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Abstract
In-migrants played an important role within port-city merchant communities, but the contribution of German-born merchants to Liverpool's development in the nineteenth century has been largely ignored. This article has four interrelated objectives. First, it establishes the size and composition of the German merchant community in terms of the place of birth, occupational classification, length of residence, and relative wealth of German-born merchants. Secondly, it measures the degree of acculturation and integration based on a range of indicators including choice of bride, child- and house-naming practices, the employment of fellow nationals, and the acquisition of British citizenship. Thirdly, it analyses their role within Liverpool society, focusing on their involvement in the city's associational networks, their participation in voluntary and charitable associations, and their entertainment profile. Finally it assesses how the growth of German nationalism after 1871 and the institutional role of the German Protestant Church reinforced ethnic identity, influenced decisions relating to citizenship and settlement, and affected business networking.
Acknowledgements
The Mercantile Liverpool Project (Shipping, trade and mercantile business in Liverpool, 1851–1900) was funded by the Leverhulme Trust, English Heritage, Liverpool City Council's World Heritage Site and the Philip Holt Trust. I am very grateful for all the support from external sources which enabled the project team to carry out the research in such an excellent manner. I would like to thank everyone who contributed to the project, in particular Sari Mäenpää and Joseph Sharples who provided invaluable advice for this article, as well as the two anonymous referees for their helpful comments. A preliminary paper was presented at the 4th annual conference of the Gesellshaft für Migrationsforschung (Bonn, 2007) and subsequently published in German: see Lee (Citation2011). This article is dedicated to the memory of Dr Gary Milnes, a long-standing member of the German Protestant Church in Liverpool, who kindly made available important archival material which enabled me to undertake this research.
Notes
1. It was impossible to locate a Street Directory for 1852.
2. The occupational designations in the census returns were too idiosyncratic to be used for analysing business activity and trade directories are not unproblematic as a source for business history. Trade classifications are seldom consistent across time as commodity specialisation particularly in the late nineteenth century affected the designation of trading activity and the primary business of owners of family firms often represented only one aspect of a wider range of commercial activities (Cock et al., 2012).
3. By contrast, there has been a stronger tradition of research on the German in-migrant community in London. See, for example, Dorgeel (1881); Farrell (1990); Pürschel (1908); Schulte Beerbühl (2005); Steinmetz (1994); Sundermann (1997); Towey (1988); Weber (2006).
4. The purpose-built synagogue opened in Seel Street in 1808 with financial support of prominent Jewish merchants and businessmen was deemed to be ‘worthy of the opulence of that people’ (see The stranger in Liverpool, 1810, p. 99).
5. For studies of other focal points of German in-migration and settlement, see Davis (2008); Koditschek (1990); Manz (2003); Manz, Schulte Beerbühl, and Davis (2007); Swinbank (2008).
6. For information on German-born members of staff at the University of Liverpool before 1914, including Professor Kuno Meyer from Leipzig, see Kelly (1981, pp. 112–113). The Verband der Dozenten des Deutschen in Großbritannien was formed to support the role of German academics in Britain (see Anglo German Publishing Company, 1913, p. 35).
7. For example, Gottlieb Ferdinand Beyer was listed in Gore's Directory in 1851 as a general merchant at 3 Heaton Place, Breck Road, but no census return could be located. In fact, Beyer had been born in Prussia in c. 1814 and died in Liverpool in 1860 (information provided by a family descendant).
8. This was also the case in relation to German-born merchants in London, where the largest number of in-migrants during the period 1715 to 1800 came from Hamburg and Bremen (see Rössler & Schulte Beerbühl, 2002, pp. 165–186).
9. The figures represent the first recorded reference to individual in-migrant German merchants, as listed in the database. The precise figures are as follows: 1850s – 27; 1860s – 28; 1870s – 46; 1880s – 62; 1890s – 44; 1900s – 25.
10. For a brief but succinct economic history of Germany during this period, see Pierenkemper and Tilly (2004, pp. 75–156).
11. The largest share of Liverpool's exports went to the Baltic or to the Hanseatic ports of Bremen, Hamburg and Lübeck.
12. Inevitably data extracted from the census returns and street directories may not fully capture the residential patterns of in-migrants, but the analysis was strengthened by the use of additional nominative information from a wide range of sources.
13. The youngest individual listed in the database was Ernest Luebbers, a 21-year-old hardware merchant who had been born in Bremen in 1840: he was listed as a boarder at 61 Canning Street which contained another unmarried merchant from the same port-city, Henry Haistomann, aged 28.
14. It was over a game of billiards at Broughton Hall that Schwabe apparently suggested to Thomas Henry Ismay the idea of founding a new, transatlantic company with vessels built by Harland & Wolff of Belfast (Wolff was Schwabe's nephew). The result was the creation of the Oceanic Steam Navigation Company, subsequently known as the White Star Line.
