Lithograph of Baron von Hügel, by Christian Pfann, 1852
Baron Ernest Albert von Hügel (30 September 1803 – 31 December 1865), was a Royal Württemberg
Chamberlain and Royal
Cavalry Captain who was Lord of Eschenau.
Early life
Born as a member of the noble
Hügel family, Albert was the eldest child of the Württemberg General and
Minister of War Baron
Ernst von Hügel (1774–1849),[1] and the former Baroness Charlotte Wilhelmine Schott von Schottenstein.[2] From his parents' marriage, his younger brother was Karl Eugen von Hügel, the
Foreign Minister of Württemberg from 1855 to 1864.[3][4] After his mother's death in 1805, his father married Baroness Luise Ernestine von
Gemmingen-
Guttenberg in 1806. They had several children, including Baroness Marie von Hügel, Baron Ludwig von Hügel, Baron Julius von Hügel, and Baron Philipp von Hügel. She was a daughter of Baron Ludwig Eberhard von Gemmingen-Guttenberg and Baroness Louise Auguste von Saint-André. After Luise Ernestine died in 1834, his father married her younger sister, Baroness Elisabeth Sophie (née von Gemmingen-Guttenberg) von Cotta, widow of publisher and industrial pioneer
Johann Friedrich Cotta, in 1834.[5]
Career
Schloss Eschenau
At the time of his marriage in 1831, Hügel was a Captain of Cavalry in the
Württemberg Army, and became co-owner of the former
Imperial Knight estate of
Eschenau and was consequently entered in the kingdom's knightly register.[6]
In 1851 Hügel built the manor of Waldhof in a secluded forest south east of Eschenau on the district border with
Bretzfeld. In the run-up to the construction of the
Kocherbahn, the railway line from
Heilbronn to
Hall, he is said to have exerted significant influence with his connections in
Stuttgart so that the railway line ran through Eschenau, and thus the
Weinsberg valley, instead of
Neckarsulm and the northern
Kocher valley.[7][8]
In 1861 Albert von Hügel was awarded the Knight of the
Order of the Württemberg Crown. At that time he was a Colonel and Commander of the 7th Infantry Regiment.[9]
Personal life
In 1831 Hügel was married to Marie Louise Elisabethe Freiin von
Uexküll-Gyllenband (1811–1862), owner of the manor of Eschenau. She was a daughter of August Heinrich Friedrich von Uexküll-Gyllenband and Baroness Charlotte Maria von Gemmingen (the elder sister of his step-mothers).[10] Before their divorce in 1843, they were the parents of three children:
Baron Alexander Ernest August von Hügel (b. 1832)
Baroness Anna Louise Charlotte Mathilde von Hügel (1833–1915), who married
Hungarian-German Count Alfred Ferdinand Christoph von Degenfeld-Schonburg.
^Kieser, Dietrich Georg; Carus, Carl Gustav; Behn, Wilhelm Friedrich Georg; Knoblauch, Carl Hermann; Fritsch, Karl Wilhelm Georg Freiherr von; Wangerin, Albert (1898).
Leopoldina (in German). E. Blochmann & Sohn. p. 18. Retrieved 21 April 2023.