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We begin in Hessen, Germany. Curt Muhm (1653) was born in Gleichen, and his son Johannes had 7 children. Of these Jost Heinrich (1746) came to London and set himself up in the sugar refining business. He soon anglicised his name to Henry Mum, and our earliest note of him is in 1789 in Alie St, Whitechapel. He worked in this area until his death about 1827, at one time in partnership with John Craven, and possibly with his nephew Henry Martin. Henry Mum became a wealthy man, and left a number of charitable bequests in his wil, in which he also shows considerable kindness to the family of the late Herman Almeroth, who I am convinced worked for him for many years. The majority of Henry's estate went to his gt nephew Michael Muhm, recently arrived in London from Germany to work in the same trade as Henry.
Henry's brother Johannes moved from Gleichen to Schwabendorf. His son Friedrich Ernst began a line of the Muhm family that went to N America, and his son Michael had children who remained in Schwabendorf, and the line, I believe, is still there today. Michael also had a son Michael (1802) and it was he who came to London to benefit from his gt uncle's experience and wealth.
We first find Michael Muhm in Gloucester St, Mile End, mentioned when Henry wrote his will in 1825, but for much of his life he lived in Shadwell. Michael had 9 children with his wife Frances, two of whom went into the sugar refining trade. Frederick Francis Muhm (1835) is noted in 1865 in partnership with Muller in Gower's Walk, whilst Stratford Muhm (1847) is listed in the 1901 census aged 52, lunatic and retired sugar boiler, a patient at Bethnal House, Bethnal Green. Michael died in 1888 and his wife Frances in 1881, and both were buried in Twickenham Cemetery.
At least two of Frederick's children went to Australia. Frederick (1866) to recover from illness, though he died in 1895, and Carl (1876) who went, via South Africa where he had been working with his brother Henry (1868), in 1898 to look for Frederick, not knowing of his death. The Muhm families in Australia today descend from Carl. |
Zalewski Family Genealogy
