Pierre Boué

Pierre Boué (born March 8, 1677 in Bordeaux , † December 25, 1745 in Hamburg ) was a merchant , shipowner and founder of a shipyard .

Life

Boué came from a Huguenot family who had migrated from Clairac to Bordeaux and La Rochelle and consisted of merchants and financiers . In his youth he trained as a merchant in Amsterdam and Copenhagen and then went to Hamburg around 1700, where his sister Anne-Marie and his uncle Pierre Boué the Elder were already staying.

In Hamburg, Boué was successful in maritime trade and as a shipowner and financier. By the middle of the 18th century, his company achieved a leading position in the import of raw sugar from the French Caribbean . In addition, colonial goods such as coffee, cotton and indigo as well as wine and brandy were imported from France. One customer for imported wine was the ducal court in Plön . Mainly linen fabrics were used. In addition, the company "Pierre Boué et les fils" ran business in the areas of finance and insurance. An insurance company planned in 1720, with Boué, his brother-in-law Alexandre Bruguier, Bernard Texier, Rudolf Amsinck and Georg Jencquel on the board of directors, was not approved by the Hamburg Senate .

In 1719 Boué founded a shipyard in Altona together with his brother Jacques Boué († 1738) . After the Hamburg Senate made a plot of land at the Oberhafen available in 1723 , the shipyard was relocated there. It was known under the name "French Shipbuilding" and was considered the most important shipyard of the 18th century in Hamburg. From 1719 to 1732 at least 23 ships were built there for the Compagnie de l'Inde , which was active in the Asian and Atlantic slave trade . Shipyards in Spain were also supplied with materials for shipbuilding. For this purpose, Boué ran his own timber business and a reep felling .

Pierre Boué married Marie Jacoba Bardewisch in Altona in 1705. In the French Reformed congregation in Altona he was active as a member from 1707 at the latest. Boué had lived in a house at Neuen Wandrahm 96 since 1734. He also owned a country house on Palmaille in Ottensen . The Hamburg company was taken over and continued by his son Pierre (1707–1793). The daughter Anne-Marie was married to Guillaume Nairac (1708–1793), who was a shipowner in Bordeaux, since 1746. His daughter Marie Jacobée (1712-1730) was married to Jean Pierre Chaunel (1703-1789). The son Jean Alexandre Boué (1709–1781) also became a co-owner of the company "Pierre Boué et les fils".

literature

• Klaus Weber : Boué, Pierre . In: Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke (Hrsg.): Hamburgische Biographie . tape 5 . Wallstein, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-8353-0640-0 , p. 59-60 .
• German Gender Book , Vol. 200, CA Starke Verlag, Limburg / Lahn, 1996, p. 63 ff.
• Klaus Weber: German merchants in the Atlantic trade 1680–1830. Companies and families in Hamburg, Cádiz and Bordeaux. Beck, Munich 2004, ISBN 3-406-51860-5 , p. 243 ( books.google.de )