Calmer Hambro (1747–1806) was a Danish merchant and banker.
Early life Calmer Hambro was born as Calman Joachim Levy in 1747 in Rendsburg, a town of Schleswig-Holstein in Denmark, later acquired by Prussia in the Second Schleswig War of 1864.Andrew St George, 'Hambro, Baron Carl Joachim (1807–1877)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 accessed 6 May 2015
He grew up in Hamburg, Germany, which is considered to be his hometown.Lord Hambro, The Daily Telegraph, 9 November 2002Derek Taylor, Newcomers who built Britain’s future, The Jewish Chronicle, January 22, 2013 He changed his surname to Hambro upon moving to Copenhagen in 1778. Although he wanted to be named Hamburg, the registrar misspelt his name, thus renaming him Calmer Hambro.
Career Hambro took over his father-in-law's business in Copenhagen in 1779. In the Danish census 1801, he was registered living as a handelsman (merchant) in the house Store Købmagergade No. 96 in the Frimands Kvarter neighbourhood, together with his wife and his two sons.Census 1801, Rentekammeret Danske Afdeling, Dansk-Norsk Tabelkontor. Folketælling 1801. Rigsarkivet Copenhagen. Retrieved August 28, 2020 He later became a banker to the King of Denmark.
Personal life Hambro married a cousin, Thobe (Dorothea) Levy (1756–1820), the daughter of Isach Joseph Levi, in Copenhagen in 1778. They had three sons and one daughter, the merchant and banker Joseph Hambro (1780–1848) and his younger twin brothers Carl Simon and Eduard Isaac (born in 1782), the latter moved to Bergen establishing himself as a merchant, and sister Hanne Sophie.
Death He died in 1806 in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Legacy His grandson, Carl Joachim Hambro (1807–1877) moved to London, England, where he founded the Hambros Bank in 1839.
References