William Ralph Merton

Wilhelm Ralph Merton (14 May 1848 in Frankfurt–15 December 1916 in Berlin) was a prominent and influential German-born entrepreneur, social democrat and philanthropist. Among his most notable accomplishments, he was a founder of the University of Frankfurt and Metallgesellschaft AG, which became the largest non-ferrous mining company in the world and the second largest company in Germany.

Wilhelm was born to a Jewish family, the eighth of nine children of Ralph Merton (until 1856: Raphael Lyon Moses) and his wife Sara Amelie Cohen, who immigrated to Frankfurt from England in 1837. On 5 November 1855 Ralph Moses and his family gained citizenship of the free city of Frankfurt. On 27 November he was granted permission to call himself ‘Merton’ after claiming in his application for such (on 22 October 1856) that his brother Benjamin had already taken the family name ‘Merton’ in Manchester as the name ‘Moses’ was not suitable to be used as a surname.

Wilhelm Merton studied at Frankfurt’s grammar school, thereafter in Munich and he performed voluntary work at the Deutsche Bank in Berlin.

He married Emma Ladenburg in 1877 (born 1859 in Frankfurt, died in 1939), who was a daughter of Eugenie Halphen (1829-1866) and the businessman Emil Ladenburg (1822 – 1902), co-owner of the famous Ladenburg banking house. The couple had five children: Adolf, Alfred, Walter Henry, Gerda and Richard.

Merton and his children converted to Protestantism in 1899. The Mertons, who had been English citizens hitherto, naturalised as Germans in the same year and since then he bore the name Wilhelm Merton.

In 1881, Merton founded Metallgesellschaft AG together with Leo Ellinger and Zacharias Hochschild.

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