Le Grelle family

The Le Grelle family is a family of imperial, Dutch, Papal, and Belgian nobility. The Le Grelle lineage began with Jean in 1586 in Mainvault, near Ath. In 1670, Guillaume Le Grelle (1646-1724), a native of Ath (Hainault), the great-grandson of Jean, was received as a bourgeois in the city of Antwerp. His son François, a textile merchant, is the common ancestor of the noble branches. The two eldest sons of François Le Grelle, Guillaume-François and Jean-François, took their first successful steps in the field of international trade in the early 18th century. Following the closure of the Scheldt (Escaut) River and the port of Antwerp since the end of the 17th century, some private shipowners obtained patent letters stating the authorization to fit out armed vessels bound for India in 1714. On December 19, 1722, the emperor Charles VI granted the establishment of a Company of the Indies, Ostend Company, in Ostend. At the time, Ostend was a fishing center of commercial importance, and a deeper and sheltered port was built there at the beginning of the 17th century. The two brothers founded a trading company in Ostend. From 1730 to 1750, they imported textiles, silk, sugar, cocoa, tea, and porcelain from England, Portugal and China in collaboration with the Swedish East India Company. At that time the Le Grelle's were also part of the shareholders of the Ostend and Trieste Companies. From 1754, Guillaume-François and Jean François became industrialists (sugar and paper factories). In 1732, their trading company had its headquarters in their house "De Grooten Gulden Schilt" on the High Street (Hoogstraat) in Antwerp. Jean-François Le Grelle was also a judge and lived in the castle of Morckhoven. Jean-Guillaume, the eldest son of Guillaume-François, had sugar factories and a cotton printing press, which employed 576 workers in 1770. His company had obtained exclusivity for the Austrian Netherlands. In 1807, he acquired the castle of Selsaeten in Wommelgem. By succession, the castle was passed on to the nl.