Caspar Voght
Encyclopedia
Caspar Voght later Caspar Reichsfreiherr von Voght (more commonly known as Baron Caspar von Voght), was a German
merchant
and social reformer from Hamburg (today Germany
). Together with his business partner and friend Georg Heinrich Sieveking
he led one of the largest trading firms in Hamburg during the second half of the 18th Century. On numerous trade trips, he completely crossed the European continent. One of his greatest achievements was reforming the welfare system of Hamburg. From 1785 he dedicated himself to strengthening agricultural and horticultural projects and built in Flottbek close to the gates of Hamburg a model agricultural community.
close to Bremen
† 1781 in Hamburg) and Elisabeth Jencquel (* 26 September 1723), the daughter of a Hamburg senator. Voght's father was apprenticed around 1721 in the merchant house Jürgen Jencquel which specialized in Hamburg's trade with Portugal. For 16 years from 1732 he represented the house in Lisbon
. After he returned, Voght's father founded his own silk and linen trading house in Hamburg and later rose to the rank of senator in Hamburg.
At the age of 12, Caspar Voght fell seriously ill of smallpox
which left permanent facial scarring. Other than making friends with Georg Heinrich Sieveking, whom he met as an adolescent in the Kontor
of his father's firm, Voght was more inclined at this point in his life to dedicating himself to studying literature, politics, and science, and found little pleasure in his vocation as a merchant. When his father wanted to send him to Lisbon at the age of twenty for his education, Voght used his mother's fears of Lisbon to avoid going. She had lost two brothers in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Voght instead embarked in 1772 on a Grand Tour
of Europe. His journey took him among other locations to Amsterdam
, London
, Paris
and Cádiz
. He reached Madrid
, where he concluded a trade agreement for his father's firm. After traveling through the south of France, Voght went to Switzerland
, where he met Lavater and Haller
. In Geneva he made contact with Voltaire
. Passing through Turin
, Milan
, Parma
and Bologna
, he arrived in Rome
where he was presented to Pope Pius VI
. After a side trip to Pompeii
, Naples
, and a short stop in Venice
, Voght traveled to Bergamo, where he made contact with the local silk
weavers for his father's business. He then went to Vienna
, Dresden
, Berlin
and Potsdam
, finally returning to his hometown of Hamburg in 1775.
After the death of Caspar Voght the elder in 1781, Voght continued his father's firm under the name "Caspar Voght und Co." in partnership with Georg Heinrich Sieveking. Together, they made use of the newly independent English colonies to build up strong mercantile ties with traders in ports along the North American coast. A good will missive dated March 29, 1783 was presented to Congress in Philadelphia on behalf of the Hamburg Senate by Johann Abraham de Boor. De Boor was a citizen of Hamburg who had traveled overseas under commission to the trading firm of Caspar Voght & Co.
Voght's interests lay more with agriculture than with trading. Even as a youth, he had delighted in a garden, designed on a French model, which his father owned in Hamm. As Voght became older he became aware that his inclination for landscape architecture and horticulture would be more than a hobby, and life in business repelled him increasingly. Not long before his death, Voght acknowledged in a letter: "When trade could no longer strike my fancy, I became nauseous". He handed the direction of the firm in a large measure over to his partner Sieveking. From 1785, Voght began to purchase lots of land in Klein Flottbek outside the gates of the then independent city of Altona
. After a trip to England in the winter of 1785-6, where he tried to familiarize himself with the local landscape architecture and modern methods of husbandry, he began work on his Hamburg estates on a model farm and arboretum (the present day Jenisch Park was his parc du midi). Voght recruited two landscape gardener renowned in Europe for Flottbek: the Scot James Booth and Frenchman Joseph Ramée. In 1787, Voght introduced the potato for cultivation. Up until then, it had been primarily an import from the Netherlands. In 1797 he helped his stewart Lukas Andreas Staudinger found an institute for education in agriculture in Groß Flottbek. It was the first agricultural school in the German speaking world. The most prominent student of this academy was Johann Heinrich von Thünen
, who would later correspond with Voght primarily about question of crops yields of soils.
