Hendrik Muller Szn. (24 July 1819 – 15 August 1898) was a Dutch merchant and politician. He is the father of Hendrik Pieter Nicolaas Muller.
Biography
Hendrik Muller Szn. (Samuelzoon) was born in Amsterdam on 24 July 1819. His father Samuel Muller was a professor at the Mennonite Church seminary in Amsterdam. Muller was educated in business and moved to Rotterdam. Muller became involved in the trade with Africa through his partner, and later brother-in-law, Huibert van Rijckevorsel in 1851[1] and his future father-in-law the Rotterdam-based merchant and politician Abram van Rijckevorsel [nl]. He married Marie Cornelie van Rijckevorsel in 1851. Muller and Marie Cornelie had six children, of whom two died young. His son Hendrik Pieter Nicolaas Muller was born in 1859 in Rotterdam.[2] Following Huibert's retirement in 1863, the company was renamed Hendrik Muller & Co. and specialized in trade with Liberia and the Gold Coast.[2]
In 1879, the Afrikaansche Handelsvereeniging, the chief African trading company in Rotterdam, went bankrupt and its founder Lodewijk Pincoffs [nl], then a Dutch senator, fled the country to avoid prosecution. Hendrik Muller was placed in charge of the company's liquidation and subsequently reorganized the company's business into the Nieuwe Afrikaanse Handels-Vennootschap.