The Schröder family is a

Hanseatic The Hanseatic League was a Middle Ages, medieval commercial and defensive network of merchant guilds and market towns in Central Europe, Central and Northern Europe, Northern Europe. Growing from a few Northern Germany, North German towns in the ...

family of

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg,. is the List of cities in Germany by population, second-largest city in Germany after Berlin and List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, 7th-lar ...

, that is, a family that belonged to the historical

ruling class In sociology, the ruling class of a society is the social class who set and decide the political and economic agenda of society. In Marxist philosophy, the ruling class are the class who own the means of production in a given society and apply ...

grand burgher Grand Burgher

ale Ale is a style of beer, brewed using a warm fermentation method. In medieval England, the term referred to a drink brewed without hops. As with most beers, ale typically has a bittering agent to balance the malt and act as a preservative. Ale ...

or Grand Burgheress emale(from German: Großbürger

Großbürgerin emale is a specific conferred or inherited title of Middle Ages, medieval German origin. It denotes a legally defined preeminent status grantin ...

s (also known more broadly in English as

patricians The patricians (from ) were originally a group of ruling class families in ancient Rome. The distinction was highly significant in the Roman Kingdom and the early Republic, but its relevance waned after the Conflict of the Orders (494 BC to 287 B ...

) of the city republic prior to the constitutional changes in 1918–19. The Schröder family has traditionally been

Lutheran Lutheranism is a major branch of Protestantism that emerged under the work of Martin Luther, the 16th-century German friar and Protestant Reformers, reformer whose efforts to reform the theology and practices of the Catholic Church launched ...

Notable members

Christian Matthias Schröder A Christian () is a person who follows or adheres to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. Christians form the largest religious community in the world. The words ''Christ'' and ''Chr ...

(1742–1821), a native of

Quakenbrück Quakenbrück (Northern Low Saxon: ''Quokenbrügge'') is a town in the Osnabrück (district), district of Osnabrück, in Lower Saxony, Germany. It is situated on the river Hase. It is part of the ''Samtgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") of Ar ...

, became a Hamburg merchant and acquired the hereditary grand burghership. He founded the well-known firm ''Christ. Matthias Schröder & Co.'', with branches in

Bremen Bremen (Low German also: ''Breem'' or ''Bräm''), officially the City Municipality of Bremen (, ), is the capital of the States of Germany, German state of the Bremen (state), Free Hanseatic City of Bremen (), a two-city-state consisting of the c ...

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , ; ; ) is the capital of the Netherlands, capital and Municipalities of the Netherlands, largest city of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It has a population of 933,680 in June 2024 within the city proper, 1,457,018 in the City Re ...

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

St. Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

and

Riga Riga ( ) is the capital, Primate city, primate, and List of cities and towns in Latvia, largest city of Latvia. Home to 591,882 inhabitants (as of 2025), the city accounts for a third of Latvia's total population. The population of Riga Planni ...

. He was elected a senator in 1799 and served as the

First Mayor of Hamburg The following is a chronological list of mayors of Hamburg, a city-state in Germany. The mayors are the head of the city-state, part of the government of Hamburg. Since 1861, according to the Constitution of Hamburg, constitution of 28 Septembe ...

, i.e.

head of state A head of state is the public persona of a sovereign state.#Foakes, Foakes, pp. 110–11 "

he head of state He or HE may refer to: Language * He (letter), the fifth letter of the Semitic abjads * He (pronoun), a pronoun in Modern English * He (kana), one of the Japanese kana (へ in hiragana and ヘ in katakana) * Ge (Cyrillic), a Cyrillic letter cal ...

being an embodiment of the State itself or representative of its international persona." The name given to the office of head of sta ...

and

head of government In the Executive (government), executive branch, the head of government is the highest or the second-highest official of a sovereign state, a federated state, or a self-governing colony, autonomous region, or other government who often presid ...

of the

sovereign ''Sovereign'' is a title that can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin">-4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to ...

city republic, from 1816 until his death in 1821. He was married to Luise Mutzenbecher (1754–1813), a member of a prominent Hamburg family. They were the parents of

Christian Mathias Schröder Christian Mathias Schröder (27 January 1778 – 25 January 1860) was a German senator from the city of Hamburg, Germany. Schröder made history as the main member and stock holder of the " Society for the Protection of the Immigrant in Souther ...

(1778–1860), who succeeded him as head of the firm and also became a Hamburg senator (1821–1859), and of

Johann Heinrich Schröder Johann Heinrich Schröder (12 December 1784 – 28 June 1883) was a member of the Hanseatic Schröder family of Hamburg, who settled in London and founded Schroders, one of the United Kingdom's largest investment banks. Early life Schröder ...

, who settled in London and founded the investment bank

Schroders Schroders plc is a British multinational asset management company headquartered in London, England. Founded in 1804, it employs over 6,000 people worldwide in 38 locations around Europe, America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East. It is traded on ...

. In 1868, Johann Heinrich Schröder was ennobled by

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

and received the title of ''

Freiherr (; male, abbreviated as ), (; his wife, abbreviated as , ) and (, his unmarried daughters and maiden aunts) are designations used as titles of nobility in the German-speaking areas of the Holy Roman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and in ...

'' (

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

). Christian Matthias Schröder was the grandfather of Hamburg First Mayor

Carl August Schröder Carl August Schröder (born 21 November 1855 in Hamburg, died 3 November 1945 in Hamburg) was a Hamburg lawyer and politician, who served as First Mayor of Hamburg in 1916. A member of the Schröder family, he studied in law in Leipzig, and wo ...

. The firm ''Christ. Matthias Schröder & Co.'' went bankrupt in 1858.

Bruno Schroder Bruno Lionel Schroder (17 January 1933 – 20 February 2019) was a British banker and billionaire and a significant landowner in Scotland. He was a direct descendant of Johann Heinrich Schröder, co-founder of financial institution Schroders, ...

was a non-executive director of Schroders and a member of the company's nominations committee.

References

*Renate Hauschild-Thiessen: "Schröder." In: ''

Neue Deutsche Biographie (''NDB''; Literal translation, literally ''New German Biography'') is a Biography, biographical reference work. It is the successor to the ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, Universal German Biography). The 27 volumes published thus far co ...

'' (NDB). Vol. 23, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2007, , S. 553 f. *''

Deutsches Geschlechterbuch The ''Deutsches Geschlechterbuch'', until 1943 known as the ''Genealogisches Handbuch bürgerlicher Familien'', is a major German genealogical handbook of bourgeois or patrician families. It is the bourgeois and patrician equivalent of the '' Gen ...

'', Vol. 128, 1962, p. 189 *

Percy Ernst Schramm Percy Ernst Schramm (14 October 1894 – 12 November 1970) was a German historian who specialized in art history and medieval history. Schramm was a Chair and Professor of History at the University of Göttingen from 1929 to 1963. Early lif ...

, ''Neun Generationen: Dreihundert Jahre deutscher Kulturgeschichte im Lichte der Schicksale einer Hamburger Bürgerfamilie (1648–1948)''. Vol. I and II, Göttingen 1963/64; Vol. 2, p. 186 *''

'', Vol. 128, 1962; p. 194

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schroder Family German noble families Banking families Schroders people

Notable members

References

Further reading

External links