Ludwig Erdwin Seyler

Who was Ludwig Erdwin Seyler?

Ludwig Erdwin Seyler was a German merchant, banker and grand burgher of Hamburg, a co-owner and head of the Hamburg firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. and a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg-Gossler-Seyler banking dynasty. Seyler was one of the first German merchants and bankers to establish trade relations with the United States and East Asia.

Married to Anna Henriette Gossler, he was the son-in-law of Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg. He was President of the Commerz-Deputation 1817–18, and ex officio a member of the Erbgesessene Bürgerschaft. During the 1806–1814 French occupation under Napoleon, he was one of a number of prominent Hamburg citizens initially taken hostage by the French, and as Hamburg was annexed into the Bouches-de-l'Elbe département of the First French Empire, he was appointed a judge on the Commercial Court along with Jacob Amsel Oppenheimer and other leading bankers and merchants.

Descended from the Merian, Burckhardt and Faesch patrician families of Basel, he was the son of the famous Swiss-born merchant turned theatre director Abel Seyler—"the leading patron of German theatre"—and the stepson of Sophie Seyler, Germany's leading actress of the late 18th century and the author of Hüon und Amande, the inspiration for the libretto of The Magic Flute. He grew up with his uncle, the natural scientist and court pharmacist J.G.R. Andreae in Hanover. His sister Sophie Seyler was the wife of poet Johann Anton Leisewitz, the author of Julius von Tarent. His brother-in-law on his wife's side was Senator Johann Heinrich Gossler, a partner at Berenberg Bank from 1798. He was the uncle of Hamburg head of state Hermann Gossler.