Jean Abraham Grill (21July 173612March 1792), sometimes called Johan Abraham Grill, was a Swedish merchant, supercargo, director of the Swedish East India Company (SOIC) and ironmaster at Godegård with several factories.
Grill journeyed to China twice as the representative for the SOIC. He lived in Canton (now known as Guangzhou) as well as Macao for a total of almost ten years, doing trade for the company during the arrival of three Swedish ships. In China he lived the life of an adventurer; survived a shipwreck, traded with other East Asian countries together with his partner Michael Grubb and smuggled opium from India to China.
He returned to Sweden in 1768, a wealthy man and lived the rest of his life in Swedish high society, writing minor essays about his travels as member of the Royal Swedish Academies of Sciences and Music. He married Lovisa Ulrika Lüning and bought the Godegård Manor and several ironworks, which he renovated and improved. When Grill died in 1792, his wife took over his business and ran the ironworks and factories.
His most notable legacy is the notes, correspondence, accounts, cargo lists and books he kept during his life. They are preserved in the Godegård Archive and in the Gothenburg University Library.
Early life
One of the Grill family, Jean Abraham Grill was the eldest son of merchant Abraham Grill, the Younger (1707–68) and Anna Maria Petersen (1713–54). He was born in Helsingør where his father was the Swedish consul at that time. In 1746, the family moved to Gothenburg where his father had started a trading house. When Jean Abraham was 14 years old, he started working as an apprentice in his father's office, and three years later he became a clerk at the Swedish East India Company (SOIC). Through his father's mediation he was appointed to second assistant on the ship Sophia Albertina for its journey to Canton (now known as Guangzhou) between 1755 and 1756.
Being ambitious, Grill aimed for the higher positions in the SOIC, and to achieve that he had to learn more and gain more experience. So when he returned to Sweden from China, he decided to go abroad again as soon as possible. He started out at the trading office of Kristian Holm, Swedish consul to France, in Montpellier where he worked for about six months. He stayed in France for five years, and in 1758, he was employed by the Mallet & Blancheney firm in Marseille. Grill's letters to his family during those years indicates that he enjoyed his time in France and was interested in style and his own appearance. His initial plans had been to set up a business in Marseille, but his family, especially his uncle Claes Grill, advised against it. Claes had started out as a merchant in the European market, but he soon moved on to the more lucrative Canton trade and encouraged his nephew to do the same.
In Canton
Grill followed his uncle Claes' advice and went to Canton as third supercargo on the Fredric Adolph in 1761, during the second carter of the SOIC. On 3September 1761, the ship ran aground on or near Pratas Island in the South China Sea. The ship's captain, Daniel Shierman, did what he could to lighten the ship and tried to get it afloat again, but to no avail. Seven hours later the ship was a wreck, resting on the rocks and everyone aboard went into the boats. Twenty men stayed behind to guard the ship, while 122 men, including Grill, immediately set off for the nearest port. Five days later they landed on the Chinese mainland, in the "province of Catsi" , where they eventually got permission from the Chinese authorities to proceed to Canton. In Canton they met with the men left to guard the ship, now 17 in number, who had arrived two weeks earlier. Three expeditions with divers, one of them led by Grill, went to recover the cargo from the wreck. They managed to salvage about two-thirds of the silver, tin, iron, coral, lead and copper from the cargo, plus one cat and a dog.