Johannes Meyer-Rusca

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Johannes Meyer-Rusca (1890)
Johannes Meyer-Rusca (1920)

Johannes Meyer-Rusca (first name private Jean, family name written Meier until 1870 ; Rusca was the single name of his wife, which he always carried with him; * March  26, 1851 in Winkel near Bülach ; †  February 4, 1936 in Seeb , Winkel municipality) an agent working in his home country and in Italy, Swiss Gross merchant and silk industrial and Zurich cantonal and local politicians.

Appointed to the traditional Zurich raw silk company Hans Conrad Muralt & Sohn (from 1883 Bodmer-von Muralt) in 1880, he made a major contribution to developing it from a pure trading company to a predominantly industrial company. In 1902, when Bodmer-von Muralt was converted into the public limited company Banco Sete, Meyer moved his place of work from Zurich to the new company headquarters in Milan , which was then the largest silk square in Europe. After retiring from operational management in 1910, he took on numerous public offices: he was a member of the Zurich Cantonal Council , the Bank Council of the Zürcher Kantonalbank and the Zurich Commercial Court and served at the municipal level as President of the Winkel civil parish and primary school administration, as a justice of the peace and as a chief forestry officer . In addition, he was involved in a number of economic and social organizations.

Live and act

Education, first professional experience, marriage

Johannes Meyer grew up as the youngest of four boys owned by Heinrich Meier (“Shoemaker”) and Anna Meier (“Leonhards”) on a farm in the center of the village of Winkel. After the local primary school he attended in Bulach the secondary . In 1866 he began a commercial apprenticeship with Jeanjaquet père et fils, nouveautés, couvertures et tapis in Neuchâtel in western Switzerland . In 1868 he was employed in Reiff-Huber's silk bag factory in Wiedikon (from 1869 in the Enge ; both today in Zurich ); The products made there were used to sieve flour and were sold to mills and traders of milling articles around the world. In the same year he joined the Zurich Commercial Association and soon after became its vice-president, the head of the teaching courses and, at the age of 21, its honorary member. In 1872 he founded the Bülach-Dielsdorfer Verein Zürich, which was supposed to offer a home to the Zürcher Unterländer working in the city .

In 1872 Meyer started a job as an accountant at the Heinrich Escher company in Trieste, Austria , which traded in cotton and olive oil and owned a timber company in Slavonia and a cement and lime factory in Istria . On the occasion of a visit to the Adelsberg Grotto (in present-day Slovenia), he became engaged to Emilia Rusca (October 2, 1851 - October 11, 1936), daughter of the Trieste accommodation provider, sister of a company intern and member of a family who originally came from his father's side at Whitsun 1873 the Swiss Agno and maternal from Vienna . From 1873 Meyer worked for two years as an accountant at the Römer private bank N. Bianco & Co. In 1875 he took a job at the raw silk company Zuppinger, Sibler & Co. in Zurich , but spent the first year in Bergamo , where the company had a spinning mill and had a twisting mill. In 1876 he married Emilia Rusca in Trieste.

Family, work in Zurich and Milan

In 1876 the young couple settled in Zurich. Five sons and three daughters were born to him between 1877 and 1892, including Walterio Meyer Rusca .

After five years with the Zuppinger, Sibler & Co. company, Meyer followed a call from the Zurich raw silk company Hans Conrad Muralt & Sohn in 1880, from 1883 under the sole ownership of Martin Bodmer and from now on called Bodmer-Muralt. The subsequent conversion of the previously purely trading company to a predominantly industrial company was primarily Meyer's work.

During this time he rejoined the management of the commercial association, and he was one of the founders of the former club house "zum alten Seidenhof". In 1878, together with Ulrico Vollenweider, he had a “silk room” set up in the Zurich stock exchange, which was intended to provide a suitable meeting place for the numerous foreign visitors. The creation of the Zurich customs for trading in raw silk was largely Meyer's work; He also introduced a new type of calculation for raw silk production and consumption, taking into account stocks and shipments. From 1897 to 1899 he also served as President of the Zurich Silk Industry Society, which still exists today.

In 1902, the Bodmer-Muralt company was converted into the Banco Sete joint stock company with headquarters in Milan and Zurich, which made Meyer's move to the Lombard metropolis necessary; his son-in-law Caspar Bruppacher remained in a leading position in Zurich. In Milan, the largest silk square in Europe at the time, the Associazione Serica appointed him a member of their court of arbitration and the Milan Silk Drying Institute a member of their board of directors and the supervisory commission of their silk laboratory. At the time of its greatest expansion, the Banco Sete owned 16 spinning mills and 8 twisting mills in Italy and Ticino, and it also had raw silk twisted as a contractor. Meyer also took on the silk industry in Győr , Hungary . After Martin Bodmer's death in 1909, he managed to sell Banco Sete to the Milanese industrialist Giuseppe de Montel in 1910. As a result, he withdrew from the operational management of the company, but remained on the board of directors until the company was liquidated in 1934 (which had been converted into Allgemeine Rohseiden A.-G. in 1920 ) after de Montel's death. In 1910 Meyer returned to Switzerland with his wife; his sons Hans and Max tried in Milan and Zurich, respectively, "to gather together the crumbs that were left over from the once brilliant business".

