Seneca Inggersen

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Seneca
Baron von Gelting Painting by P. Jeoffroy
in the manor house in Gelting
Coat of arms of the Baron von Gelting

Seneca Baron von Gelting , born as Süncke Ingwersen , later called Seneca Inggersen , Baron of Geltingen , (born March  23, 1715 in Langenhorn (North Friesland) ; † December 28, 1786 on his estate Rustenburg near The Hague , ± Oude Kerk in Voorburg ) was a North Frisian-Dutch merchant and landowner.

Life

origin

Süncke Ingwersen was born as the tenth of 13 children of the horse dealer Paul Ingwersen († 1729) and the pastor's daughter Cäcilia Lucia Brodersen († 1727) from Leck and entered the baptismal register under the name Süncke Ingwersen. He came from a long-established, respected and wealthy family. Among the family members were quite a few dikers , bailiffs and pastors. Through his maternal grandfather, the Protestant pastor Diederich Brodersen , it is largely related to the composer Johannes Brahms .

After the parents went bankrupt and died early, the six survivors of the 13 siblings were distributed among the relatives. Süncke Ingwersen grew up with an uncle in the old Christian-Albrechts-Koog . Allegedly, he received training as a barber , which also gave him medical skills. However, this training is not verified in the sources. According to other reports, he was a cabin boy on a coaster and fled home after a fight.

Dutch East India Compagnie

In 1734 Ingwersen signed up for five years as an Adelborst ( sea ​​cadet ) on ships of the Dutch East India Company . As usual, when he enrolled, he adapted his North Frisian name to the Dutch language and called himself Seneca Inggersen. He did his service on ships that ran between the company's Asian trading posts and factories. During this time he was assigned to the ship's surgeon as an assistant.

At the end of his service, Seneca Inggersen returned to Europe in 1739 and in September 1739 took the exam to become a "senior surgeon" in Amsterdam . In this rank he was hired again in October 1739 with the East India Company. In June 1740 he reached Batavia . There he witnessed the uprising of the Chinese workers against the Dutch colonial power in the autumn of the same year, which led to the massacre in which around 10,000 Chinese were killed by Dutch soldiers and locals. This massacre led to a collapse in sugar production as it was largely in Chinese hands. Until 1741 he made numerous trips a. a. to China and Ceylon . The contacts and knowledge of languages ​​and circumstances he gained in the process soon promoted his rise.

Batavia around 1740

On August 17, 1742, Seneca Inggersen became the town pharmacist in Batavia and thus received a higher rank and income than a captain. In this position he was responsible for supplying all employees of the company with medicines. On November 4th of the same year he married Adriana van Loo (1726–1755), the niece of the then Governor General of the Dutch East Indies, Johannes Thedens, who, like Inggersen himself, came from North Friesland. Adriana's cousin Jacob Mossel was also one of the leading figures in the Dutch East India trade and had been Governor General since 1750. This relationship enabled Inggersen to rise in rank and gain great wealth in the years that followed. He bought several houses in Batavia and received permission to privately trade in products for which the company claimed monopolies . In 1749 he was also officially appointed a merchant. In 1750 he became the second administrator of the large shipyards, equipment stores, sawmills and warehouses on Onrust and in 1751 first administrator. The two administrators took turns staying on the island for four months each, from which there was daily mail to Batavia.

Away from Onrust

Inggersen had always kept in touch with his family and supported his siblings financially. No sooner had he established himself than he caught up with his brothers. Diederich (* 1709) died on the crossing in 1746. Paul Ingwersen (1717–1792) reached Batavia in 1750 on a Danish ship and remained without official employment with the company as his brother's right hand man. a. as the captain of his own merchant ship.

In 1752 Inggersen reached the high point of his career with the company as an opperkoopman . He became representative and chargé d'affaires of the East India Company in Cheribon , a sultanate on Java . In return for military support against the King of Bantam , the sultans had given the company a fertile stretch of coast and the port with all rights. The city-state with its fortified fort had thus become a trading hub for the company. The Dutch planted sugar plantations in the countryside. Inggersen settled in the fort with his family and lived a luxurious life in keeping with the sultans. Among other things, he laid out a baroque garden at the fort . He was on friendly terms with the Sultan of Indramayu, one of the four sultans of Cheribon. During his stay, the Handelskontor experienced its highest profits. Inggersen earned a huge fortune for himself through stakes in the company's coffee trade , but also through independent sugar and rum production as well as wood and - as the head of the Opiumsocieteit in Cheribon - opium trade . He also gave loans to captains and local merchants.

In 1755 Adriana died after a long illness during the fifth pregnancy on Cheribon. She was buried in the family grave in the Reformed Church in Batavia. After her death, Inggersen sold his property on Java and Cheribon - including around 90 slaves - and handed over the office in Ceribon to Pieter Cornelis Hasselaer, Jacob Mossel's son-in-law. In 1757 he, his brother and his daughters left Batavia.

