45
Before that he had been an assistant in Siemssen and Co. He went into business for himself in 1875 and two years later took on as a partner his brother Gustav Adolph Grossmann (DP 19 Jan. 1878). Christian Friedrich died in Hong Kong February 1899. A few days before his death Alexander Heinrich Alfred Finke became a co-partner (GG 7 Jan. 1899). Mr. Finke had been an assistant in the firms of Stolterfoht and Hust 1892-1895, Stolterfoht and Hagan 1896 and Lauts, Wegener and Co. 1898.
Ships and Stores
Backhard and Company
Friedrich Johan Berthold Schwarzkopf, a ship's captain who took the name Blackhead, was in China by the year 1853 for in February of that year he was married at St. John's Cathedral, Hong Kong, to Sarah Bullen, the youngest daughter of William Robert Bullen of West Hackney, Middlesex, England (FC 19 February 1853 and St. John's Cathedral Marriage Register No. 131, 16 February 1853). He was an assistant in the firm of Murrow and Stephenson. He named his first child, who died in infancy, after William Murrow. Mr Blackhead began business on his own. In 1856 he opened a ship chandlers store on a hulk at the Whampoa anchorage on the Pearl River (FC 24 July 1856). His store shop "Hornet" was an old sailing vessel turned into business premises.
When hostilities broke out between Britain and China over the Arrow lorcha incident at Canton, and foreign shipping had to leave Whampoa, the “Hornet” was moved to the Hong Kong harbour. Mr. Blackhead began building warehouses and an office by the seaside at the foot of Aberdeen Street. In September 1860 the company announced it had removed its ship chandlery, sail making and auction business from the "Hornet" to "those new buildings lately erected in Queen's Road West, opposite Messrs. Gibb, Livingston and Co. and next door to offices of Messrs. Phillips, Mone and Co." (FC 13 September 1860).
John Morris was admitted a partner in March 1860 (GG 31 March 1860) but he died in January 1861 (FC 21 Jan. 1861). He held a one third share in the business (PRO, Probate File No. 19 of 1861 [f/104]). Captain Henry A Bell was in charge of the business at Whampoa in 1860 and 1861, but Mr. Blackhead was the sole proprietor of the company until he left Hong Kong in 1872.