Wilhelm Mülhens

Wilhelm Mülhens (born June 25, 1762 in Troisdorf ; † March 6, 1841 in Cologne ) was a Cologne entrepreneur and founder of the Mülhens company, which became world famous with the " 4711 " fragrance .

Life

Origin and family

The Catholic Wilhelm Mülhens was the son of the castle administrator at Burg Wissem and later Troisdorf lay judges , Jacob Mülhens (1722–1806) and Maria Anna Gertrud, born. Volberg (1730-1816). Among his siblings are the older brothers Franz Wolfgang (1751–1835), businessman and banker in Cologne, Heinrich (1758–1838), banker in Koblenz and Frankfurt am Main, and Johann Theodor (1761–1837, married to Margaretha Schaaffhausen), banker known in Cologne, Koblenz and Frankfurt. Wilhelm Mülhens married Catharina Josephina Moers (1774–1841), daughter of the notary and Imperial Councilor Carl Joseph Moers and Sibylla Catharina, born in 1792 . Wintgens. The couple had seven children.

Career

No sources have survived over the first three decades of Mülhens' life. He probably came to Cologne shortly after his marriage, where his brothers were already working, among other things, as hauliers for the French army. According to the company legend, a Carthusian monk named Franz Carl Maria Farina gave him the recipe for making real Eau de Cologne as a present on the day of his marriage . The historian Wilhelm Treue also stated in his biography of Ferdinand Mülhens that his grandfather Wilhelm Mülhens was already involved in the production of Eau de Cologne in 1792. According to Wilhelm Treue's account, Wilhelm Mülhens acquired both citizenship in Cologne and the house in Glockengasse in 1796 , which in the same year received the number “4711” due to the numbering of all Cologne houses implemented by the council of April 8, 1796 should have. According to a recent evaluation of original sources, the house numbering goes back to a decision made during the Seven Years' War , which was ultimately only put into practice in 1794 under pressure from the approaching French revolutionary troops. The western corner house of Schwertnergasse later had the address Glockengasse 12.

At the beginning, the cologne production ran alongside the previously operated activity as a merchant in speculative transactions, without additional employees and with low production quantities. Only gradually did this branch of his business become the main one. Mülhens obtained its raw materials from Grasse , the most important place of delivery for scented plants. In 1800 he was listed as a cologne manufacturer on the list of contributors . In order to be able to use the well-known name Farina, he signed a partnership agreement in 1803 with a Carl Franz Maria Farina, who came from the Düsseldorf line of the clan. In 1804 Wilhelm Mülhens signed the first agency agreement with a Frankfurt wine trading company. And in 1807 the house number “4711” was used for the first time as a means of identification in a newspaper advertisement. As a result of the Napoleonic decree of 1810 to publish the recipes of all remedies , the "Eau de Cologne" producers sold their product exclusively as a scented water . At the same time, Wilhelm Mülhens set up the first representative office in Paris in 1811, which was followed by others in France. It was not least French officers returning home who increased the awareness of the product. However, in order to be able to distribute its product outside of the Napoleonic catchment area, Mühlens set up an agency in Stralsund , Sweden , and after the coalition wars others in Russia and England. A process developed by Johann Tobias Lowitz to use activated carbon to clean alcohol was of decisive importance for the company's upswing . This made the production of Eau de Cologne independent of the French alcohol to be declared .

Last years of life

In 1821 Wilhelm Mülhens handed over management to his 20-year-old son Peter Joseph Mülhens . After he had acquired a small estate from Kessenich in 1833 , which he also lived in at times, he finally withdrew from society around 1836. According to a list of assets that was drawn up for the purpose of dividing the inheritance in 1841, Wilhelm Mülhens' estate comprised around 85,000 thalers . Catharina and Wilhelm Mülhens died opposite their parent house, in Glockengasse 17, the house of a son-in-law, the lawyer Franz Ulrich Kyll (1795–1868).

Descendants

Among the four sons of the Mülhens couple, two of whom died early, it is Peter Joseph Mülhens (1801–1873) who continued the company. Ferdinand Mülhens (1844–1928) was a grandson and Peter Paul Mülhens (1875–1945) was a great-grandson. One daughter, Gertrud Nicolette Mülhens, had been married to Franz Ulrich Kyll (1795–1868) since 1827. Their son Peter Joseph Kyll (1834–1902) married Emma Bachem (1851–1912), a daughter of the Mayor of Cologne, Alexander Bachem , in 1873 . Peter Kyll was a co-founder of the (later) machine factory P. Kyll ( Oberländer Ufer 166 , Marienburg ).

• 

  Cologne address book 1797, page 179: Wilhelm Mülhens in Klöckergasse

• 

  Cologne address book 1822, page 228: Wilhelm Mülhens (Mühlens) under the company Franz Maria Farina

• 

  Letter from Wilhelm Mülhens dated February 3rd, 1826 regarding his company sales "... it's all up to you, as I wasn't allowed to make a transfer with the company ..."

• 

  Letter from Wilhelm Mülhens dated October 21, 1826 regarding his company "... Can't you get me the name of Johann Maria Farina from your cousin, brother's son, you would bind me very horribly, because Martin and Graff want to do everything ..."

• 

  Cologne address book 1831, page 261, Wilhelm Mülhens Glockengasse No.12

literature

• Herbert M. Schleicher (arrangement): 80,000 death notes from Rhenish collections. Volume III Ko – Po. (Publications of the West German Society for Family Studies , Cologne seat, No. 42). Cologne 1988, p. 170 (Kyll), 500f (Mülhens).
• Ulrich S. Soénius :  Mülhens, Wilhelm. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 18, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1997, ISBN 3-428-00199-0 , p. 299 f. ( Digitized version ).
• Wilhelm Treue: Ferdinand Mülhens (1844–1928) In: Rheinisch-Westfälische Wirtschaftsbiographien. Volume 12. Cologne entrepreneurs in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, Aschendorffsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, Münster 1986, ISBN 3-402-05587-2 , pp. 155–180.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} North Rhine-Westphalia State Archives, Rhineland Civil Status Archives, Civil Status Register, Cologne Regional Court, Cologne Registry Office, Deaths, 1841, Certificate No. 432
2. ↑ ^{a b} Herbert M. Schleicher (arrangement): 80,000 death notes from Rhenish collections. Volume III Ko-Po.
3. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i j k l m} Ulrich S. Soénius: NDB
4. ↑ Local history and history association Troisdorf: Troisdorf heads
5. ↑ ^{a b c d} Wilhelm Treue: Ferdinand Mülhens (1844–1928)
6. ↑ Where does house number 4711 come from or how did it come about? Retrieved on March 13, 2013 from archive.nrw.de .
7. ^ Foundation Rheinisch-Westfälisches Wirtschaftsarchiv (RWWA) Section 33, Cologne: Original files notary Flamm from August 19, 1803
8. ↑ ^{a b} Landesarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen, civil status archive Rhineland, civil status register, regional court Cologne, registry office Cologne, deaths, 1841, document no.1493 (Catharina Moers)
9. ^ Wolfram Hagspiel : Cologne. Marienburg. Buildings and architects of a villa suburb. (= Stadtspuren. Denkmäler in Köln, Volume 8.) 2 volumes, JP Bachem Verlag , Cologne 1996, ISBN 3-7616-1147-1 , Volume 2, pp. 549ff.