As early as 1770 Voght had come in contact with prisons, when, representing his father, he had shown the English prison reformer John Howard
around Hamburg's penitentiary. From that time he maintained a great interest in matters related to poorhouses and prisons. Together with the head of the trade academy (Handelsakademie) Johann Georg Büsch and the lawyer Johann Arnold Günther, Voght initiated in 1788 the establishment of a 'common institution for the poor' (Allgemeinen Armenanstalt) with which he reformed Hamburg's poor provision. The foundation of this reform was the division of the city into care zones whose approximately 200 inhabitants were entrusted with finding voluntary means of caring for the poor in that zone. The institute guaranteed medical attention for the poor, support during pregnancy and childbirth, and education and work for poor children. In contrast to the prevailing mode of providing for the poor, which was usually ecclesiastical and focused on moral and spiritual aspects of the situation, the reform was directed towards the economic needs of those affected. The cost of the effort was met by tithes collected in churches and weekly collections for the poor. As a result of this effort, the number of occupants in Hamburg's penitentiaries sank drastically.
Voght's success in the fight against poverty had effects throughout Hamburg and beyond. In 1801, the Emperor summoned him to Vienna, in order to suggest remedies and help prepare plans for a reform of the poor provisions in that city. For this service, he granted the title of baron (Reichsfreiherr) and was thereby ennobled. During a stay in Berlin in the winter of 1802-03, Voght authored a review about poor provision in Berlin at the request of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III
. During a many-month stay in Paris in 1807, he prepared a report commissioned by the French interior ministry on the situation of the Parisian poorhouses, orphanages, maternity houses, and prisons. Beyond these, he reformed poor provision in Marseille and Lyon, and communicated his understanding of reform to Lisbon and Porto. In 1838 at the age of 86, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Hamburger poor institute, he wrote a book entitled Reflections on the 50 Year History of the Poor Institute (Gesammeltes aus der Geschichte der Armenanstalt während ihrer 50jährigen Dauer).
By 1793 Voght had handed over all business affairs with the exception of trade with the US to his Partner Sieveking. The trade crisis which hit Hamburg in 1799 struck his firm heavily, so that he finally had to dissolve the trade house.
During the period of the Continental System
he undertook another multi-year trip through Switzerland, France, and Italy, during which he got to know the Emperor Napoleon and his first wife Josephine
in Paris. After his return to Flottbek he lived mainly from income earned from agriculture. Upon the sale of his model estate to the banker and senator Martin Johann Jenisch in 1828, Voght lived with Bonaparte. He later dwelt with the widow of his partner Georg Heinrich Sieveking, who had died in 1799.
Voght died on March 20, 1839 at the age of 86. He was buried in the Nienstedtener cemetery.
There was also a school named after him, the Caspar-Voght-Gymnasium in Caspar-Voght-Straße, but it no longer exists. The building today is the home of the ballet school of Hamburg.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
merchant
Merchant
A merchant is a businessperson who trades in commodities that were produced by others, in order to earn a profit.Merchants can be one of two types:# A wholesale merchant operates in the chain between producer and retail merchant...
and social reformer from Hamburg (today Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
). Together with his business partner and friend Georg Heinrich Sieveking
Georg Heinrich Sieveking
Georg Heinrich Sieveking was a German merchant and follower of the Enlightenment. Together with his friend and business partner, Caspar Voght, he led one of the largest trading firms in the Hanseatic League during the second half of the 18th century...
he led one of the largest trading firms in Hamburg during the second half of the 18th Century. On numerous trade trips, he completely crossed the European continent. One of his greatest achievements was reforming the welfare system of Hamburg. From 1785 he dedicated himself to strengthening agricultural and horticultural projects and built in Flottbek close to the gates of Hamburg a model agricultural community.
