Alfred Edward Rodewald (1862 – 1903) was an English musician, but a merchant by profession. He developed the Liverpool Orchestral Society to become a large semi-professional orchestra of distinction. He was a close friend of the English composer, Edward Elgar and the Austro-Hungarian conductor Hans Richter.
Family background
Alfred Edward Rodewald was born on 28 January 1862 in Mossley Hill, then part of the Township of Wavertree, Lancashire, England, but now a suburb of Liverpool. He was baptised at the Church of St Anne [C of E], Aigburth, on 22 May 1862. Mossley Hill Church had not yet been built. He never married and died suddenly at his home in Liverpool on 9 November 1903. His ashes are interred in the family grave at Toxteth Park Cemetery, Liverpool. Numerous obituaries were written. On 17 November 2008, the Rodewald Concert Society, with support from the Elgar Society, placed a blue plaque on his former home.
His grandfather, Johann Friedrich Arnold Rodewald (1782-1835) was a very successful businessman in Bremen, Germany. and was instrumental in the founding of the seaport of Bremerhaven. His father, Carl (Charles) Ferdinand Rodewald (1820-1906), was born in Bremen, but moved to America where he met his wife Amelia Mary Elizabeth Byrne (1833-1905). and eventually became a British citizen. His maternal grandfather was John Bligh Byrne (1793-1848) who had emigrated from Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland, to New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. The family moved to Liverpool, at about the time of the American Civil War, joining some of his wife's family. J B Byrne had died by then but his half-brother, Charles Holtzendorff Byrne (1782-1853), a sail maker, had already settled in Liverpool after moving from the shipping industry in Scotland. Whether J B Byrne's widow, Madeleine Azemia née Remy (1803-1884), also moved to Liverpool is uncertain. She was still in New Orleans in 1850, and died in Paris, where she may have been living or on a visit to relatives, but she is buried in Liverpool.
There are family connections on his father's side with the painter, James Abbott McNeill Whistler, the campaigner for women's education in Germany, Verena Rodewald (1834-1903), the German politician, Hermann Rodewald (1869-1945), the conductor and former President of the Rodewald Concert Society, Sir Adrian Boult (1899-1983), the historian and University of Manchester benefactor, Cosmo Alastair Rodewald (1915-2002) and Donna Margherita Princess of Ruspoli (d 1954, see Ruspoli family). On his mother's side, the naval architect, St Clare John Byrne (1830-1915) and the historian, Muriel St. Clare Byrne (1895-1983) are descendants of C H Byrne, and there is an indirect link to John Bligh, 4th Earl of Darnley.
Early years
Rodewald was educated at Charterhouse School up to the age of 17 and thereafter in France and Germany but little is known about his later education. At school he had no particular academic or sporting distinction but sang in the choir and played violin in the orchestra. He also played the piano and, at some stage, he changed to the double bass.
Professional career
Rodewald started his career as a clerk with a London bank, but soon joined his father's firm of Rodewald & Co in Liverpool. This firm seems to have traded cotton and other merchandise from America. His elder brother John Ferdinand Byrne Rodewald (1856-1891) also joined the firm from America, allowing the father to retire to London. Unfortunately he died suddenly in 1891 leaving Alfred to take over the business at age 29. The cotton trade was a big industry at that time, being imported from America to Liverpool and then traded to the mills in Manchester and other Lancashire towns via rail and the Manchester Ship Canal. Alfred was elected to the board of The Liverpool Cotton Association (now the International Cotton Association) but resigned after only a few weeks (for reasons unknown). The cotton trade had numerous setbacks during Rodewald's time which must have made his life stressful and may have affected his health. He had other business interests being a director of the North British and Mercantile Insurance and Secretary of the Bimetallist Society (see Bimetalism).