15. For a study of the long-run pattern of spatial and occupational integration, see Kudenko and Phillips (2009); Moya (2005, p. 839); Garcia (2006); Raj (2003); Levitt (2009, p. 1239).
16. For example, Nikolaus Mahs (from the Gebrüder Mahs trading house) arrived in Liverpool in 1839 and subsequently married Elizabeth Leigh Clare from Liverpool (see Sartor, 2009, p. 31).
17. Thirty-three families from a sub-sample of 52.
18. Philip Augustus Holberg, who was active as a broker in Liverpool in the 1860s, had received a denization grant on 21 November 1843 to hold landed property rights (see The National Archives (TNA), HO 45/8947).
19. The National Archives (TNA), HO 1/27/803 (10 May 1848); 1/22/399 (16 June 1846); 1/24/569 (23 March 1846).
20. For example, the merchant John Adam Claus (from Frankfurt-am-Main) was first recorded in Liverpool in the census of 1881, but had acquired British citizenship on 25 April 1861 (see TNA, HO 1/11/3526).
21. The general merchant Ferdinand Karck was trading in Liverpool by 1861, but did not become a naturalised British citizen until 27 July 1877 (see TNA, HO 45/9439/65725). In other cases, the apparent delay in seeking naturalisation was a result of the failure of the census enumerators to record citizenship accurately. For example, the commission agent Joachim Heinrich Laseman (known as John Henry) from Hamburg was a member of Liverpool's merchant community for four decades from 1852 onwards, but it is not until the 1891 census that he was listed as a British citizen. In fact, he had been granted naturalisation on 27 September 1865 (see TNA, HO 1/124/4830).
22. On the basis of 88 naturalisation papers held in the National Archive, the decadal distribution of cases was as follows (percentage figures in brackets): 1840s – 8 (9.0); 1850s – 7 (7.9); 1860s – 30 (34.0); 1870s – 19 (21.5); 1880s – 17 (19.3): 1890s – 7 (7.9); 1900s – 0 (0). A reduced propensity to seek British citizenship was also evident in the census return, particularly in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.
23. In the later nineteenth century, a rural association (particularly with trees) was the second most popular choice of house name after location. See Miles (2000, p. 16).
24. In addition, British merchants also retained German nationals as part of their household establishment. For example, in 1881 the commission merchant John Bingham (born in County Down, Ireland) employed Ida Stein, aged 26 and born in Germany, as a governess to his five children (see MLP database).
25. Hildegarde Gordon Browne (nee Muspratt: sister of Sir Max Muspratt) reported that when she was growing up at Seaforth House, the family employed a German governess. I am grateful to Joseph Sharples for this reference.
26. MLP database.
27. By comparison, the hostility to Germans in Moscow following the outbreak of hostilities was far more pronounced: German was banned in schools and an official pogrom was launched to close foreign subject-owned businesses (see Dönninghaus, 2002).
28. Liverpool Record Office (LRO), 942 BIC 13, T2, Thomas H. Bickerton's Collection, towards a Medical History of Liverpool.
29. LRO, 027 LYC 17/2, The Lyceum, Annual Reports 1883–1900; Laws and Regulations of the Lyceum, 1899.
30. LRO, 376 WTN 6, Wellington Club, Annual Reports with rules, resolutions and lists of members, 1814–1913.
31. LRO, 920 DUR 1/4, Family diaries maintained by Emma Holt, later by Anne Holt, 30 January 1863.
32. MLP database. The following sons of German merchants were members of the Wellington Club: Charles H. Brancker (1888–1919); Frederick J. Herzog (1919–); J.M. Servaes (1896–1901); Emil Springmann (1879–1919); John H. Springmann (1905–); P.J. Stolterfoht (1897–1903).
33. MPL database.
34. MLP database.
35. MLP database.
36. LRO, 796 RUG, Liverpool Rugby Union Football Club (founded December 1857), September 1911: the members in question were G.M. Lemonius, H. Pferdmenges, B. Stern and P.T. Stolterfoht.
37. MLP database.
38. MLP database. In 1891, however, there were two cases where the sons of in-migrant German merchants were members of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire: Louis Baron Benas, the son of the banker Louis Benas (born in Prussia in 1821), and the brothers Paul and H.H. Springmann, sons of the general merchant Emil Springmann (born in Prussia in 1812). Similarly, Both H.H. Springmann and Charles H. Brancker, the son of the cotton broker John Brancker (born in Hamburg in 1819) were members of the Royal Liverpool Golf Club.
