Johann Hinrich Gossler

Johann Hinrich Gossler (born 18 August 1738 in Hamburg, died 31 August 1790 in Hamburg) was a German banker and grand burgher of Hamburg, a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg/Gossler banking dynasty and the owner and head of the firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. (Berenberg Bank). He was married to Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822), the only heir of the Berenberg banking family.

Johann Hinrich Gossler was a son of Johan Eibert Gossler (1700–1776), an accountant and burgher of Hamburg who had bought the office of Herrenschenk for 10,600 mark, making him master of ceremonies of the Hamburg council. The Gossler family had been burghers and velvet makers in Hamburg at least since the 17th century. The name Gossler appears in the city already in the 14th century, although it is unknown if it is the same family. Gossler's maternal grandfather Jürgen Friedrich Boedecker was a Hamburg merchant and grand burgher from 1706, and his great-grandfather Eibert Tiefbrunn was also a prominent Hamburg merchant. A list of his ancestors is included in the Hamburgisches Geschlechterbuch.

At a young age, Johann Hinrich Gossler joined the Berenberg company as an apprentice. The company was involved in merchant banking, insurance, shipping and trade of goods, and had been established by the Dutch Berenberg family in 1590. After seven years, at 22 and having completed his apprenticeship, Gossler left Hamburg to work for a company in Cadiz, and travelled extensively in Spain, Portugal, France and England.

In 1768, he returned to Hamburg, where he married Elisabeth Berenberg (1749–1822) in the same year. She was the only daughter of the Berenberg company's surviving owner, Johann Berenberg (1718–1772). Johann Berenberg made his son-in-law a partner in 1769. Upon the death of Johann Berenberg's brother Cornelius in 1773, the Berenberg family became extinct in the male line and Johann Hinrich Gossler became the company's sole owner. In 1788, Gossler took on his own son-in-law Ludwig Erdwin Seyler (married to his eldest daughter Anna Henriette Gossler) as a partner.

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