William Henry O'Swald
William Henry O'Swald (born August 23, 1832 in Blankenese ; † May 7, 1923 in Hamburg ) was a Hamburg overseas merchant , senator and second mayor 1908-1910. He had been married to Olga Ruperti, a daughter of Justus Carl Wilhelm Ruperti and Marie Pauline Ruperti (née Merck ) , since 1860 .
William H. O'Swald's father William O'Swald (1798–1859) founded the company Wm. O'Swald & Co. in Hamburg in 1831 and started trading with Zanzibar in 1847 . The branch, which was later set up in Zanzibar, was the focus of business activity. The cowrie snail trade was particularly successful . The snails, which are scarce in West Africa (often wrongly called mussels), which also functioned as currency there , were bought cheaply by O'Swald & Co in the Seychelles and then brought to West Africa via Zanzibar, bypassing the intra-African intermediate trade. For this purpose, a trading post was established in Lagos in 1849 . In 1858 the older brother Albrecht Percy O'Swald (1831–1899) became a partner in O'Swald & Co, in 1859 William H. O'Swald followed. In the following years the brothers took turns running the company, one year living in Hamburg and the other in Zanzibar. In 1859, William H. O'Swald negotiated a trade agreement with Mâdjid ibn Sa'id , the Sultan of Zanzibar, for the Hanseatic cities of Lübeck, Bremen and Hamburg, which was very favorable for them, and the Sultan also benefited from the resulting increased tax revenues . In the following years the O'Swald brothers successfully expanded their business, especially in East Africa , from 1870 onwards trading branches were established in Madagascar , and from 1900 there was a branch in Mombasa .
In Hamburg, O'Swald was elected to the citizenry primarily to thank for the trade agreement in 1866 . When he was elected Senator on January 11, 1869, he moved to the Senate, to which he was a member for over 40 years until July 1, 1912. He is probably the person who has been a member of this committee for the longest time (→ Hamburg Senate 1861–1919 ). He was a commercial senator, which means that he could continue his business on the side. Because of his special services to the customs connection of Hamburg, he became second mayor in April 1908, when Johann Heinrich Burchard became first mayor after the death of Johann Georg Mönckeberg , an office that was normally not awarded to commercial senators. O'Swald held this office until the end of 1909. From 1881 to 1912 he was President of the Deputation for Trade and Shipping (from 1907 Deputation for Trade, Shipping and Industry). The Hamburg department of the German Colonial Society was founded in 1896 on O'Swald's initiative .
The later mayor of Hamburg, Max Schramm, was married to a niece of O'Swald. Another niece, Olga Clementine Berckemeyer , the daughter of his older sister Helene (1830–1895), married the banker Max von Schinckel in 1882 .
Honors
The O'Swaldkai in the Port of Hamburg, the O'Swaldstrasse in Hamburg-Horn , the O'Swaldsche Pavilion in the Hamburg City Park and two lightships of the Feuerschiff Elbe 1 station were named after William Henry O'Swald .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Olga Ruperti's diary
- ^ Adolf Buehl : From the old council chamber: Memories 1905–1918, Hamburg 1973, p. 60
- ↑ Genealogical Handbook of Bourgeois Families , Volume 51 (1927)
literature
- Helmut Washausen: Hamburg and the colonial policy of the German Empire, 1880 to 1890. Hamburg 1968, p. 89f.
- German gender book . Volume 51, 1927, p. 288.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | O'Swald, William Henry |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German overseas businessman, politician, Member of the Bundestag and Senator |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 23, 1832 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Blankenese |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 7, 1923 |
| Place of death | Hamburg |