Taylor Wessing LLP is an international law firm with 28 offices internationally. The firm has over 300 partners and over 1000 lawyers worldwide. The company was formed as a result of a merger of the British law firm Taylor Joynson Garrett and the German law firm Wessing & Berenberg-Gossler, retaining the first name of each.
The Hanseaten is a collective term for the hierarchy group consisting of elite individuals and families of prestigious rank who constituted the ruling class of the free imperial city of Hamburg, conjointly with the equal First Families of the free imperial cities of Bremen and Lübeck. The members of these First Families were the persons in possession of hereditary grand burghership of these cities, including the mayors, the senators, joint diplomats and the senior pastors. Hanseaten refers specifically to the ruling families of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen, but more broadly, this group is also referred to as patricians along with similar social groups elsewhere in continental Europe.
Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. KG, commonly known as Berenberg Bank and also branded as simply Berenberg, is a multinational full-service private and merchant bank headquartered in Hamburg, Germany. It is considered the world's oldest merchant bank.
Ludwig Erdwin Seyler was a Hamburg merchant, merchant banker and politician. He was by marriage a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg dynasty, and was a partner in the Hamburg firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. for 48 years (1788–1836), for 46 years as the company's senior partner. The company name was amended in 1791 to reflect him becoming a partner and has remained unchanged since; he "is practically the 'Co.' in the company name." Seyler was one of the first merchants and bankers from modern Germany to establish trade relations with the United States and East Asia. Much of the company's wealth derived from their position as leading sugar importers from the Americas to the North European market, in combination with their activities as merchants bankers. Seyler was one of Hamburg's leading merchants during the Napoleonic Wars and held several political offices. He served as a member of the French-appointed council of Hamburg and after the Napoleonic Wars as the President of the Commercial Deputation, one of the city-state's main political bodies. Ludwig Seyler was a son of the Swiss-born theatre director Abel Seyler and a son-in-law of the bankers Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg through his marriage to their eldest daughter Anna Henriette Gossler.
Johann Hinrich Gossler was a German merchant and banker. He was married to Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) and succeeded his father-in-law Johann Berenberg as head of the Berenberg & Gossler company, that was renamed Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. the year following his death. During Gossler's tenure as the company's main partner it became one of the largest merchant houses of Hamburg. Many of his descendants were prominent in Hamburg society, including his grandson, Hamburg's first mayor Hermann Gossler. Some of his descendants were later ennobled as the barons von Berenberg-Gossler. The Gossler Islands in Antarctica are named in honour of his family.
The Berenberg family was a Flemish-origined Hanseatic family of merchants, bankers and senators in Hamburg, with branches in London, Livorno and other European cities. The family was descended from the brothers Hans and Paul Berenberg from Antwerp, who came as Protestant refugees to the city-republic of Hamburg following the Fall of Antwerp in 1585 and who established what is now Berenberg Bank in Hamburg in 1590. The Berenbergs were originally cloth merchants and became involved in merchant banking in the 17th century. Having existed continuously since 1590, Berenberg Bank is the world's oldest surviving merchant bank.
The Amsinck family is a Dutch-origined patrician family whose members were prominent merchants in multiple countries including the Netherlands, Hamburg, Portugal, England, France, Hanover, Holstein, Denmark, Suriname and India. From the 17th century the Hamburg branch of the family formed part of the city-state's ruling class, the Hanseaten or hereditary grand burghers, who enjoyed legal privileges in Hamburg until 1918. Amsinck has been one of Hamburg's great business families over many centuries, and its members reached the highest positions in Hamburg society, including as senators and head of state. A branch of the family were large plantation owners in Suriname. The Hamburg branch retained a Dutch identity for centuries, often intermarrying with other Dutch-origined patrician families.
Johann Heinrich Burchard was a Hamburg lawyer and politician who served as senator and First Mayor and President of the Senate of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.
