Jean Abraham Grill

Science and music

Grill wrote a number of essays for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences about his observations and experiences in Canton, and in 1773, he became a member of the academy. In 1774, Grill became its preses or president.

Grill was also interested in porcelain. Part of his orders may have been just a way to get his money transferred from China to Sweden after he was ordered to return home in 1768, but he also ordered his own armorial dinner service.

Grill married Lovisa Ulrika Lüning (1744–1824) in Stockholm in 1772. They had ten children. She was the daughter of wholesaler Johan Christian Lüning and Margaretha Sabbath. In 1775, Grill sold the manor and the steel factory to Qvist and moved to Godegård where he had bought the manor and the ironworks from the estate of Jean de Geer. In doing so he followed the pattern of other supercargos who made their fortunes abroad during a short period of time in the East India trade and on their return invested their money in Swedish factories and farms.

Aside from renovating the factories in Godegård (the largest ironworks in Östergötland) he also had an English park planned and built at his manor in Godergård. The park had an orangery, canals, bridges and pavilions and was modelled after the larger park at Drottningholm Palace with its Chinese Pavilion. The Godegård estate also included Mariedamm with the Trehörnings blast furnace and the De Geersfors manufacturing house. Grill also bought the Bona estate in Västra Ny, where he built a wrought iron factory and the Medevi seat farm in 1779, (sold the following year).

Grill established a small scale trade monopoly at Godegård in 1775. Before he became owner of the ironworks, the farmers around Godegård had refined the wrought iron from the factory into large quantities of nails using small trip hammers. The nails were sold in Askersund. As a trader Grill would not abide this. First he decreed that the farmers had to buy all their goods at the ironworks' general store. Second, he forbade the farmers and tenant farmers to sell nails to the merchants at Askersund, at that time a center for nail trade. In this way Grill assumed control over all nail trade himself. When Grill died, his wife Lovisa Ulrika took over and ran the ironworks and factories until their children succeeded her. and most of them, along with Grill's letters and correspondence, are now in the Godegård Archive in the Nordic Museum. Most of the 7,000 documents in the archive have been digitized following a request from the Macau Historical Archives in 2003. They are available online, including documentation, letters, cargo lists, provisions for the ships and accounts for the Swedish factory in Canton during Grill's time with the SOIC.