Gustav Overbeck

Gustav Overbeck ( 1867 Overbeck, from 1873 Baron von Overbeck, born March 4, 1830 in Lemgo, † April 8, 1894 in London ) was a German businessman, adventurer and diplomat.

Life and work

The son of a pharmacist and Medizinalrats Georg Heinrich Overbeck from an old Lemgoer family attended the Gymnasium in Lemgo to Prima and then the trade school. For an apprenticeship with his uncle in the family business there, he came to Bremen, remained there but not for long, and wandered in the spring of 1850 with his cousin August Meier to America. He went to San Francisco, opened a commercial business and undertook several trade missions, where the thrill of adventure and his instinct for lucrative business areas combined: Hawaii, the South Pacific, after Alaska and the Bering Strait.

He came in contact with the English trading firm Dent & Co., which gave him in 1854 in Hong Kong employment. In 1856 he was appointed Prussian Vice-Consul, 1864 for kuk Austrian consul. In 1866 he resigned because of the Austro-Prussian War of his Prussian posts.

When he was in Hong Kong, he had four children with Tsat - Lam Tam. They were Lily Overbeck; Oi Moon Overbeck, Annie Overbeck and Victoria Overbeck

In 1867 he was elevated to the Austrian nobility; In 1873, a survey in the Austrian baron.

In January 1876, he acquired for 15,000 Straits dollars of Joseph William Torrey, the nearing extinction of concession rights of the American Trading Co. of territories in North Borneo. The acquisition was subject to the condition that it had to succeed to obtain an extension of the concession by the rulers of Brunei. In 1877 he founded therefore with the brothers Alfred and Edward Dent financiers as a joint venture, the Dent & Overbeck Company or Overbeck & CO. for the acquisition of territorial rights and exploitation of mineral resources in North Borneo. As of November 1877, he undertook an expedition on the steamer America to Borneo. On December 29, 1877, he was received by the Sultan of Brunei and was awarded the concession; on January 22, 1878 also signed Jamal -ul Azam, The Sultan of Sulu, who also had rights to the area, the concession. Overbeck was appointed Datu Bendahara, Maharaja of Sabah and Raja of Gaya and Sandakan. The far-reaching concession aroused in Europe and in the U.S. a great sensation; The Washington Post called it the most important acquired through a trade company transfer since the days of the British East India Company. But on July 22, 1878 forced the scale of the Philippines from Spain to the Sultan to surrender, and Overbeck lost de facto the land and the title. 1879/80 and Overbeck traveled to Europe in order to gain public support for the enforcement of the concession. While Britain had a strong interest in Borneo, he found in Germany only with Alexander George Mosle a supporters for his plan to leave acquire his rights by the German Reich. Beginning of 1881, the British North Borneo Provisional Association Limited was formed after Overbeck had transferred his rights to the Brothers Dent. The company succeeded within a year, back the Spaniards, and to establish the British protectorate British North Borneo North Borneo. The interpretation of the written in Jawi documents from 1877/78 to play a role in the international legal dispute between Malaysia and the Philippines to territorial claims in Sabah today.

Since 1870, Overbeck was married to Romaine Madeleine Goddard ( 1847-1926 ). She was at that time quite late father Daniel Convers Goddard (1822-1852), the first Assistant Secretary in the Ministry of the Interior of the United States; her mother Madeleine, born in Vinton (1825-1889), daughter of Samuel F. Vinton congressman, was an estimated author and had married Admiral John A. Dahlgren in second marriage 1865. The Marriage of Gustav Overbeck and Romaine Goddard on March 16, 1870 was a social event in Washington; President Ulysses S. Grant and his wife, Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, and numerous ambassadors were among the guests. The couple had three sons: Gustav Convers of Overbeck, Oscar Karl Maria von Overbeck and Alfred von Overbeck ( 1877-1945 ). Romaine was an excellent pianist and often lived during the travel of her husband with her family in Washington; in December 1875 was presented by Kurd from Schlozer in the German Embassy in Washington, Hans von Bülow and began a brief violent affair with him. Financially by the income of a family trust arising from coal mines of Ohio fully independent, she lived later separated from her husband in Baden -Baden and Berlin.

Little is known about Overbeck's further life. He died at the age of 64 years in London.

Awards

According to him, the Overbeck street is named in Lemgo.