39. LRO, 614 INF 5/6, The 145th Report of the Liverpool Royal Infirmary for the year 1893 (Liverpool, 1894), 25–45. Only one German merchant, P.H. Blessing, made a significant donation to the hospital's maintenance fund (£50), although four German-owned companies also paid an annual subscription (Blessig, Braun & Co., De Jersey & Co., Heyne and Oelrichs and Stolterfoht Sons & Co.
40. LRO, ANI 9/1, Report of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Liverpool Branch, 1872 (Liverpool 1873), 16–18; 614 HAH 8/2/1, Report of the Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary, subscriptions and donations 1872, pp. 9–15: both Eggers and Brancker contributed one guinea.
41. Maritime Archives and Library (MAL), Merseyside Maritime Museum D/SO/2/1/1, The Royal Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Institution, Annual Report 1872, p. 43. The other contributors were Bahr, Berend & Co., John Brancker (with two additional donations by his wife), Adolph Herschell, A.H. Lemonius and William Meyer. T.R. Stolterfoht, a son of Herman Stolterfoht, was also a subscriber.
42. LRO, 179 CRU 13/1, Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1st Report 1883; 614 PRI 9/12, Home for Incurables, 23rd Annual Report (Liverpool, 1892); 364 FEM 6/7, Liverpool Female Penitentiary, 95th Annual Meeting (Liverpool, 1906). In 1892, subscriptions to the Home for Incurables were also paid by other members of the German merchant community, including Philip Blessig and Julius Servaes.
43. MLP database; LRO, 614 PRI 9/12, Home for Incurables, Annual Reports 1885–96, Twenty-Third Annual Report for the Home for Incurables 1892 (Liverpool, 1893), 19; 614 HAH 8/2/1, Report of The Liverpool Homeopathic Dispensary Instituted for The Gratuitous Relief of the Sick Poor From December 31st 1871 to December 31st 1872 (Liverpool, 1873), 9. John Brancker had been born in Danzig in 1814 and died in Liverpool in 1903. He had also been a life governor of the Liverpool Infirmary for Children, a committee member of the Salisbury House School, the committee chairman of Liverpool College and a JP. German merchants in Manchester also played a leading role in supporting the Society for the Relief of Really Deserving Distressed Foreigners following its establishment in December 1847 (see Coates, 1991/92, p. 26).
44. MAL, Merseyside Maritime Museum D/SO/2/1/1 – 2/1/6, The Royal Liverpool Seaman's Orphan Institute, Annual Reports, 1869–94; LRO, 362 SAL 4/1/1 (2), Liverpool Female Orphan Asylum, Annual Reports 1848–80, Report of the Liverpool Female Orphan Asylum (Liverpool, 1851), 17; 614 INF 5/14, Annual Reports Royal Infirmary 1861–81, Report of the Liverpool Royal Infirmary, Lunatic Asylum and Lock Hospital for the year 1861 (Liverpool, 1863), 67–69; 614 PAU 7/3, Report of the St Paul's Eye and Ear Hospital For the Year ending 31 August 1891 (Liverpool, 1891), 23.
45. LRO, 364 FEM 2, 71st Annual Report of the Liverpool Female Penitentiary from January to December 1881 (Liverpool, 1882). In some cases, obituary evidence may be unreliable as an indicator of charitable commitment, particularly if merchants lived some distance from Liverpool. For example, the salt merchant, Hermann Eugene Falk had been a member of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce and the Weaver Trust, as well as chairman of the Salt Commission. But he resided at the time of his death at Catsclough, Winsford and may well have contributed to a number of local charities.
46. MLP database.
47. He had been born in St Petersburg, possibly of German parents, and had acquired British citizenship by 1891: his wife was from Germany.
48. LRO, 920 DUR 1/4, Family diaries maintained by Emma Holt later by Anne Holt, 6 November 1862; 920 DUR 1/5, Family diaries maintained by Anne Holt later by Emma Holt, 5 June 1872.
49. LRO, 920 DUR 10/16/3, Holt family diaries, dairy of Robert Durning Holt, 8 January 1862; 920 DUR 4/28/3, List of parties begun 1867, 15 February 1882.
50. LRO, 920 DUR 1/2, Family diary maintained by George Holt, 3 August 1851.
51. The first German Church in Britain, the Hamburg Lutheran Church founded in London in 1669, catered primarily for merchants from the North German Hanse ports.
52. The Anglican Church played an important role in the initial development of the German Church in Liverpool: its Patron was the Archbishop of Canterbury and its President was the Reverend Joseph Baylee, the Principal of St. Aidan's Theological College in Birkenhead. By 1850 it had approximately 250 individuals who were ‘considered members’.
53. For a general discussion of the significance of ethnic associations, see Moya (2005); Shrover and Vermeulen (2005). For a detailed analysis of the role of German associations in the Netherlands, see Shrover (2006).
54. This is a term often applied to German immigrants in America (see Conzen, 1985, p. 131; Lekan, 2005, p. 143).