Rudolf Christian Gribel

Rudolf Christian Gribel (baptized April 7, 1747 in Kirchwärder ; † 1831 in Stettin ) was a German merchant and shipowner. He founded the trading house Rud. Christian. Gribel that as a shipping company existed until the second half of the 20th century.

Life

Rudolf Christian Gribel was the youngest son and sixth of eight children of Joachim Friedrich Gribel (1707–1780), organist in Kirchwärder, and Anna Katharina Wruck. At the age of 16 he began an apprenticeship in a Hamburg wine shop. After completing his apprenticeship, he was employed as a cooper by Gotthilf Friedrich Tilebein in Stettin for three years at the end of 1767 .

He was registered as a citizen on January 14, 1773 with the French colony in Stettin. In the same year he founded the company Noack & Gribel with the Szczecin businessman Johann Friedrich Noack , which mainly operated in wine trading. Noack took over the office , while Gribel managed the wine warehouse. The company developed well, the contributions of the shareholders rose to more than four times the opening capital by 1777. From August 1776 the company was called Gribel & Noack , because Gribel had meanwhile become the more important of the two partners. With his marriage in the same year with Eleonore Margarete Georgi from Hamburg, the step-niece of the commercial councilor Peter Artzberger, who was influential in the Stettin merchant class, he had laid the foundation for his further rapid rise. In 1798 he bought a summer house in Finkenwalde .

In 1779 he founded under the name Rud. Christian. Gribel started a new company of which he was the sole owner. He took over the Artzberger's house in Grosse Oderstrasse and its granary on the Lastadie. In 1780 Gribel owned a third share in the ship Johannes . In 1782 he already participated in six ships. While the wine trade remained the main business, the trade in goods took up significantly more space than before.

With the collapse of Prussia in 1806 and the subsequent French era , heavy burdens came up for his entrepreneur as well as for the entire merchant class. Due to the continental blockade , trade in Szczecin largely came to a standstill. Despite everything, the company got through the occupation and also survived the crisis that occurred after the end of the continental blockade, which was caused by an oversupply of English goods with a subsequent drop in prices. In the following years he managed the trading house together with his son Friedrich Wilhelm Gribel , who had been a partner since 1805, to whom he gradually handed over the entire management. The shipping company was rebuilt and the Gribels took part in a sugar boiler.

In 1823 Rudolf Christian Gribel was awarded the title of Kommerzienrat .

family

With Eleonore Margarete Georgi (* 1752), daughter of the Hamburg master tailor Joh. Michael Georgi and Anna Katharina Köster, he had two daughters and seven sons. Only the sixth son Friedrich Wilhelm, who continued the business, survived the father. The youngest son Heinrich Ferdinand died in the Wars of Liberation in 1813.

literature

• Wilhelm Braun : Friedrich Wilhelm Gribel. In: Pomeranian Life Pictures . Volume 3: Pomerania of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Leon Saunier, Stettin 1939, p. 243 f.

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hans Branig :  Gribel, Friedrich Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 7, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1966, ISBN 3-428-00188-5 , p. 56 ( digitized version ). (Son's article)