Seyler family

A silhouette of Abel Seyler

Actress and playwright Friederike Sophie Seyler (1737/38–1789), painted by Anton Graff, Kunsthalle Hamburg

Ludwig Erdwin Seyler, head and co-owner of Berenberg Bank

Sophie Seyler, wife of Johann Anton Leisewitz

Henriette Seyler (1805–75, married Wegner), daughter of Berenberg Bank owner L.E. Seyler and Anna Henriette Gossler, drawn by her sister Molly in 1822

The Seyler family (also spelled Seiler) was a Swiss-German family whose members were prominent as theatre patrons, actors and bankers in the 18th and 19th century. The family became by marriage a part of the Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty of Hamburg and co-owners of Berenberg Bank.

The family is descended from Abel Seyler (Seiler) the Elder (died 1767), who was parish priest of Spital Muntzach in Liesthal, Basel, from 1714 to 1763. He was married to Anna Katharina Burckhardt (1694–1773), a member of the Basel patrician Burckhardt family and the daughter of Johann Rudolf Burckhardt and Anna Maria Merian, and granddaughter of Susanna Faesch. Anna Katharina Burckhardt was a descendant of the famous publisher and humanist Johann Froben and many of her ancestors had been burgomasters and members of Basel's Grand Council, some of whom had been ennobled by the emperor.

Abel Seyler the Elder and Anna Katharina Burckhardt were the parents of Elisabeth Seyler (1715–1798), married to Daniel Merian, and Abel Seyler (1730–1801), who emigrated from Switzerland to Hamburg and established himself as a wealthy businessman there. Abel Seyler the Younger established the bank Seyler & Tillemann with his business associate Johann Martin Tillemann, which speculated heavily on currency debasement during the Seven Years' War. The company went spectacularly bankrupt in what was termed a "malicious bankruptcy" with 3 million Mark Banco, an enormous sum, in debts, but Seyler and Tillemann were able to retain some of their fortunes.^[1] Subsequently Seyler devoted himself completely to the theatre, first as the main financial backer of the Hamburgische Entreprise (the Hamburg National Theatre), collaborating closely with its dramaturge Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, and subsequently as the founder and director of the Seyler theatrical company, becoming "the leading patron of German theatre" in his lifetime and employing some of Germany's foremost actors, playwrights and composers. Abel Seyler is also credited with introducing Shakespeare to a German language audience.^[2] He inter alia commissioned the play Sturm und Drang by Klinger, that gave its name to the era. He was married in his second marriage to Friederike Sophie Seyler (1737/1738–1789), who was alongside Friederike Caroline Neuber Germany's leading actress of the 18th century, and who wrote the Singspiel Hüon und Amande that was a major inspiration for the libretto of the opera The Magic Flute. In his first marriage, Abel Seyler was married in 1754 to Sophie Elisabeth Andreae (1730–1764), the daughter of the wealthy Hanover court pharmacist Leopold Andreae (1686–1730) and the sister of the renowned natural scientist J.G.R. Andreae. In this marriage he had two sons and a daughter, the court pharmacist Abel Jacob Gerhard Seyler, the prominent Hamburg banker Ludwig Erdwin Seyler (1758–1836) and Sophie Marie Katharina Seyler (1762–1833.^[3] Following the death of their mother in 1764, the Seyler children grew up with their uncle J.G.R. Andreae in Hanover.

The oldest son of Abel Seyler, Abel Jacob Gerhard Seyler (born 1756), was court phamacist in Celle 1791–1803 and also inherited the Andreae & Co. pharmacy with his two siblings as co-heirs, which was sold in 1803. He was married to Karoline Auguste Luise Klügel (1770–1841), a daughter of the noted mathematician and physicist Georg Simon Klügel. Their only son was Georg August Wilhelm Seyler (1800–1866), a doctor of theology and pastor in Annaburg. He was married (1826) to Klara Franziska Hoppe, a daughter of the Freiburg superintendent (bishop) Ernst August Dankegott Hoppe. Georg Seyler became a second father to his wife's orphaned younger siblings, and in 1864 he formally adopted his 25 years younger brother in law, the later noted physiologist and chemist Felix Hoppe-Seyler, who added the Seyler name to his birth name.

