May 5, 2015
Elisabeth Berenberg is notable as being the first female to serve as a partner to the Berenberg Bank that carried her namesake. She served for ten years, the first time in the family’s history of being in business. She was a Hamburg heiress who became a merchant banker, an uncommon profession for women of the time.
Her family had come to Hamburg as religious refugees from Antwerp in 1585, and they founded a merchant house with the money they’d managed to take with them. They had partnered with another family, Hanseaten, which was one of two of the most prominent families in the city-state. Her father owned the bank during the 1700s, and her great grandfather had been instrumental in forming the bank during its early years. Her family was essentially comprised of the most prominent merchants and bankers of the time, even after the exile.
She became the bank’s partner succeeding her late husband, and managed the firm for 32 years with her son-in-law. Her late husband was a marriage of convenience. Elisabeth was not known for her beauty, but she was known for her kindness. She spoke Latin, along with a host of other languages, which made her an adept conversationalist. She was a devoted wife and mother, and retained large sums of money with her family company until her death.
She eventually stopped her activities with the bank in the year 1800, retiring to let her sons run the establishment.
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