Squire

Gut Gelting around 1860, Alexander Duncker collection

In 1758 Inggersen reached The Hague. There were numerous precious stones in his luggage. His fortune was unimaginably large, even by Javanese standards. The bills of exchange for the assets left on Java alone amounted to 410,935 guilders . The approximately 8,000 guilders, which he was paid for his 24 years of service with the company on his return - minus the cost of the crossing for himself, his daughters and two slaves and the reimbursement of the loan for the basic surgical equipment purchased in 1739 - were included not weight. The Danish ambassador to the Dutch court immediately informed King Frederick V of the arrival of his immensely wealthy subject. Friedrich V immediately summoned Inggersen to Copenhagen, in 1759 sold him Gut Gelting, which had run down after the bankruptcy of the Ahlefeld family at the beginning of the 18th century, for a special price of 85,000 thalers - allegedly it was worth 100,000 thalers - and appointed him Baron von Geltingen, all in the hope that the successful businessman would settle down in Copenhagen as a consultant and financier. Seneca Inggersen received a coat of arms and an exemption from import restrictions for luxury goods. In return, he invested a lot of money in the company for the Danish king.

Although the Danish King Inggersen wanted to bind himself more closely, he leased the Gut Gelting, which had previously been neglected, to his brother Paul, who now called himself captain, immediately after the takeover in 1760. Together with Paul, who remained unmarried, the sister Lucia (1712–1799) successfully ran the estate. The siblings tried to improve the working conditions of the serfs , had new houses built and provided health and retirement benefits for the members of the estate. Inggersen was also the patron saint of the Geltinger Katharinenkirche and bought a family crypt there. From 1762–1781 Inggersen's eldest daughter and her husband lived in the Geltinger manor house. From 1770 Inggersen had it expanded and surrounded by the garden architect Johann Caspar Bechstedt with an artistic garden in Régence style. Shortly before his death in 1786 he ordered the abolition of serfdom , the parceling of the estate and the leasing of the parcels to the former serfs. The only son inherited the estate but died unmarried, so that after his death in 1820 it fell to the descendants of his sister Adriana, whose descendants, the von Hobe-Gelting family , still own it today.

Gut Rustenburg near The Hague

Inggersen often stayed at Gut Gelting or his town house in Schleswig , but he also traveled a lot through Europe and kept his center of life in the Netherlands. He had his estate Rustenburg near The Hague, which he had acquired in 1758, furnished in the Rococo style and expanded the associated baroque garden with exotic plants. This house was sold after his death and demolished in 1912 for the construction of the Peace Palace . The gardens have been partially preserved. He also owned a town house in The Hague right next to the head office of the Dutch East India Company. Danish politicians wondered whether Inggersen could be tied closer to Denmark by marrying him and / or his eldest daughter in Copenhagen. Nothing came of it. In 1763 Inggersen married the noblewoman Charlotte Louise von Spörcken. She was the daughter of Rudolph Freiherr von Spörcken (1696–1766), chamberlain and envoy of King George III. of Great Britain, and Simon van Slingelandt's maternal granddaughter . Inggersen's daughter Gertruyda from his first marriage married the brother of his bride, Adolph von Spörcken, on the same day. Both uncle, the Hanoverian Field Marshal Friedrich von Spörcken , excluded both of them from his inheritance because of these improper marriages. With the death of his father-in-law in 1766, Inggersen's wealth increased again. The legacy included u. a. the former Klooster Emmaus in de Steynpolder, where Erasmus of Rotterdam lived from 1485–1493. In 1777, Inggersen asked Emperor Joseph II for admission to the knighthood of Schleswig-Holstein and for promotion to the status of imperial baron , both of which were granted to him.

Oude Kerk in Voorburg, Inggersen's final resting place

In 1784 it was bought by a descendant of Johann Adolph Kielmann von Kielmannsegg , a relative of his second wife, his town house in Schleswig and the family grave in Schleswig Cathedral . Although he already owned a family crypt in the Geltinger church, his wife and youngest daughter Suzanna were buried in Schleswig Cathedral. He himself found his final resting place in the Oude Kerk St. Martinus von Voorburg .

Organ donated by Inggersen to the Laurentius Church in Langenhorn. The right inscription commemorates Adriana de Loo, Inggersen's first wife.

Langenhorn Foundations

While still in Java, Inggersen started donating an organ to the St. Laurentius Church in his home town of Langenhorn in memory of Adriana. As early as 1755 he commissioned the “Royal Danish and Grand Prince”. Schleswig-Holstein's privileged organ maker “ Johann Daniel Busch with the draft of a disposition . At the end of 1756 he authorized the Langenhorn pastor and the church leaders to carry out the plan he had given. The implementation did not take place until 1759. On July 19 of this year, Inggersen signed a contract with Busch that he would have the organ completed within two years according to the present plan and receive "500 Marcklübsch Grob Dänisch Cour:" for it. For the construction of this organ, which was oversized for a village church, the medieval choir of the church had to be demolished and the whole width of the church had to be expanded to the east. In 1761 the organ was finished. It is located on the north side gallery. Concerts are still held on it today. On the organ parapet, a Lyk Klagt (funeral lawsuit) reminds of Inggersen's wife Adriana. The marble reliefs were created by J. Luraghi from The Hague. In 1766 the church received a further 1000 Mk with the condition that the organ with "my coat of arms, and poetic verses, everything engraved in marble" should be maintained as long as the church would stand. He also bought a seat if he should ever attend the service in Langenhorn.