Background, youth and 'Grand Tour' of Europe
Caspar Voght was the first of three children of the family of the Hamburg merchant and later senator Caspar Voght (the elder, *1707 in BeverstedtBeverstedt
Beverstedt is a municipality in the district of Cuxhaven, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated approx. 20 km southeast of Bremerhaven, and 40 km north of Bremen.Beverstedt belonged to the Prince-Archbishopric of Bremen...
close to Bremen
Bremen
The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is...
† 1781 in Hamburg) and Elisabeth Jencquel (* 26 September 1723), the daughter of a Hamburg senator. Voght's father was apprenticed around 1721 in the merchant house Jürgen Jencquel which specialized in Hamburg's trade with Portugal. For 16 years from 1732 he represented the house in Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...
. After he returned, Voght's father founded his own silk and linen trading house in Hamburg and later rose to the rank of senator in Hamburg.
At the age of 12, Caspar Voght fell seriously ill of smallpox
Smallpox
Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...
which left permanent facial scarring. Other than making friends with Georg Heinrich Sieveking, whom he met as an adolescent in the Kontor
Kontor
A kontor was a foreign trading post of the Hanseatic League. The word kontor means office in Norwegian and other Scandinavian languages....
of his father's firm, Voght was more inclined at this point in his life to dedicating himself to studying literature, politics, and science, and found little pleasure in his vocation as a merchant. When his father wanted to send him to Lisbon at the age of twenty for his education, Voght used his mother's fears of Lisbon to avoid going. She had lost two brothers in the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Voght instead embarked in 1772 on a Grand Tour
Grand Tour
The Grand Tour was the traditional trip of Europe undertaken by mainly upper-class European young men of means. The custom flourished from about 1660 until the advent of large-scale rail transit in the 1840s, and was associated with a standard itinerary. It served as an educational rite of passage...
of Europe. His journey took him among other locations to Amsterdam
Amsterdam
Amsterdam is the largest city and the capital of the Netherlands. The current position of Amsterdam as capital city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands is governed by the constitution of August 24, 1815 and its successors. Amsterdam has a population of 783,364 within city limits, an urban population...
, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Cádiz
Cádiz
Cadiz is a city and port in southwestern Spain. It is the capital of the homonymous province, one of eight which make up the autonomous community of Andalusia....
. He reached Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, where he concluded a trade agreement for his father's firm. After traveling through the south of France, Voght went to Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, where he met Lavater and Haller
Albrecht von Haller
Albrecht von Haller was a Swiss anatomist, physiologist, naturalist and poet.-Early life:He was born of an old Swiss family at Bern. Prevented by long-continued ill-health from taking part in boyish sports, he had the more opportunity for the development of his precocious mind...
. In Geneva he made contact with Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
. Passing through Turin
Turin
Turin is a city and major business and cultural centre in northern Italy, capital of the Piedmont region, located mainly on the left bank of the Po River and surrounded by the Alpine arch. The population of the city proper is 909,193 while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat...
, Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Parma
Parma
Parma is a city in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna famous for its ham, its cheese, its architecture and the fine countryside around it. This is the home of the University of Parma, one of the oldest universities in the world....
and Bologna
Bologna
Bologna is the capital city of Emilia-Romagna, in the Po Valley of Northern Italy. The city lies between the Po River and the Apennine Mountains, more specifically, between the Reno River and the Savena River. Bologna is a lively and cosmopolitan Italian college city, with spectacular history,...
, he arrived in Rome
Rome
Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...
where he was presented to Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI
Pope Pius VI , born Count Giovanni Angelo Braschi, was Pope from 1775 to 1799.-Early years:Braschi was born in Cesena...
. After a side trip to Pompeii
Pompeii
The city of Pompeii is a partially buried Roman town-city near modern Naples in the Italian region of Campania, in the territory of the comune of Pompei. Along with Herculaneum, Pompeii was destroyed and completely buried during a long catastrophic eruption of the volcano Mount Vesuvius spanning...
, Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
, and a short stop in Venice
Venice
Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...
, Voght traveled to Bergamo, where he made contact with the local silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
weavers for his father's business. He then went to Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
, Dresden
Dresden
Dresden is the capital city of the Free State of Saxony in Germany. It is situated in a valley on the River Elbe, near the Czech border. The Dresden conurbation is part of the Saxon Triangle metropolitan area....
, Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
and Potsdam
Potsdam
Potsdam is the capital city of the German federal state of Brandenburg and part of the Berlin/Brandenburg Metropolitan Region. It is situated on the River Havel, southwest of Berlin city centre....
, finally returning to his hometown of Hamburg in 1775.
Trading Activity and Establishment of the Model Estate in Flottbek
Altona, Hamburg
Altona is the westernmost urban borough of the German city state of Hamburg, on the right bank of the Elbe river. From 1640 to 1864 Altona was under the administration of the Danish monarchy. Altona was an independent city until 1937...
. After a trip to England in the winter of 1785-6, where he tried to familiarize himself with the local landscape architecture and modern methods of husbandry, he began work on his Hamburg estates on a model farm and arboretum (the present day Jenisch Park was his parc du midi). Voght recruited two landscape gardener renowned in Europe for Flottbek: the Scot James Booth and Frenchman Joseph Ramée. In 1787, Voght introduced the potato for cultivation. Up until then, it had been primarily an import from the Netherlands. In 1797 he helped his stewart Lukas Andreas Staudinger found an institute for education in agriculture in Groß Flottbek. It was the first agricultural school in the German speaking world. The most prominent student of this academy was Johann Heinrich von Thünen
Johann Heinrich von Thünen
Johann Heinrich von Thünen was a prominent nineteenth century economist. Von Thünen was a Mecklenburg landowner, who in the first volume of his treatise, The Isolated State , developed the first serious treatment of spatial economics, connecting it with the theory of rent...
, who would later correspond with Voght primarily about question of crops yields of soils.
Voght as poor house reformer
John Howard (prison reformer)
John Howard was a philanthropist and the first English prison reformer.-Birth and early life:Howard was born in Lower Clapton, London. His father, also John, was a wealthy upholsterer at Smithfield Market in the city...
around Hamburg's penitentiary. From that time he maintained a great interest in matters related to poorhouses and prisons. Together with the head of the trade academy (Handelsakademie) Johann Georg Büsch and the lawyer Johann Arnold Günther, Voght initiated in 1788 the establishment of a 'common institution for the poor' (Allgemeinen Armenanstalt) with which he reformed Hamburg's poor provision. The foundation of this reform was the division of the city into care zones whose approximately 200 inhabitants were entrusted with finding voluntary means of caring for the poor in that zone. The institute guaranteed medical attention for the poor, support during pregnancy and childbirth, and education and work for poor children. In contrast to the prevailing mode of providing for the poor, which was usually ecclesiastical and focused on moral and spiritual aspects of the situation, the reform was directed towards the economic needs of those affected. The cost of the effort was met by tithes collected in churches and weekly collections for the poor. As a result of this effort, the number of occupants in Hamburg's penitentiaries sank drastically.
Voght's success in the fight against poverty had effects throughout Hamburg and beyond. In 1801, the Emperor summoned him to Vienna, in order to suggest remedies and help prepare plans for a reform of the poor provisions in that city. For this service, he granted the title of baron (Reichsfreiherr) and was thereby ennobled. During a stay in Berlin in the winter of 1802-03, Voght authored a review about poor provision in Berlin at the request of the Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm III
Frederick William III of Prussia
Frederick William III was king of Prussia from 1797 to 1840. He was in personal union the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel .-Early life:...
. During a many-month stay in Paris in 1807, he prepared a report commissioned by the French interior ministry on the situation of the Parisian poorhouses, orphanages, maternity houses, and prisons. Beyond these, he reformed poor provision in Marseille and Lyon, and communicated his understanding of reform to Lisbon and Porto. In 1838 at the age of 86, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Hamburger poor institute, he wrote a book entitled Reflections on the 50 Year History of the Poor Institute (Gesammeltes aus der Geschichte der Armenanstalt während ihrer 50jährigen Dauer).
