Baron Carl Joachim Hambro (23 November 1807 – 27 November 1877) was a Danish banker. He was the founder of

Hambros Bank Hambros Bank was a British bank based in London. The Hambros bank was a specialist in Anglo-Scandinavian business with expertise in trade finance and investment banking, and was the sole banker to the Scandinavian kingdoms for many years. The Bank ...

, one of the United Kingdom's largest

investment banks Investment banking pertains to certain activities of a financial services company or a corporate division that consist in advisory-based financial transactions on behalf of individuals, corporations, and governments. Traditionally associated wit ...

Early life

Carl Joachim Hambro was born in 1807 in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, Denmark. He was the son of Marianne von Halle and Joseph Hambro (1780–1848). The family lineage can be traced to

Rendsburg Rendsburg ( da, Rendsborg, also ''Rensborg'', nds, Rendsborg, also ''Rensborg'') is a town on the River Eider and the Kiel Canal in the central part of Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. It is the capital of the ''Kreis'' (district) of Rendsburg-Ecke ...

, Schleswig-Holstein, in the 1720s. His paternal grandfather

Calmer Hambro Calmer Hambro (1747-1806) was a Danish merchant and banker. Early life Calmer Hambro was born as Calmer Joachim Levy in 1747 in Rendsburg, a town of Schleswig-Holstein in Denmark, later acquired by Prussia in the Second Schleswig War of 1864.Andr ...

(1747–1806) had migrated to Copenhagen where he became a trade merchant in 1779. In 1814, aged seven, Carl Hambro was sent to live with

Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...

zoology Zoology ()The pronunciation of zoology as is usually regarded as nonstandard, though it is not uncommon. is the branch of biology that studies the Animal, animal kingdom, including the anatomy, structure, embryology, evolution, Biological clas ...

professor

Johan Reinhardt Johannes Christopher Hagemann Reinhardt (23 December 1778 – 31 October 1845), sometimes called J. C. H. Reinhardt, was a professor in zoology at the University of Copenhagen. Born in Rendalen parish in Norway, his father, Johannes Henrik Reinhar ...

and his wife. In 1822, Hambro, who was born into a Jewish family, was baptised and confirmed into the Christian religion at the behest of his foster parents.

Career

Hambro left school in 1824 and worked in

Le Havre Le Havre (, ; nrf, Lé Hâvre ) is a port city in the Seine-Maritime department in the Normandy region of northern France. It is situated on the right bank of the estuary of the river Seine on the Channel southwest of the Pays de Caux, very cl ...

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

and

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (german: Stadtgemeinde Bremen, ), is the capital of the German state Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (''Freie Hansestadt Bremen''), a two-city-state consis ...

as well as North America. He returned to Copenhagen in 1829 and joined his father, Joseph Hambro, managing an international trading house established by his grandfather. In 1832, they moved to London and in 1839 established

there. During the 1850s he was responsible for arranging various British

Government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

loan stock issues enabling the bank to prosper. He was made a

Baron Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knig ...

by King

Frederik VII of Denmark Frederick VII (Frederik Carl Christian; 6 October 1808 – 15 November 1863) was King of Denmark from 1848 to 1863. He was the last Danish monarch of the older Royal branch of the House of Oldenburg and the last king of Denmark to rule as ...

in 1851.

Personal life

In 1833, he married Caroline Gostenhofer and together they went on to have three sons: Charles J. T. Hambro, Percival Hambro and

Everard Hambro Sir Everard Alexander Hambro (11 April 1842 – 26 February 1925) was a British banker and philanthropist. Early life Everard Hambro was born 11 April 1842 in Willesden, London. Charles Mosley (ed.), ''Burke's Peerage and Baronetage'', Crans, ...

. In 1852 he acquired

Milton Abbey Milton Abbey school is an independent school for day and boarding pupils in the village of Milton Abbas, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, in South West England. It has 224 pupils , in five houses: Athelstan, Damer, Hambro, Hodgkinson and Tregonw ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

and made it his home. In 1861 Hambro married, secondly, Eliza Frances Turner (1824/25-1919),The Hambros, 1779-1979, by Bo Bramsen, Kathleen Wain, Kathleen Brown widow of Hervey Harris Greathe(a)d (1817-1857), BCS, political agent, Commissioner of

Meerut Meerut (, IAST: ''Meraṭh'') is a city in Meerut district of the western part of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The city lies northeast of the national capital New Delhi, within the National Capital Region and west of the state capital ...

, and one of the daughters of Thomas Jacob Turner, BCS, formerly of Worthy Park in

Martyr Worthy Martyr Worthy is a small village in the English county of Hampshire. It is part of the Worthys cluster of small villages. Martyr Worthy is located on the banks of the River Itchen to the northeast of the city of Winchester. The place-name 'M ...

parish, Hampshire. Hambro died at his home at Milton Abbey in 1877.

Legacy

One grandson, Charles Eric Hambro, inherited Hambro's Bank from Everard, while another, Major General Sir Percival Otway Hambro, joined the military, fighting in the

Second Boer War The Second Boer War ( af, Tweede Vryheidsoorlog, , 11 October 189931 May 1902), also known as the Boer War, the Anglo–Boer War, or the South African War, was a conflict fought between the British Empire and the two Boer Republics (the Sout ...

in the 16th Lancers under Field Marshal General Lord Roberts, as well as taking part in the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hambro, Carl Joachim 1807 births 1877 deaths Danish bankers Danish Jews British bankers British Jews Danish emigrants to England Danish people of German-Jewish descent British people of German-Jewish descent Barons of Denmark 19th-century Danish nobility Burials at Kensal Green Cemetery Carl Joachim Businesspeople from Copenhagen 19th-century British businesspeople