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Paulus,
Johann Eder
Johann Eder (1694
1753)
The European Career of a Bavarian Glassmaker and his Family
1
by Georg Paulus
In a way, this text is a sequel to an article of 2010 on Bavarian glassmakers, who migrated to
Portugal in 1739/40 and took part in the development of the national glass industry.
2
That
publication has found the attention of both genealogists and glass researchers in several
European countries, who obviously have been dealing with the same glassmakers family
Eder appearing in my article. However, that family had usually been looked at with regard to
their local relevance only, without the awareness of their importance to other European
regions. About their background it was only known that they had originally come from
Germany.
The exchange with those researchers brought forward that, after their emigration, Johann
Eder and his family had not only been active on the Iberian Peninsula but also in Scandina-
via. The insights obtained from the research in Sweden, Norway, Spain and Portugal, as well
as newly revealed sources could now be deepened and brought into a context. This has led
to the awareness that the glassmaker Johann Eder had lived a remarkable career of Euro-
pean dimension. The description of that career is the intention of this paper.
In my above mentioned publication of 2010 I have reported in detail on the origin of Johann
Eder and some stages of his career until his emigration to Portugal, where he appeared in
1740. Ten years later he was found in Spain, where he played a significant role in the exten-
sion and upgrading of the royal glassworks at La Granja de San Ildefonso, north of Madrid.
At that time, nothing was known about his path of life between his departure from Portugal
and his arrival in Spain, i.e. the period from 1740 to 1750. That gap can now be filled and
thus
a further chapter of the vita of a talented glassmaker can be written, and Eder’s role in
the development of glass industries in European foreign countries is gaining new importance.
1
Translation of an article published in: Blätter des Bayerischen Landesvereins für Familienkunde,
BBLF 74, Munich 2011, p. 33-50; o
riginal German title: „Johann Eder (1694
-1753). Die europäische
Karriere eines bayerischen Glasmachers und seiner Familie“.
Translation by Georg P
AULUS
,
revised
by Dr. Miriam J. B
ALDWIN
.
2
Georg P
AULUS
, Bayerische Glasmacher auf der Iberischen Halbinsel. Die um 1740 ausgewanderten
Familien Eder und Hahn, in: Blätter des Bayerischen Landesvereins für Familienkunde, BBLF 73,
Munich 2010, p. 5-39 [With details on the individual members of the Eder family].
2
www.heimatforschung-regensburg.de
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Paulus, Johann Eder
My special thanks are owed to the genealogists and glass researchers, without whose per-
sonal support and valuable hints this paper could not have been accomplished. Those are in
Portugal Mr. Victor Manuel de Noronha Gallo, Lisbon, and Mr. Herlander Miguel Francisco,
Maceira, in Sweden Mr. Kent Williamsson, Stockholm, in Norway Mrs. Anne Minken, Oslo,
and Mr. Karl-Heinz Cegla, Levanger, in Spain Dr. Paloma Pastor Rey de Viñas, as well as
the German researchers Mrs. Doris Sattler, Undorf, and Mr. Andreas Kozlik, Backnang.
Eder in Portugal
Johann Eder had grown up in the glassworks village of Rothenbügl near Painten, west of
Ratisbon (Regensburg), where his father
–
of the same name
–
worked as a glassmaker. He
had been baptised on 24th May 1694 at Lam in the Bavarian Forest.
3
At that time his father
was tenant of a glassworks near Eisenstein, before he returned to Rothenbügl, with his fami-
ly. When Johann Eder (son) went to Portugal, in 1739/40, together with his wife, children and
nephews, to work there on the only glass producing site, the royal glass factory of Coina, he
was 45 years of age and had already worked at several glassworks in various territories of
the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, such as the Palatinate-Neuburg, the Prince-
Bishopric of Würzburg, the Duchy of Saxony-Hildburghausen and Bohemia (here as tenant).
4
Johann Eder’s activity as
mestre do vidro (glass master) in Portugal was only of short dura-
tion. We do not know the date of his arrival nor of his departure. According to his own state-
ment, he spent altogether seven months in Portugal. We also learn that he had come there
together with 32 Germans to work in the royal glass factory.
5
The exact reasons for him to
leave the country already in 1740 are unknown. The circumstances found there must not
have fulfilled his expectations. Many of the glassmakers who had come with him stayed in
the country. Their descendants worked in the manufacture of glass for a long time. With the
Hahn family, nowadays bearing the lusitanised name Gallo, this is the case even until our
days.
6
Eder, however, left Portugal to go
–
as recent findings have revealed
–
to the other end of
Europe, namely to Sweden. In Coina he left behind his nephews Adam and Balthasar Eder,
who became progenitors of the Portuguese glassmakers families Hedre/Hedra, whose
descendants are still to be found in the region of the glass industry site of Marinha Grande.
The one of Johann Eder’s nephews, Balthasar, was already married, when he arrived in Po
r-
3
Bischöfliches Zentralarchiv, Regensburg , Pfarrmatrikeln Lam, Vol. 1, p. 391.
4
Cf. P
AULUS
, Bayerische Glasmacher, as above note 2.
5
Archivo General de Palacio, Madrid (henceforth: A.G.P.), San Ildefonso, caja 13.584.
6
Cf. P
AULUS
, Bayerische Glasmacher, as above note 2.