Ludwig Erdwin Seyler

Ludwig Erdwin Seyler was a Hamburg banker, merchant and politician. He was by marriage a member of the Hanseatic Berenberg banking dynasty, and was a partner in the Hamburg firm Joh. Berenberg, Gossler & Co. for 48 years (1788–1836), for 46 years as the company's senior partner. The "Co." part of the company name refers to him. Seyler was one of the first merchants and bankers from modern Germany to establish trade relations with the United States and East Asia. He served as a member of the government of Hamburg during the Napoleonic Wars and later as the President of the Commercial Deputation, one of the city-state's main political bodies, and as a member of the Hamburg Parliament. Ludwig Seyler was a son of the Swiss-born theatre director Abel Seyler and a son-in-law of the bankers Johann Hinrich Gossler and Elisabeth Berenberg through his marriage to their eldest daughter Anna Henriette Gossler.