Anna Henriette Gossler (7 November 1771 – 2 August 1836) was a Hamburg banker, heiress and socialite.

Biography

Coat of arms of the Gossler family of Hamburg

Gossler was born in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

. Anna Henriette Gossler, who went by the name of Henriette, was a member of the

Hanseatic The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

Berenberg/ Gossler banking family, arguably the most prominent family of the then independent

city-state A city-state is an independent sovereign city which serves as the center of political, economic, and cultural life over its contiguous territory. They have existed in many parts of the world throughout history, including cities such as Rome, ...

of Hamburg alongside the related

Amsinck family The Amsinck family is a Dutch-origined patrician family whose members were prominent merchants in multiple countries including the Netherlands, Hamburg, Portugal, England, France, Hanover, Holstein, Denmark, Suriname and India. From the 17th ce ...

. She was the oldest daughter of the bankers

Johann Hinrich Gossler Johann Hinrich Gossler (18 August 1738 – 31 August 1790) was a German merchant and banker. He was married to Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) and succeeded his father-in-law Johann Berenberg as head of the Berenberg & Gossler company, that ...

and

Elisabeth Berenberg Elisabeth Berenberg (2 December 1749 – 16 January 1822) was a Hamburg heiress, merchant banker and a member of the Berenberg family. She was the last male line member of the Flemish-origined Hanseatic Berenberg banking family in Hamburg, and a ...

, owners of

Berenberg Bank Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft, KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a Multinational corporation, multinational full-service private bank, private and merchant bank headquartered in H ...

, which had been founded by her family in 1590. On 20 May 1788, she married her father's employee

Ludwig Erdwin Seyler Ludwig Erdwin Seyler (15 May 1758 – 26 October 1836; often known as ''L.E. Seyler'') was a Hamburg merchant, merchant banker and politician. He was by marriage a member of the Hanseaten (class), Hanseatic Berenberg family, Berenberg dynasty, and ...

, who immediately was made a partner in the bank and remained so until his death nearly half a century later. After the death of her father in 1790 her husband became head of the company. Particularly in the years around the

Napoleonic Wars {{Infobox military conflict , conflict = Napoleonic Wars , partof = the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars , image = Napoleonic Wars (revision).jpg , caption = Left to right, top to bottom:Battl ...

she and her husband played prominent roles in Hamburg high society and politics, and Berenberg Bank was headquartered in their private home.

Percy Ernst Schramm Percy Ernst Schramm (14 October 1894 – 12 November 1970) was a German historian who specialized in art history and medieval history. Schramm was a Chair and Professor of History at the University of Göttingen from 1929 to 1963. Early lif ...

(1963), ''Neun Generationen: Dreihundert Jahre deutscher Kulturgeschichte im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (1648–1948)''. Göttingen. Volume I

: "Kaufleute während Besatzung, Krieg und Belagerung (1806–1815); der Hamburger Handel in der Franzosenzeit, dargestellt an Hand von Firmen- und Familienpapieren." In ''Tradition: Zeitschrift für Firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie'', vol. 4, no 1 (February 1959), pp. 1–22. "II. Teil." In vol. 4, no. 2 (April 1959), pp. 88–114 She was the older sister of Hamburg senator

Johann Heinrich Gossler Johann Heinrich Gossler (28 March 1775 – 3 April 1842) was a Hamburg banker and grand burgher, a member of the Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty, a co-owner (from 1798) of the Berenberg Bank and a senator of Hamburg from 1821. He was the ...

and the aunt of Hamburg First Mayor (head of state)

Hermann Gossler Hermann Gossler (21 August 1802 in Hamburg, – 10 May 1877 in Hamburg) was a Hamburg lawyer, senator (1842–77) and First Mayor and President of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (i.e. the city republic's head of state and he ...

. Her father-in-law was the theatre principal

Abel Seyler Abel Seyler (23 August 1730, Liestal – 25 April 1800, Rellingen) was a Swiss-born theatre director and former merchant banker, who was regarded as one of the great theatre principals of 18th century Europe. He played a pivotal role in the dev ...

, the leading patron of German theatre in the late 18th century. Her youngest daughter Henriette Seyler was married to the Norwegian industrialist

Benjamin Wegner Jacob Benjamin Wegner (21 February 1795 – 9 June 1864) was a Norwegian business magnate. He was one of the country's leading mining magnates as the director-general and co-owner of Blaafarveværket, and also had significant interests in o ...

Ancestry

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gossler, Anna Henriette Anna Henriette Berenberg Bank people 1771 births 1836 deaths Bankers from the Holy Roman Empire