Cosmopolitan Networks in Commerce and Society 1660–1914

MARGRIT SCHULTE BEERBÜHL and KLAUS WEBER
Nor should direct migration from Saxony and Silesia to London
be underestimated. A continuing chain migration to London can be
perceived. From Saxony it started with Christopher Rose from
Zwickau in the 1660s. Like migrants from the north-western textile
regions, those from Saxony and Silesia moved to London at intervals
of more or less a generation. Nine merchants arrived from Dresden
and seven from Leipzig. Chain migration from Silesia started a little
later, after the turn of the century. 38 In all, thirteen merchants from
Silesia settled in London. Migration from both regions continued
until the end of the eighteenth century.
This interconnected cluster of trade networks formed the backbone
of the community of German textile traders in London. It had
de veloped over a century and each migrant generation had contributed
in its own way to this long-term development. From the
British capital, German merchants expanded their trade to the most
distant places in the world. The geographical scope of the Londonbased
network of course varied greatly, depending on how long it
had been operating, and the ability and degree of integration of each
immigrant merchant.
Records of the London-based houses are very piecemeal and
allow only partial, though interesting, insights into their far-flung
trade. John William Teschemacher, one of the three Teschemacher
brothers from Elberfeld, had risen into the mercantile elite of London
within a decade of his arrival. In 1695–6 he was the second largest
exporter of cloth, exporting goods to the value of more than
£28,000. 39 He imported sugar and other colonial produce from the
Caribbean Islands. The commercial relations of his house stretched as
far as India. His nephew, a merchant-mariner, died there in 1721.
John William also traded with the Baltic and had partners in Vienna
the two houses in Silesia mentioned above, they also traded with Schaeffer -
meyer of Bautzen and Gottlob Frege & Co. of Leipzig.
38 It started with John Christian Zimmermann, alias Carpenter, from Prieg in
1701. William A. Shaw, Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for
Aliens in England and Wales 1701–1800 (Manchester, 1923), 5.
39 The largest one was David Debary from Hamburg. He exported commodities
worth more than £34,000 in 1695–6. See Schulte Beerbühl, Deutsche
Kaufleute, 104; D. W. Jones, ‘London Overseas Merchant Groups at the End of
the Seventeenth Century and the Moves against the East India Company’
(Ph.D. thesis, University of Oxford, 1970), App. II.
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