Die Rostocker "Schiffs-Rhederei" Richard V. Beselin

Abstract

The company history of the "Richard V. Beselin" shipping company, a so-called Korrespondenzreederei (shipping company which managed several ships without being their sole owners) provides insight into the maritime history of the maritime town of Rostock in the mid nineteenth century. The two owners, Richard and Berthold Beselin, had very different biographies. The trained businessman Richard Beselin took over the grain business and shipping company from his uncle Fritz Beselin in 1848. Berthold Beselin became a shareholder in 1863 and the company director following the death of his brother in 1866. A sailor by profession, he was captain of the barque PROSPERO from 1853 onwards before entering the shipping company as a partner. This article is concerned with the internal economic structure of the shipping company as well as with contemporary social structures in the Rostock of the time. The power of the guild system, embodied by the shipmen’s association, is documented in depth on the basis of the example of the Schifferstreit (shipmen’s conflict) with the town authorities. Insisting on the rights transferred it by testamentary law, the guild refused to recognize the master’s certificate Berthold Beselin had been awarded by the Gewett (administrative committee for commercial and maritime affairs) because, in contrast to the Gewett, it was not capable of equating Beselin's "rank as boatswain" of the German fleet with a mate's certificate. Even though a compromise was ultimately reached, Beselin was not able to accept the position of captain on the first screw steamer of Rostock, the ERBGROSSHERZOG FRIEDRICH FRANZ, offered him by the "Rostocker Dampfschiff-Actien-Gesellschaft" (Rostock Steamer Corporation). In the appendix, a detailed look is taken at the various forms of ownership of the sailing ships managed by the "Korrespondenzreederei Richard V. Beselin." In the preceding chapters there is a description of the initial efforts which ushered in the transition from partner shipping companies to joint stock corporations.