Robert Miles Sloman

Robert Miles Sloman (23 October 1783, Great Yarmouth - 2 January 1867, Hamburg) was an English-German shipbuilder and ship owner. Biography Shipping Robert Miles Sloman was the son of William Sloman, an English ship's captain who in 1785 settled in Hamburg with his wife and two sons William Palgrave Sloman and Robert Miles Sloman. William Sloman became a Hamburg citizen in 1791 and established his first company in 1798 as a ship broker. On his death in 1800 Robert Miles Sloman, then 17 years old inherited the ship broker business and a few sailing ships. After the Treaty of Amiens (25 March 1802) Robert Miles went to Antwerp to found a shipbroking-company but as war broke out again he had to return to Hamburg. Napoleon I then blocked the harbour of Hamburg as part of the Continental System so Sloman moved his business to Tönning at the mouth of the river Eider, then a part of Denmark. In 1806 he married Gundalena Brarens, the daughter of pilot inspector and nautical examiner Hinrich Brarens from Tönning. Denmark eventually joined the Continental System but the company survived. In 1814 Sloman reopened his shipping business, at first in Cuxhaven English Consul. When French troops gave up Hamburg, Sloman returned but his last ship sailing under English colours was confiscated by the French and it was not insured properly. Under Hamburg laws as a broker Sloman was forbidden to act as a ship owner so his captains, who part-owned the ships founded ghost-shipping-companies.