Peter Fenger (1719–1774)


Peter Fenger was a Danish merchant and slave trader. He participated in the triangular trade.

Early life and education

Genger was born in Lübeck, the son of skipper Peter Fenger and Magdalene Margrethe Seeländer. He came to Copenhagen in an early age where he became an apprentice in Johan Friederich Wewer's trading house. He stayed there for 14 years.

Career

In 1752, Fenger established his own trading house in Christianshavn. In 1755 he began a partnership with Peter Borre under the name Borre & Fenger. The company traded in a wide array of products, including salt, flax, hemp and coal, spices, sugar and other colonial goods it was also involved in the slave trade. The company was based in the Irgens House and constructed the building at Overgaden neden Vandet 51 in 1761-62.
Fenger and Borre were in 1760 granted a royal license to establish a sugar refinery but do not seem to have used it. Fenger did, however, established a large soap-boiler.
He became a member of the merchants' Council of Elders and was from 1772 also a member of the Council of 32 Men.

Personal life and legacy

Fenger married Else Brock,, a daughter of merchant Rasmus Brock and Marie Kirstine Andersdatter Knudsen, on 17 June 1758 in the Church of Our Saviour, Copenhagen. They had ten children. He died on 24 December 1774 and was buried in Frederick's German Church. The company was then continued by his widow with great skill.

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