Back in Switzerland: Commitment to home and business

Villa Tusculum (1914)
Villa Tusculum (winter 1924)

The Meyer-Rusca couple spent the last 26 years of their lives in Winkel, their husband’s home parish. In 1899/1900 he built a villa originally conceived as a summer house on a moraine near the hamlet of Seeb, named Tusculum in memory of the time in Rome . The builder of the villa was Eduard Hafner (1861–1937); garden technician Ernst Hermes laid out the park in accordance with the detailed wishes of the client. In the years that followed, a number of outbuildings were built, such as a maid's house (later a guest house), a wash house and a coach house later converted into a garage. The villa and outbuildings were placed under cantonal monument protection as a protected object of regional importance.

Between the ages of 59 and almost 85, Meyer devoted himself to his home and away from home. In Winkel he served as president of the civil parish and primary school care, as judge of the peace and forestry director, in Bülach as secondary school caretaker. At cantonal level, he was a member of the Zurich cantonal parliament from 1910 to 1926 (first he joined the Liberal Party and later, as he increasingly identified with the farmers 'party in his village, the farmers, trade and citizens' party ) from 1913 to 1935 member of the bank council of Zürcher Kantonalbank and from 1911 to 1917 judge at the Zurich commercial court .

Under Meyer's work as Winkler Forestry Board was Niederwald into a profitable Hochwald transformed, and he led his community a forestry bill one, had the role models for the canton. In 1911 he founded the cattle breeding cooperative Winkel und Umgebung, of which he was president for many years, and from 1912 to 1932 he was president of the Winkel und Rüti agricultural association. In 1926 he initiated private forest marking in Winkel. With his help, the network of local water pipes was expanded and electricity was introduced in Winkel. When in 1911 around 1000 hectares in Winkler Ried had to be ceded to the federal government for the construction of the artillery arsenal, Meyer was a member of a municipal delegation that achieved “very favorable conditions” in Bern, which allowed the municipality to pay off its capital debts and also a cattle breeding fund to run up. His work as a bank counselor did not just take place against his background as an experienced industrialist, but he was particularly committed to the needs of the peasantry, to whom he felt closely connected due to his origins.

Meyer made his experience as a wholesale merchant available even after retiring from the profession. Until his death in 1936 he was President of the Board of Directors of the Mechanische Seidenstoffweberei Winterthur and from 1912 to 1936 President of the Arbitration Court for the trade in raw silk, and from 1916 to 1920 he served as President of the control commission of the silk import syndicate of the silk import syndicate Swiss import association for raw silk. In 1920 he became an honorary member of the Zurich Silk Industry Society. When the Urner Savings Fund ran into financial difficulties in 1914 and had to be supported by the cantonal banks, Meyer was elected to the supervisory commission; after its conversion to the Urner Kantonalbank , he was temporarily a member of its board of directors. As a result of his work in Uri, he was also elected a member and later Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Wire and Rubber Works in Altdorf and a member and later Vice-President of the associated Firestone tire factory in Pratteln .

Meyer also worked on the board of the Association for Homeland Security (now the Swiss Homeland Security ) founded in 1905 and in the Bülach district commission of the Pro Juventute Foundation, founded in 1912 . He  published numerous articles in various newspapers - including the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , the Finanz-Revue, the Zürcher Bauern and the Bülach-Dielsdorfer Wochen-Zeitung - and in 1931 he wrote a story about Winkel bei Bülach, which came out shortly after his death in 1936 and was reprinted in 2009. Meyer also excelled as a bird lover when, when a new law on hunting and bird protection was being discussed in 1917 in the cantonal council - in vain, of course - he urged the mandatory "as dense as possible planting of the forest edges" in the sense of a "planting of protective trees" because "we." […] Deprived the inhabitants of the air of the nesting opportunity through modern forestry, through the corrections of our waters and the associated elimination of the coppices along the banks and through the clearing of the hedgerows and exposed them to their enemies ».

estate

The estate of Johannes Meyer-Rusca is in the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich .

literature

  • Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002 (without ISBN).
  • Johannes Meyer-Rusca: History of angles at Bülach. Steinemann-Scheuchzer, Bülach 1936 (with the reproduction of three obituaries). New ed. 2009 (without ISBN).
  • Th [eophil] Niggli: One hundred years of the Zurich silk industry. 1854-1954. Edited by the Zurich silk industry society. Orell Füssli, Zurich [1954], passim.
  • Hans-Peter Treichler: Angle. Three villages - one story. Edited by the municipality of Winkel. bm druck ag, Winkel 2013, ISBN 978-3-033-04298-8 , p. 143 (partly not applicable).
  • Zurich Monument Preservation. 13th report 1991–1994. Kommunikation-Verlag, Zurich / Elgg 1998, ISBN 3-905647-86-9 , p. 387 ( online ).
  • Obituaries in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 7th, 1936 (without indication of the author), in the Bülach-Dielsdorfer Wochen-Zeitung of February 7th, 1936 (from "M."), in the Landbote (from "Mr. Cantonal Bank President Rüegg in Winterthur") from February 7, 1936, in the Gotthardpost of February 8, 1936 (without indication of the author), in the Finanz-Revue of February 12, 1936 (by "F.-R.") and in the Wiener Handelsblatt of February 15, 1936 (without indication of the author ); those from Bülach-Dielsdorfer Wochen-Zeitung, Landbote and Gotthardpost as an appendix to Johannes Meyer-Rusca's story by Winkel bei Bülach (1936 and 2009) reproduced ( online; opening credits do not match the print version ).

