George William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
| George William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth | |
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George William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
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| Spouse(s) | Sophie of Saxe-Weissenfels |
| Noble family | House of Hohenzollern |
| Father | Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth |
| Mother | Sofie Louise of Württemberg |
| Born |
26 November 1678 Bayreuth |
| Died | 18 December 1726 (aged 48) Bayreuth |
George William of Brandenburg-Bayreuth (German: Georg Wilhelm; 26 November 1678 in Bayreuth – 18 December 1726 in Bayreuth) was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth.
He was the first son of Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth by his second wife, Sophie Louise of Württemberg-Stuttgart, the fifth of six children. Two sisters died in infancy before his own birth, and his only brother, born in 1679, lived only five months. Of his two surviving sisters, the eldest, Christiane Eberhardine, became the wife of August the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and the youngest, Eleonore Magdalene, married a distant kinsman, Hermann Frederick, Count of Hohenzollern-Hechingen.
George William succeeded his father as margrave of Bayreuth when he died on 20 May 1712. He pursued a military career due to a lack of academic aptitude and participated successfully on the imperial side in numerous battles. In this connection, he was seriously hit by a musket ball near Landau, a wound that never healed completely. In his youth, before acceding to the margraviate, he created the suburb Saint George in The Lake (German: St. Georgen am See). It was intended to be a self-contained city (today in the district of Bayreuth) built in baroque style with a castle in the lake. In the artificially-created Brandenburg Pond (German: Brandenburger Weiher), fed by the Steinach tributary, he installed a ski jump and organized naval battles with real ships. On 17 November 1705, he created the Order of the Red Eagle (German: Roter Adlerorden), then known as the Ordre de la Sincérité, and celebrated the anniversary of its foundation every year with splendid festivities. The Order of the Red Eagle also possessed its own church, the Sophienkirche. 18th-century coats of arms of the Order are displayed there to this day.
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