Johann Jakob Bethmann was a German merchant and shipowner.

Life

Johann Jakob was born in Bergnassau, one of three sons of the administrator Simon Moritz Bethmann (1687–1725). After the premature death of their father, the brothers were raised by their maternal uncle Jakob Adami in Frankfurt am Main. While the brothers Johann Philipp and Simon Moritz established the Gebrüder Bethmann bank based on their uncle's inheritance, Johann Jakob moved to Bordeaux in 1740, where he established Bethmann & Imbert (since 1779 Bethmann & fils) as a trading enterprise and shipowning company.

In 1745 Bethmann married the Protestant Elisabeth Desclaux (1725–1785), a Bordeaux native. In 1749 he took Swiss citizenship and in 1758 he became a citizen of Frankfurt am Main. In 1768 he was appointed imperial consul

Holy Roman Empire

The Holy Roman Empire was a realm that existed from 962 to 1806 in Central Europe.It was ruled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Its character changed during the Middle Ages and the Early Modern period, when the power of the emperor gradually weakened in favour of the princes...

 for Bordeaux, and in 1776 he was knighted

Imperial Knight

The Free Imperial Knights, or the Knights of the Empire was an organisation of free nobles of the Holy Roman Empire, whose direct overlord was the Emperor, remnants of the medieval free nobility and the ministeriales...

.

Bethmann proved an astute businessman and prospered quickly. Besides trading in goods and merchandise, he was not averse to an engagement in the slave trade and had already secured a guaranty worth 300,000 livres from his brothers in Frankfurt for that purpose before the plan for a joint venture with the Danish West India and Guinea Company was aborted due to business uncertainty.

He left his daughter Katharina Elisabeth (1753–1813) in the care of his childless brother Simon Moritz in Frankfurt. There she married in 1769 the merchant Peter Heinrich Metzler (1744–1800), who thenceforth used the surname Bethmann-Metzler (subsequently von Bethmann-Metzler or de Bethmann-Metzler) but remained in Frankfurt as a partner in the bank.

After Johann Jakob's death in Bordeaux

Bordeaux

Bordeaux is a port city on the Garonne River in the Gironde department in southwestern France.The Bordeaux-Arcachon-Libourne metropolitan area, has a population of 1,010,000 and constitutes the sixth-largest urban area in France. It is the capital of the Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture...

, his Frankfurt grandchildren returned to the city.

Johann Jakob Bethmann was a friend of German author Friedrich Melchior Grimm.

See also

• Bethmann family
  Bethmann family
  The Bethmann family has been remarkable for the high proportion of its males who succeeded at mercantile or financial endeavors. This family trait began in medieval northern Germany and continued with the Bethmann bank which Johann Philipp Bethmann and Simon Moritz Bethmann founded in 1748 and...