Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

From Westphalia to the Caribbean
Bremen and London. 29 After the turn of the century six more descendants
arrived within a decade. The last one came to London in 1758.
Migration from Herford followed a similar long-term pattern. The
first migrant from Herford, Bernard Sirps, arrived in the 1660s. At the
same time, close cousins settled in Bremen and Hamburg. He was
succeeded by Heydman John Burges, and Henry and Frederik Vog -
uell. They were all related to each other. The last person to come from
Herford was Frederick Molling (Mölling), who became a British citizen
in 1775. Thus both groups established family-based trade networks
linking their home town, the Hanseatic towns, and London.
Those who stayed in Bremen were among the founders of the English
Company of Bremen. 30
Migration to Bremen and London was part of a more complex
pattern of migration. To understand the structure of these networks
fully, connections with the textile regions of Saxony and Silesia must
also be taken into account (see Figure 3.1). Because of the distance
from Silesia and Saxony to the North Sea, it is generally assumed that
Silesian or Saxon merchants had hardly any direct trade relations
with London. 31 Linen which was destined for export was sold either
in Lüneburg, where the smaller Silesian merchants stored their goods,
or directly to merchants in Hamburg, as the bigger Silesian houses
29 Ruth Prange, Die bremische Kaufmannschaft des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts in so -
zi algeschichtlicher Betrachtung (Bremen, 1963), 220, 226–7; for the London
migrants see Schulte Beerbühl, Deutsche Kaufleute, 151.
30 For the Englische Kompanie, see ibid. 93, 100 n.177; Prange, Die bremische
Kauf mannschaft, 37–8.
31 Historians of the Silesian linen trade such as Siegfried Kühne and Marcel
Boldorf mention that English merchants went to Silesia to buy linen, but they
do not mention direct relations with, or even migration to, Britain. Marcel
Boldorf, Europäische Leinenregionen im Wandel: Institutionelle Weichen stel -
lungen in Schlesien und Irland (1750–1850) (Cologne, 2006), 90; Siegfried
Kühne, Der Hirschberger Leinwand- und Schleierhandel von 1648–1806 (Breslau,
1938), 90–1. The merchant house of Frege & Co. had had some direct contact
with Britain since the 1770s, but according to Danny Weber it was of little
importance. On the other hand he stresses the important trade in textiles
between Saxony and England, but mainly refers to British merchants visiting
the fairs in Leipzig and other nearby textile places. See Danny Weber, Das
Handels- und Bankhaus Frege & Comp. in Leipzig (1739–1816) (Stuttgart, 2008),
73–6.
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