In addition, Inggersen made a foundation for Langenhorn widows and orphans .

family

In 1742 Inggersen married Adriana van Loo in Batavia (born January 10, 1726 in Batavia; † March 24, 1755). From this marriage came:

  • Gertruyda Johanna (born March 6, 1744 in Batavia; † 1802) ⚭ Simon Friedrich Adolph Freiherr von Spörcken (1729–1784)
  • Paul (1746–1748)
  • Lucia Theodora (born June 9, 1752 in Cheribon; † 1818) ⚭ Joachim Levin Freiherr von Meerheimb (1742–1802) to Groß Gischow, Groß and Klein Gnemern in Mecklenburg
  • Adriana Sybranda (born February 22, 1754 in Cheribon; † 1803) ⚭ 1770 Andreas August von Hobe (1739–1802), Danish chamberlain and bailiff of Reinbek and Trittau

In 1763 he married Charlotte Louise von Spörcken (* 1733 in The Hague; † 1816 in Hamburg). From the second marriage came:

  • Christian Friedrich Rudolf (1764-1820)
  • Suzanna Cecilia (1773–1795) ⚭ 1791 Rudolf Ernst Freiherr von Spörcken (1757–1808), head forester from Hanover in Celle, divorced, childless

literature

  • Albert Panten : Seneca Inggersen's luck in Batavia. Published by Orgelbauverein Langenhorn eV Langenhorn 1999.
  • HNA Jensen, history of the parish of Gelting . In: Archives for State and Church History of the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg , Vol. 3 (1837), pp. 1–98, here p. 38

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, pp. 5–7.
  2. ^ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 26.
  3. ^ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 9f.
  4. ^ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 28.
  5. ↑ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 17.
  6. ↑ Johannes Thedens (1680–1748) came from Friedrichstadt and was related to the Dutch van Loo family. In 1697 he came to his uncle, the company merchant Jacob van Loo, in China, worked for many years as a merchant, from 1731 councilor of the company and after Adriaan Valckenier's dismissal as a result of the massacre of the Chinese in 1741, he became governor general until 1743 ( Short biography (nl.)).
  7. ^ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 33.
  8. ^ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 16
  9. ^ Gertrud Silberhorn: The East Indian Adventure. The life story of Süncke Ingwersen 3rd part. In: Amtskurier Geltinger Bucht 4/2008 , pp. 30–33; P. 32 (pdf, accessed January 31, 2017)
  10. ^ Gertrud Silberhorn: The East Indian Adventure. The life story of Süncke Ingwersen 4th part. In: Amtskurier Geltinger Bucht 5/2008 , pp. 31–36; P. 33f (pdf, accessed January 31, 2017)
  11. ^ Gertrud Silberhorn: The East Indian Adventure. The life story of Süncke Ingwersen 4th part. In: Amtskurier Geltinger Bucht 5/2008 , pp. 31–36; P. 32 (pdf, accessed January 31, 2017)
  12. ↑ a b Gertrud Silberhorn: The East Indian Adventure - Again in Europe. The life story of Süncke Ingwersen 6th part. In: Amtskurier Geltinger Bucht 1/2009 , pp. 38–40; P. 38 (pdf, accessed on January 31, 2017)
  13. ^ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 36.
  14. ↑ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 40f.
  15. ↑ One of the two slaves, Castia, married the surgeon Kahrel employed by Inggersen for Gut Gelting in 1767 and since then has been called Catharina Kahrel (Gertrud Silberhorn: Das Ostindische Abenteuer - Again in Europe. The life story of Süncke Ingwersen 6th part. In: Amtskurier Geltinger Bucht 1/2009 , pp. 38–40; p. 39 (pdf, accessed on January 31, 2017))
  16. ↑ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 34.
  17. ^ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 54.
  18. ^ Silberhorn: The life story of the North Frisian Seneca Ingersen Freiherr von Geltingen , p. 46.
  19. ↑ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 21.
  20. ↑ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 28f.
  21. ↑ Langenhorn Church .
  22. ↑ Langenhorn organ .
  23. ^ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 33.
  24. ^ Panten: Seneca Inggersens Glück in Batavia, p. 38.


personal data
SURNAME Inggersen, Seneca
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Gelting, Seneca Freiherr von; Ingwersen, Süncke (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Representative of the Dutch East India Company
DATE OF BIRTH March 23, 1715
PLACE OF BIRTH Langenhorn (North Friesland)
DATE OF DEATH December 28, 1786
Place of death Gut Rustenburg near The Hague