Johann Hinrich Gossler

Johann Hinrich Gossler (born 18 August 1738 in Hamburg, died 31 August 1790 in Hamburg) was a German banker and grand burgher of Hamburg, a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg/Gossler banking dynasty and the owner and head of the firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. (Berenberg Bank). He was married to Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822), the only heir of the Berenberg banking family. The Gossler Islands in Antarctica are named in honour of his family.

Johann Hinrich Gossler was a son of Johan Eibert Gossler (1700–1776), an accountant and burgher of Hamburg who had bought the office of Herrenschenk for 10,600 mark, making him master of ceremonies of the Hamburg council. The Gossler family had been burghers and velvet makers in Hamburg at least since the 17th century. The name Gossler appears in the city already in the 14th century, although it is unknown if it is the same family. Gossler's maternal grandfather Jürgen Friedrich Boedecker was a Hamburg merchant and grand burgher from 1706, and his great-grandfather Eibert Tiefbrunn was also a prominent Hamburg merchant. A list of his ancestors is included in the Hamburgisches Geschlechterbuch.

At a young age, Johann Hinrich Gossler joined the Berenberg company as an apprentice. The company was involved in merchant banking, insurance, shipping and trade of goods, and had been established by the Dutch Berenberg family in 1590. After seven years, at 22 and having completed his apprenticeship, Gossler left Hamburg to work for a company in Cadiz, and travelled extensively in Spain, Portugal, France and England.

In 1768, he returned to Hamburg, where he married Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) in the same year. She was the only daughter of the Berenberg company's surviving owner, Johann Berenberg (1718–1772). Johann Berenberg made his son-in-law a partner in 1769. Upon the death of Johann Berenberg's brother Cornelius in 1773, the Berenberg family became extinct in the male line and Johann Hinrich Gossler became the company's sole owner. In 1788, Gossler took on his own son-in-law Ludwig Erdwin Seyler (married to his eldest daughter Anna Henriette Gossler) as a partner.

Johann Hinrich Gossler was the father of Hamburg senator and banker Johann Heinrich Gossler II (1772–1842) and the grandfather of Hamburg senator and First Mayor Hermann Gossler (1802–1877) and banker Johann Heinrich Gossler III (1805–1879). Johann Heinrich Gossler III was the father of Johann Berenberg Gossler (1839–1913). In 1880, the Hamburg Senate granted Johann Berenberg Gossler the name of Berenberg-Gossler, and in 1888, the family was ennobled in the Kingdom of Prussia as von Berenberg-Gossler. In 1910, Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was raised to the Baronial rank. Baron Johann von Berenberg-Gossler was the father of John von Berenberg-Gossler (1866–1943), Senator and German Ambassador in Rome.

Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg were also the grandparents of Betty Seyler (1789–1837), married to businessman Gerhard von Hosstrup, Louise Seyler (1799–1849), married to ship broker Ernst Friedrich Pinckernelle, and Henriette Seyler (1805–1875), married to Norwegian industrialist Benjamin Wegner.

• "Johann Hinrich Gossler", in Hamburgische Biografie-Personenlexikon, pp. 153–154, Volume 2, edited by Franklin Kopitzsch, Dirk Brietzke
• Percy Ernst Schramm, Kaufleute zu Haus und über See. Hamburgische Zeugnisse des 17., 18. und 19. Jahrhunderts, Hamburg, Hoffmann und Campe, 1949
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• 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. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40696554