Godeffroy led a life that allowed him many comforts. But he always made sure that he didn't spend more than he earned and kept a very precise record of this. To socialize, cards were played with friends and acquaintances during Godeffroy's lifetime. Cesar Godeffroy won a lot of money, but lost it again over the years.

Godeffroy married Sophie Lucie Meyer on November 23, 1810, widowed von Witzendorff (1786–1842). The marriage resulted in a daughter and four sons. The daughter's name was Helene Godeffroy (1811-1894). She was married to the merchant William Brancker (1797-1882) since 1833, who founded the Brancker, Godeffroy & Co. company after 1837 with capital from Godeffroy in New York . The sons were today's best-known namesake Johan Cesar Godeffroy (1813-1885) , Adolph Godeffroy (1814-1893), Gustav Godeffroy (1817-1893) and Alfred Godeffroy (1824-1898), who was a merchant in San Francisco .

literature

  • Claus Gossler: Godefroy, Johan Cesar V . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 142-144 .
  • Bernhard Koerner (ed.): German gender book . 27th volume. Starke, Görlitz 1914, p. 24 .
  • Kurt Schmack: JC Godeffroy & son merchants in Hamburg . Performance and fate of a world trading house. Broschek, Hamburg 1938, DNB  576039713 .
  • 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 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Deviating from the entry in the German Gender Book , Ninth Hamburger Band, p. 293, which specifies "Hamburg" as the place of death, is in the obituary for "Johan Cesar Godeffroy" in the Hamburger Nachrichten of July 5, 1845, page 4 as the place of death called the "Landsitz zu Dockenhuden". The advertisement is signed with "Children, children-in-law and grandchildren".
  2. ↑ There are no corresponding quotations in the sources listed there for a Grand Tour that is mentioned in the article in the Hamburg Biography .
  3. ↑ a b Proclamata (Hamburg, January 4, 1819), in: Hamburger Nachrichten , January 26, 1819, p. 5
  4. ^ Kurt Moriz-Eichborn: The debit and credit of Eichborn & Co in 175 years: a Silesian contribution to the fatherland's economic history . WG Korn, Breslau 1903, p. 149 .
  5. ^ Proclamata (Hamburg, February 27, 1822), in: Hamburger Nachrichten , October 4, 1822, p. 2
  6. ^ Proclamata (Hamburg, September 11, 1834), in: Hamburger Nachrichten , December 19, 1834, p. 3
  7. ↑ Kurt Schmack, p. 25 and Richard Hertz, p. 15, footnote 54.
  8. ↑ "For many years people like Matthiessen [Conrad Johann] Matthiessen , [Martin Anton] Heckscher [(1762–1823)], [Johann Ludwig Barthold] Heise ([1749–1812)], [François Diedrich] Bertheau [( 1734–1826)], Parish, Hüffel, Gerkens, Thornton, Texier and Tiedemann regularly to play. ”Quotation from: Paul The. Hoffmann: The Elbchaussee. Their country estates, people and fates . Broschek, Hamburg 1937, footnote 399, p. 239.
personal data
SURNAME Godeffroy, Johan Cesar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Godeffroy, Johan Cesar V.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German merchant and shipowner
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1781
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamburg
DATE OF DEATH July 3, 1845
Place of death Hamburg