The later years
During the period of the Continental System
Continental System
The Continental System or Continental Blockade was the foreign policy of Napoleon I of France in his struggle against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland during the Napoleonic Wars. It was a large-scale embargo against British trade, which began on November 21, 1806...
he undertook another multi-year trip through Switzerland, France, and Italy, during which he got to know the Emperor Napoleon and his first wife Josephine
Joséphine de Beauharnais
Joséphine de Beauharnais was the first wife of Napoléon Bonaparte, and thus the first Empress of the French. Her first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais had been guillotined during the Reign of Terror, and she had been imprisoned in the Carmes prison until her release five days after Alexandre's...
in Paris. After his return to Flottbek he lived mainly from income earned from agriculture. Upon the sale of his model estate to the banker and senator Martin Johann Jenisch in 1828, Voght lived with Bonaparte. He later dwelt with the widow of his partner Georg Heinrich Sieveking, who had died in 1799.
Voght died on March 20, 1839 at the age of 86. He was buried in the Nienstedtener cemetery.
In celebration of Caspar Voght
Two streets in Hamburg are named after Caspar Voght: Baron-Voght-Straße in Klein-Flottbek and Caspar-Voght-Straße in Hamm.There was also a school named after him, the Caspar-Voght-Gymnasium in Caspar-Voght-Straße, but it no longer exists. The building today is the home of the ballet school of Hamburg.
Primary sources
- Caspar Voght: Lebensgeschichte. Published by Charlotte Schoell-Glass. Christians, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7672-1344-3 (Voght's memoirs cover from 1752 to 1811. A few other fragmentary sources also survive)
- Anneliese Tecke (pub.): Caspar Voght und sein Hamburger Freundeskreis. Briefe aus einem tätigen Leben. Vol. 1. Briefe aus den Jahren 1792 bis 1821 an Magdalena Pauli, geb. Poel. Edited by Kurt Detlev Möller. Christians, Hamburg 1959. (Only one volume was published)
- Caspar Voght: Sammlung landwirthschaftlicher Schriften. T 1. Perthes, Hamburg 1825.
- Caspar Voght: Flotbeck und dessen diesjährige Bestellung, mit Hinsicht auf die durch dieselbe beabsichtigten Erfahrungen: ein Wegweiser für die landwirthschaftlichen Besucher desselben mit angehängten Flotbecker Garten-Versuchen im Jahre 1821. Busch, Altona 1822.
- Reflections on the 50 History of the Poor Institute (Gesammeltes aus der Geschichte der Armenanstalt während ihrer 50jährigen Dauer), Caspar Voght, 1838.
Secondary sources
- Susanne Woelk: Der Fremde unter den Freunden. Biographische Studien zu Caspar von Voght. Weidmann, Hamburg 2000. ISBN 3-935100-08-6
- Gerhard Ahrens: Caspar Voght und sein Mustergut Flottbek: englische Landwirtschaft in Deutschland am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts. Christians, Hamburg 1969
- Kurt Detlev Möller: Caspar v. Voght, Bürger und Edelmann, 1752–1839. in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte. Hamburg 43.1956, p. 166–195.
- Heinrich Sieveking: Caspar Voght, der Schöpfer des Jenisch-Parks, ein Vermittler zwischen deutscher und französischer Literatur. in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte. Hamburg 40.1949, p. 89–123.
- Georg Heinrich Sieveking: Das Handlungshaus Voght und Sieveking. in: Zeitschrift des Vereins für Hamburgische Geschichte. Hamburg 17.1912, p. 54–128.
- Otto Rüdiger: Caspar von Voght. Ein Hamburgisches Lebensbild. Commeter, Hamburg 1901.
- Gustav Poel: Bilder aus vergangener Zeit. 2 Vol. Rauhes Haus, Hamburg 1884, 1887.
External links
- Caspar Voghts Briefwechsel – Exposition from the state and university library of Hamburg, with more links
- Geschichte der Baumschulen in Schleswig-Holstein – Voght's 'ornamented farm' was a decisive inspiration
- Caspar Voght (Bibliotheca Augustana)