Footnotes

  1. ↑ For example, in his letter to his father of December 9, 1873, reproduced in Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, pp. 101-107.
  2. ↑ As are still the other Meier today with the town of Winkel, unless they are descendants of Johannes Meyer-Rusca. Meyer adopted the spelling with y older writing traditions of some of his ancestors, as he writes in his memoirs from my life (reproduced in Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): Geschichte und Genealogie der Familie Meyer-Rusca. Privatdruck 2002, S. 1– 73; here p. 30).
  3. ↑ According to the family tree and the school leaving certificate, both in Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, pp. 29 and 37; the statement "Jakob Meier" in an obituary printed in the Bülach-Dielsdorfer Wochen-Zeitung on February 7, 1936 is incorrect.
  4. ↑ Chapter, unless otherwise noted, based on Johannes Meyer-Rusca: Memories from my life. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Privatdruck 2002, pp. 75–100 and the pedigree ibid. P. 29.
  5. ↑ Johannes Meyer mentions in his memoirs Grossmann in Budapest , Schwarz in Vienna , Storer in Stuttgart , Erlanger in Moscow and Zürcher in Valparaiso ; He also mentions the Rhineland, New York (where a consignment warehouse was maintained) and Australia.
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g Obituary in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 7, 1936.
  7. ^ According to the list of the estate stored in the Zurich State Archives; the obituary published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on February 7, 1936 gives the name of the bank "Gallarati".
  8. ↑ According to the obituary published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 7, 1936 and after Hans Meyer: Modest addendum to the memories of the youth of Joh. Meyer-Rusca. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, pp. 109-113.
  9. ↑ The following, unless otherwise noted, according to Hans Meyer: Modest addendum to the memories of the youth of Joh. Meyer-Rusca. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, pp. 109-113.
  10. ^ Fritz Stucki: History of the Bodmer Family of Zurich (1543-1943). Edited by the Bodmer Family Fund to celebrate the four hundredth anniversary of the naturalization of the family in Zurich. Buchdruckerei, Zurich 1943, pp. 266, 268.
  11. ↑ Th [eophil] Niggli: Hundred Years of Zurich Silk Industry Society. 1854-1954. Edited by the Zurich silk industry society. Orell Füssli, Zurich [1954], p. 24.
  12. ↑ Th [eophil] Niggli: Hundred Years of Zurich Silk Industry Society. 1854-1954. Edited by the Zurich silk industry society. Orell Füssli, Zurich [1954], p. 180.
  13. ^ According to the register of the estate stored in the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich, Meyer was "last" a delegate of the Board of Directors ; Whether this was the case from 1902 or after Martin Bodmer's death in 1909 is not clear.
  14. ^ According to the obituary published in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung on February 7, 1936. In its article on Martin Bodmer, the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland lists 17 spinning mills and 5 twisting mills for 1906. Hans Meyer leads in his modest supplement to the childhood memories of Joh. Meyer-Rusca spinning mills in the cities of Lombardy Nerviano , Pioltello , Boccaleone , Buscate , Bellano , Alpignano and Buriasco and in Ticino Melano and twisting mills in Lombardy Nerviano and Broseta and in Ticino Capolago on . The company had sales agencies in Basel , Elberfeld and Krefeld ; Business was also done in Vienna, Lyon, Manchester, Moscow and New York.
  15. ^ According to the obituary in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung of February 7, 1936; According to the Historical Lexicon of Switzerland, article Martin Bodmer (as of July 28, 2019), Bodmer is said to have died in 1908.
  16. ^ Johannes Meyer: Banco Sete. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, pp. 141–143, here p. 142.
  17. ↑ Zurich Monument Preservation. 13th report 1991–1994. Kommunikation-Verlag, Zurich / Elgg 1998, p. 387. Description: “Apart from minor changes such as new wallpapers and the like, the villa is in good shape. Ä. - Remained in full to this day. The restoration [from 1994] was limited to the most essential work, as it was necessary for monument preservation due to the rich original substance. Cooking stove, various ovens, wall panels, floors, doors, windows and winter windows were repaired. Also preserved are the numerous painted ceilings, some with stucco edging, as well as the furniture fixtures decorated with wood grain imitation painting, wall panels, doors, including frames and window niches, which come from the painting shop ‹Thal und de Grada›, Zurich. [...] »
  18. ↑ On the construction and inauguration of the house, see also Johannes Meyer-Rusca: Landhaus Seew near Bülach. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, pp. 117–123; to the Verena Landolt-Meyer Park: A garden from the turn of the century. In: Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft für Gartenkultur 9 (1991), pp. 44–52 ( digitized version ; also in abbreviated form in Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser [Ed.]: History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, p. 131 -136).
  19. ^ According to the list of the estate stored in the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich; until the canton council elections of 1917, when proportional representation was introduced, party affiliations were not recorded in the electoral lists and membership lists of the canton council.
  20. ↑ In 1917 Meyer-Rusca was elected on the "peasant list", in 1920 on the "peasant and evangelical list" (a list connection) and again in 1923 on the "peasant list"; see Members of the Cantonal Council from 1803 (State Archives): Information on Johannes Meyer-Rusca (* 26.03.1851). Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  21. ↑ MM 24.49 KRP 1913/061/0350: Replacement elections to the bank council of the Zürcher Kantonalbank for the deceased J. Raths in Pfäffikon and the resigned Heinrich Rusterholz in Wädenswil; MM 24.58 KRP 1932/003/0043: Election of the board of directors for the term of office 1932–1935 (agenda item 3). Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  22. ↑ MM 24.49 KRP 1911/003/0045: Election of 30 commercial judges for the commercial court (after a double proposal by the commercial commission attached to the economics directorate). Retrieved July 16, 2019.
  23. ↑ Information compiled from the various obituaries as well as from Hans Meyer: Modest addendum to the memories of the youth of Joh. Meyer-Rusca. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, pp. 109–113, here p. 113 and Hermann Meyer: The last phase of my papa's life. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, p. 115 f.
  24. ↑ a b Hermann Meyer: The last phase of my papa's life. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, p. 115 f., Here p. 115.
  25. ↑ a b c Obituary in the Bülach-Dielsdorfer Wochen-Zeitung of February 7, 1936.
  26. ↑ a b According to the list of the estate stored in the State Archives of the Canton of Zurich.
  27. ↑ a b Hans Meyer: Modest addendum to the memories of the youth of Joh. Meyer-Rusca. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, pp. 109–113, here p. 113 and Hermann Meyer: The last phase of my papa's life. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, p. 115 f., Here p. 115.
  28. ↑ Th [eophil] Niggli: Hundred Years of Zurich Silk Industry Society. 1854-1954. Edited by the Zurich silk industry society. Orell Füssli, Zurich [1954], pp. 31 and 181.
  29. ↑ Th [eophil] Niggli: Hundred Years of Zurich Silk Industry Society. 1854-1954. Edited by the Zurich silk industry society. Orell Füssli, Zurich [1954], p. 99 f.
  30. ↑ a b Hans Meyer: Modest addendum to the memories of the youth of Joh. Meyer-Rusca. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private printing 2002, pp. 109–113, here p. 113 and Hermann Meyer: The last phase of my papa's life. In: Dieter Boser, Bernhard Boser (ed.): History and genealogy of the Meyer-Rusca family. Private print 2002, p. 115 f., Here p. 116.
  31. ↑ a b Obituary in the Gotthard Post from February 8, 1936.
  32. ↑ Minutes of the Cantonal Council of April 24, 2017 ( digitized version ).
  33. ↑ Pending in the archive catalog because the State Archives have not yet identified it (information from July 16, 2019).
personal data
SURNAME Meyer-Rusca, Johannes
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Meier, Johannes; Meyer-Rusca, Jean
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Swiss-Italian wholesale merchant and silk industrialist as well as Zurich cantonal and local politician
DATE OF BIRTH March 26, 1851
PLACE OF BIRTH Angle ZH
DATE OF DEATH February 4, 1936
Place of death Angle ZH