The Seyler family is a Swiss family, originally a patrician family from Liestal near Basel. Family members served as councillors and Schultheißen of Liestal from the 15th century, later also as members of the Grand Council of Basel. A Hamburg branch descended from the banker and renowned theatre director Abel Seyler became by marriage a part of the Berenberg banking dynasty, co-owners of Berenberg Bank and part of Hamburg's ruling class of Hanseaten.
Rudolf Berenberg was a Hamburg merchant and banker and a member of the Berenberg banking family. He served as President of the Commerz-Deputation from 1728–1729 and as a Hamburg Senator from 1735. He was the son of Cornelius Berenberg, and was married to Anna Elisabeth Amsinck (1690–1748), a daughter of Paul Amsinck (1649–1706) and Christina Adelheid Capelle (1663–1730).
Baron Cornelius von Berenberg-Gossler was a German banker, a member of the illustrious Berenberg-Gossler banking dynasty, and owner and head of Berenberg Bank from 1913. He withdrew from active management of the bank in 1932.
Cornelius Berenberg (1634–1711) was a Hamburg grand burgher, merchant banker, a member of the Berenberg family, and owner of Berenberg Bank. His grandfather Hans Berenberg (1561–1626) had fled from Antwerp with his brother Paul Berenberg (1566–1645) and established the Berenberg merchant house in Hamburg. In Hamburg, the Berenberg family formed part of the Dutch merchant colony. Cornelius Berenberg was the first to engage in merchant banking. He developed the company into a very successful merchant house and merchant bank, and forged trade links with France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Scandinavia and Russia. Family connections of the Berenbergs were instrumental to the development, especially in Livorno and Lisbon with its colonies of wealthy Dutch merchants.
Elisabeth Berenberg was a Hamburg heiress, merchant banker and a member of the Berenberg family. She was the last male line member of the Flemish-origined Hanseatic Berenberg banking family in Hamburg, and ancestral mother of the von Berenberg-Gossler family, the current owners of Berenberg Bank. She is also noted as the only woman ever to serve as a partner and take an active leadership role (1790–1800) at Berenberg Bank since the company was established in 1590 by her family.
Rudolf Capell was a German historian, linguist and pedagogue. He was renowned internationally as one of the great learned men of his time.
Harald Nørregaard was a Norwegian supreme court advocate (høyesterettsadvokat), i.e. a lawyer with the right to appear before the Supreme Court of Norway. He founded the law firm now known as Advokatfirmaet Hjort in 1893 in Christiania, and was Chairman of the Norwegian Bar Association from 1904 to 1907. He was also one of Edvard Munch's closest friends since adolescence, adviser and lawyer. He owned several of Munch's most famous paintings. He was married to Aase Nørregaard née Carlsen (1869–1908), a painter and a close friend of Munch, and secondly to Marit Liv Nørregaard née Tillier (1885–1981), who was also a painter. Munch made several paintings and drawings portraying Nørregaard and his two wives.
Berenberg is a surname. Some notable people with the surname include:
Johann Berenberg was a German merchant and banker. He was a co-owner of Berenberg Bank from 1748, with his brother, senator Paul Berenberg, and after the latter's death in 1768 the sole owner. The bank still bears his name. He was also noted as an art collector and held several public offices in the city-state of Hamburg.
Sir Peter Meyer was a major City of London merchant in the West Indies trade, merchant banker and a co-owner of the leading London international trade firm Meyer & Berenberg.
Henriette Wegner, née Henriette Seyler, was a Norwegian businesswoman and philanthropist. She was a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg banking dynasty of Hamburg and moved to Norway in 1824 when she married the industrialist Benjamin Wegner. She was briefly a co-owner of Berenberg Bank, and became one of the wealthiest women of Norway on her husband's death as the main owner of one of the country's largest forest estates.
Carl Heinz Illies was an Hamburger merchant and, from 1981 to 1986, President of the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce.