18 June 2026
Full steam ahead: How Haniel seized the opportunities of industrialization
Humble beginnings at the Packhaus
When business activities began at the “Packhaus” in Ruhrort in the 18th century, the closely interconnected coal and steel industry that would later define the region was still far away. In 1756, Jan Willem Noot, a customs inspector for the Prussian state, had a residential and storage building – the so-called “Packhaus” – constructed outside the gates of the quiet neighboring town of Duisburg (read the story here). This investment was worth 15,000 thalers to Franz Haniel's ancestor. From his professional experience, Noot knew that local merchants lacked adequate storage facilities for their goods.
New business fields: Aletta Haniel’s entry into coal and iron trade
Jan Willem Noot’s son-in-law, Jacob W. Haniel, expanded the business to include wine trading and general freight forwarding. Yet the far more consequential decision was made by his wife, Aletta Haniel: following Jacob’s sudden death, she took over the management of the company in 1782 and opened up a new line of business – the trade in coal and iron goods.
Coal had shaped the region for centuries. The port of Ruhrort, at the confluence of the Rhine and the Ruhr, was ideally situated as a transshipment hub for coal from the small mines of the Mark region. But it was not until the Ruhr River was made navigable in 1789 that a tremendous boom took hold: the Ruhr was considered at the time the longest coal waterway in Europe, with a total of 16 locks.
In 1790, J. W. Haniel seel. Wittib (Wittib = widow), as the company was known after Jacob Haniel's death, took over distribution for the coal trading firm J. G. Müser & Comp. Seven years later, Aletta Haniel became a partner in the firm. Her sons Franz and Gerhard had also begun successfully trading in “black gold” (coal) in the early 19th century, founding their own coal businesses and shipping companies at a young age.
Between charcoal and blast furnace: the ironworks before Haniel's entry
Alongside coal, iron goods – and with them the ironworks of the surrounding area – attracted the Haniels' interest. In 1758, the first ironworks in the Ruhr region had opened in what is now Oberhausen: St. Antony, which processed bog iron ore mined in the Vest Recklinghausen area. Also located along the Elpenbach stream, north of the Emscher River, the Gute Hoffnung ironworks was established in 1781. Nine years later, the Neu-Essen ironworks followed. Its construction was commissioned by Princess-Abbess Maria Kunigunde in the Ecclesiastical Territory of Essen, who entrusted the project to the then 20-year-old ironworks overseer Gottlob Jacobi. Products manufactured there included cast iron goods such as pots, kettles, pumps, machine parts, and at times military materials. Initially, charcoal was used to fire the blast furnaces, as the process of converting coal into coke was not yet known.
Around 1771, Aletta Haniel’s brothers Jan Peter Noot and Diederich Walter Noot sought permission to extract iron ore in the abbacy of Sterkrade. They did however not achieve their goal of processing the extracted ore at an ironworks until ten years later, when Eberhard Pfandhöfer established the Gute Hoffnung ironworks. Meanwhile, from 1792 onwards, Aletta Haniel handled the freight forwarding of ironworks products from St. Antony and probably also from Gute Hoffnung on behalf of the Rotterdam trading house J. F. Hoffmann und Söhne. It was through this work that Franz and Gerhard Haniel also came into contact with ironworks operations. A family connection proved advantageous as well: their sister Sophia Haniel married ironworks director Gottlob Jacobi in 1800, who by that point was already managing the St. Antony and Neu-Essen works as a partner.
A profitable venture: investing in ironworks
Franz Haniel became the driving force behind the family’s financial entry into the ironworks business – a step that expanded the core business of trading and freight forwarding into active industrial production. Around 1803, at the age of 23, he began to “to reflect on the princess’s [Maria Kunigunde] ironworks,” as he later wrote in his memoirs. Franz Haniel drew up calculations covering all operating costs of the St. Antony and Neu-Essen ironworks, including interest, raw material prices, transport costs, and wages. His conclusion: the venture would be profitable.
Political changes also played a role. Under the “Reichsdeputationshauptschluss” – the last major law of the Holy Roman Empire – the territories of Princess-Abbess Maria Kunigunde and the fief of the Bishop of Cologne (Vest Recklinghausen) had passed to Prussia. As a result, Mülheim, Essen, and Werden were no longer considered “foreign territory” relative to Ruhrort. Coal from these regions could now be transshipped in Ruhrort without complication. At the same time, all three ironworks in the Emscher area now stood on Prussian soil. Although Maria Kunigunde lost her political and temporal powers through secularization, she initially remained co-owner of both ironworks, having financed them from her private funds. Even so, the former Princess-Abbess’s diminishing influence over her properties in what had become a distant, former territory increased the prospects for potential buyers.
In 1805, Franz Haniel convinced his brother Gerhard to jointly acquire the shares in both ironworks. Maria Kunigunde sold for 23,800 Reichsthalers, while their brother-in-law Gottlob Jacobi already held a quarter share.
Around this time, Gerhard and Franz Haniel also intensified their involvement in regional mining. Coal initially served as the raw material base for the coal trade – but before long, together with Gottlob Jacobi, they pursued a plan to desulphurize coal directly at the collieries, thereby producing their own blast furnace coke for use in their newly acquired ironworks.
Merger on the Emscher: Hüttengewerkschaft und Handlung Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen
It soon became clear that operating the two ironworks alone would not be enough. Competitive pressure in the Emscher region was high, and sustainable profits would only be achievable if all three works were managed together. Gottlob Jacobi therefore proposed to his brothers‑in‑law that they also acquire the third ironworks – “Gute Hoffnung”, then in the possession of Helene Amalie Krupp. Heinrich Huyssen, another brother-in-law of the Haniel brothers, acted as intermediary in the purchase negotiations with the Krupp widow. Despite significant disagreements over Huyssen's business entry, the acquisition of the Gute Hoffnung works in 1808 led to the founding of the Hüttengewerkschaft und Handlung Jacobi, Haniel & Huyssen (abbreviated JHH) – the direct legal predecessor of the later Gutehoffnungshütte AG (GHH) in Oberhausen.
From merchants to industrialists
This merger marked a decisive shift in the Haniels' entrepreneurial activities. Merchants became producing partners who actively shaped industrial processes. Until the mid‑1820s, the three JHH works were the only iron-producing ironworks in the Ruhr region.
The Gute Hoffnung works began producing cast components for steam engine construction at an early stage, before JHH itself went on to develop into a mechanical engineering company. Through the manufacture of steam engines and steamships, locomotives, railway tracks, and bridges, it made a significant contribution to the industrialization of the Ruhr region and beyond.
Courage to transform: the legacy of Franz, Gerhard and Aletta Haniel
In all of this, Franz Haniel played a central role throughout his lifetime. With both technical and entrepreneurial ambition, he looked to England, where coke-based steelmaking and steam power were already advanced. From his home base in Ruhrort, he built a vertically and horizontally integrated conglomerate that covered the entire value chain: from raw material extraction through to the transport and sale of finished products. Both in their own trading companies and in the jointly operated JHH, Franz and Gerhard Haniel responded flexibly to changing conditions – and with the courage to seize economic opportunities. Together with their mother Aletta, they laid the foundation for the company’s remarkable history of transformation.
