Principality of Calenberg - Economic and Social History

Economic and Social History

The Principality of Calenberg was initially a rather insignificant territory and Welf lordship developed here quite late. By the reign of George of Calenberg in 1636, the principality had experienced 140 years of almost continuously poor government that cared little about the state. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance the cultural centres lay outside Calenberg in the towns of Brunswick, Hildesheim and Lüneburg. New centres were created at the residences of Wolfenbüttel and Celle. Even the city of Hanover was not governed by the Calenberg princes until 1636 . The other towns remained unimportant.

Only after the reign of George of Calenberg and its subsequent elevation to the electorate did the former Principality of Calenberg become the nucleus of the what later became the German state of Lower Saxony.

Industrialization had already began during the liberal French period. The industrialist, Johann Egestorff (1772–1834), used the economic opportunities of the years from 1803 to 1813 and was able to purchase limestone quarries on the hill of the Lindener Berg, west of Hanover. To burn the lime he had coal mined in the Deister hills. His son, Georg Egestorff, started an iron foundry and engineering company. The Calenberg village of Linden then developed into an industrial town.