Henrich Friedrich Theodor Ernst Grillo (20 December 1825,

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dor ...

– 16 April 1888, Düsseldorf-Grafenberg) was a prominent

industrialist A business magnate, also known as a tycoon, is a person who has achieved immense wealth through the ownership of multiple lines of enterprise. The term characteristically refers to a powerful entrepreneur or investor who controls, through pers ...

in the

Ruhr The Ruhr ( ; german: Ruhrgebiet , also ''Ruhrpott'' ), also referred to as the Ruhr area, sometimes Ruhr district, Ruhr region, or Ruhr valley, is a polycentric urban area in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With a population density of 2,800/k ...

area of Germany, particularly in

and

Gelsenkirchen Gelsenkirchen (, , ; wep, Gelsenkiärken) is the 25th most populous city of Germany and the 11th most populous in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia with 262,528 (2016) inhabitants. On the Emscher River (a tributary of the Rhine), it lies ...

. Born the son of an Essen merchant, into a Protestant family of Italian origin (his ancestors came from

Valtellina Valtellina or the Valtelline (occasionally spelled as two words in English: Val Telline; rm, Vuclina (); lmo, Valtelina or ; german: Veltlin; it, Valtellina) is a valley in the Lombardy region of northern Italy, bordering Switzerland. Tod ...

, from which they fled due to religious persecutions), he took over his father's enterprise and expanded the range of trade, becoming an influential businessman. Grillo was a board member and founder of several mining companies, including the Schalker Eisenhütte (

ironworks An ironworks or iron works is an industrial plant where iron is smelted and where heavy iron and steel products are made. The term is both singular and plural, i.e. the singular of ''ironworks'' is ''ironworks''. Ironworks succeeded bloomeri ...

) in 1872. Friedrich Grillo and, after his death, his widow Wilhelmine Grillo donated the property and two thirds of the construction costs of the

Grillo-Theater Grillo-Theater is a theatre in Essen, Germany. Named after the industrialist Friedrich Grillo, who made the building possible, it opened on 16 September 1892 with Lessing's drama '' Minna von Barnhelm''. The building was badly damaged in Worl ...

which opened in Essen in 1892.

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* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Grillo, Friedrich 1825 births 1888 deaths Businesspeople from Essen German industrialists German mining businesspeople German company founders 19th-century German businesspeople German people of Italian descent