The second son of Abel Seyler, Ludwig Erdwin Seyler (1758–1836), was married to Anna Henriette Gossler (1771–1836), a member of the Hamburg Hanseatic Berenberg-Gossler banking dynasty, who was the eldest daughter of banker Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822). Elisabeth Berenberg was the only heir of the Flemish-origined Berenberg banking family of grand burghers who established Berenberg Bank in 1590, and her grandfather Rudolf Berenberg had become a senator in 1735. She was also descended from the Welser family. Johann Hinrich Gossler had become owner of the bank by marrying her in 1768, as her father had no male heirs and as the Hamburg branch of the Berenberg family was becoming extinct in the male line. In 1788, Gossler took on Seyler, his son-in-law, as the new partner, and following Gossler's death in 1790, Ludwig Seyler became head of the firm. Ludwig Seyler served, inter alia, as President of the Commerz-Deputation (1817–18), one of Hamburg's three main political bodies. He was the brother in law of Hamburg senator Johann Heinrich Gossler and the uncle of First Mayor (head of state) Hermann Gossler.^[4]

Ludwig Seyler and Anna Henriette Gossler were the parents of

• Sophie Henriette Elisabeth ("Betty") Seyler (1789–1837), who married Hamburg businessman Gerhard von Hosstrup, who founded the Hamburger Börsenhalle in 1804. Their daughter Bertha von Hosstrup (1814–1902) was married to the legal scholar and politician Albert Hänel.
• Auguste Seyler, who married Gerhard von Hosstrup after the death of her sister
• Louise ("Wischen") Seyler (1799–1849), who married ship broker Ernst Friedrich Pinckernelle (1787–1868), whose sons founded the G. & J. E. Pinckernelle insurance broker firm
• Henriette Seyler (1805–1875), who married the Norwegian industrialist Benjamin Wegner (1795–1864), a co-owner of Blaafarveværket, Hassel Ironworks and the Hafslund estate, and owner of Frogner Manor
• Emmy Seyler, married Homann
• Molly Seyler

The only daughter of Abel Seyler, Sophie Marie Katharina Seyler (1762–1833), who was regarded as strikingly beautiful,^[5] was married (1781) to their distant relative, the Sturm und Drang poet Johann Anton Leisewitz, the author of Julius von Tarent. They had no children.

Lineage

See also

• Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty
• Seyler theatrical company

References

Literature

• Magazin zur Geschichte des deutschen Theaters, 1773, VI, pp. 264–276
• Percy Ernst Schramm, Neun Generationen: Dreihundert Jahre deutscher Kulturgeschichte im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (1648–1948), Vol. I, Göttingen, 1963
• Percy Ernst Schramm, Kaufleute zu Haus und über See. Hamburgische Zeugnisse des 17., 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 1949
• Percy Ernst Schramm, "Kaufleute während Besatzung, Krieg und Belagerung (1806–1815) : der Hamburger Handel in der Franzosenzeit, dargestellt an Hand von Firmen- und Familienpapieren." Tradition: Zeitschrift für Firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie, Vol. 4. Jahrg., No. 1. (Feb 1959), pp. 1–22. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40696638
• Percy Ernst Schramm, "Hamburger Kaufleute in der 2. Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts," in: Tradition. Zeitschrift für Firmengeschichte und Unternehmerbiographie 1957, No 4., pp. 307–332. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40696554

v t e Berenberg Bank History Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty Seyler family  Baron of Berenberg-Gossler Divisions Berenberg Bank  Universal Investment  Berenberg Bank Stiftung Berenberg/Gossler/Seyler family Cornelius Berenberg Paul Berenberg Rudolf Berenberg Elisabeth Berenberg Johann Hinrich Gossler Ludwig Erdwin Seyler Johann Heinrich Gossler Johann von Berenberg-Gossler Hermann Gossler John von Berenberg-Gossler Cornelius von Berenberg-Gossler Heinrich von Berenberg-Gossler Other people Holger Schmieding Peter von Kap-Herr Hans-Walter Peters