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Gottfried Becker (9 February 1767 – 21 June 1845) was a Danish pharmacist, professor and industrialist. He was the owner of Elefant Apotek on
Købmagergade Købmagergade is a pedestrian shopping street in the Old Town of Copenhagen, Denmark. It connects Amagertorv on Strøget to Nørreport station, although the last section, north of Kultorvet, is part of Frederiksborggade, which continues on the ot ...
in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
.


Early life and education

Becker was born in
Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...
, the son of Johan Gottfried Becker (1723–90) and his wife Anna Christine Torm (1738–1809). After completing secondary school and having been articled to his father's pharmacy for three years in 1786, he went to Germany where he spent one year with the prominent druggist
Johann Christian Wiegleb Johann Christian Wiegleb (December 21, 1732 – January 16, 1800) was a notable German apothecary and early innovator of chemistry as a science. Life Wiegleb, the son of a lawyer, was schooled in Langensalza.Wolfgang-Hagen Heim, Holm-Dietmar Schw ...
in
Langensalza Bad Langensalza (; until 1956: Langensalza) is a spa town of 17,500 inhabitants in the Unstrut-Hainich district, Thuringia, central Germany. Geography Location Bad Langensalza is located in the Thuringian Basin, the fertile lowlands along t ...
. After his return to Denmark, he took the pharmaceutical exam and then went on another journey abroad, studying chemistry with
Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that i ...
in Paris as well as botany and mineralogy.


Career

After his father's death, he took over the Elephant Pharmacy (Elefantapoteket) on
Købmagergade Købmagergade is a pedestrian shopping street in the Old Town of Copenhagen, Denmark. It connects Amagertorv on Strøget to Nørreport station, although the last section, north of Kultorvet, is part of Frederiksborggade, which continues on the ot ...
in Copenhagen. He was appointed court pharmacist in 1792 and became a lecturer in chemistry at the
University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...
. In 1795, after journeys to Norway and the Netherlands, he was appointed ''professor chemiæ extraordinarius''. From 1799 to 1844, he was ''assessor pharmaciæ''. He resigned as professor in 1806 due to hardness of hearing, a problem he had acquired in connection with a chemical experiment. In 1807, he established a dye factory. In 1809, he became field pharmacist. He was also a member of a wide range of commissions and learned societies and the writer of several works on natural sciences. He ceded the Elephant Pharmacy to his son in 1844. He was appointed in 1829 and ''
etatsråd was a Danish and Norwegian title, which was conferred by the king until 1909 and entailed a third-class rank in the order of precedence, and thus the right to enroll one's daughters in Gisselfeld Convent and Vemmetofte Convent. It was awarded to ...
'' in 1842.


Personal life

On 20 April 1794 in
Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...
, he married Nicolette Adriane Burman (28 August 1774 in Amsterdam – 13 March 1824 in Copenhagen), a daughter of professor in botany
Nicolaas Laurens Burman Nicolaas Laurens Burman (27 December 1734 – 11 September 1793) was a Dutch botanist. He was the son of Johannes Burman (1707–1780). He succeeded his father to the chair of botany at the Athenaeum Illustre of Amsterdam., and at the Hortus Bot ...
by his wife Anna Marie Verkolje (1753–1810). Their son,
Johann Gottfried Burman Becker Johann Gottfried Burman Becker (26 April 1802 – 6 October 1880) was a Danish pharmacist, historical writer and collector and illustrator. Early life Becker was born in Copenhagen, the son of court pharmacist Gottfried Becker (1767–1845) and ...
, was also a pharmacist as well as a writer on history.


Further reading

* Lauridsen, Finn H:
Gottfried Becker : en københavnsk hofapoteker 1767-1845
''


References


External links


Gottfried Becker
at Geni Generology Directory {{DEFAULTSORT:Becker, Gottfried 1767 births 1845 deaths 19th-century Danish businesspeople Danish industrialists 18th-century Danish pharmacists 19th-century Danish pharmacists Scientists from Copenhagen